“About 85% of the oldest-lived companies listed have websites. I bet the ones that will fail in the next 5 years will be in the 15% that don’t have a website in 2008.” —Kevin Kelly

Created by gwern on 2011-10-08; known on 2013-06-13; judged right by gwern on 2013-07-05.

• gwern estimated 60% on 2011-10-08
• gwern said “source for prediction: http://blog.longnow.org/2008/06/13/the-100-oldest-companies/” on 2011-10-08
• gwern said “original list: http://web.archive.org/web/20080315082825/http://bizaims.com/Articles/Business+-Economy/The100+Oldest+Companies+in+the+World.html WP: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies” on 2011-10-08
• JoshuaZ estimated 55% and said “tags [history][economics][internet]” on 2011-10-08
• Porejide estimated 66% and said “Assuming he means “more likely to fail” (i.e., a greater proportion of those companies will be out of business)” on 2011-10-08
• gwern said “Porejide, the way I was going to judge this was as literally as possible: the prediction is false if any company on that list with a website fails 2008-2013, and true if there are no failures or all failed companiesnot have website back in 2008.” on 2011-10-08
• Robert Kosten estimated 80% and said “I follow gwern’s interpretation” on 2011-10-09
• chemotaxis101 estimated 75% on 2011-10-09
• Jayson Virissimo estimated 33% on 2011-10-11
• gwern said “full writeup: http://blog.longnow.org/02008/06/13/the-100-oldest-companies/#comment-9531858650 clear failures in either group, so per 2011 criteria, marking this right, albeit Kelly is morally wrong.” on 2013-07-05
• gwern   judged this prediction right on 2013-07-05.