In the history of enterprise, Akinfiy Nikitich Demidov is one of the names that keeps returning.
The record lists Akinfiy Nikitich Demidov as Russian businessman.
Akinfiy Nikitich Demidov was born at Tula in 1678. His recorded nationality is Russia.
Commerce then ran on personal credit, family networks and letters that took weeks to arrive; trust was the scarcest asset.
He worked as businessperson, merchant and patron of the arts.
Business reputations are unusually sensitive to the decade in which they were made.
That the business was built from Russia shaped it: capital, regulation and market size differ by country, and they decide what is even attemptable.
Akinfiy Nikitich Demidov died in 1745, aged 67. What remains is the enterprise and its consequences, which is the only durable measure of a commercial life.
