The world's largest companies have been driven by globally distributable products. Living technology doesn't have one yet – not even obesity drugs will come close.

• The three largest companies in history, The Dutch East India Company in the 1640s and The Mississippi Company and South Sea Company in the early 1700s, literally were the distribution infrastructure for trade in their time.
• Another three trillion-dollar companies have hailed from the energy sector, specifically focused on petroleum and refined products. All three were monopolies in their respective region or time.
• All remaining companies in the group are modern American information technology giants, and whatever sector Tesla's from this quarter.

Why aren't there any biotech companies on this list?

The largest and most profitable biotech companies today hail from the biopharma sector. They easily leave agricultural biotech, education and art, environmental biotech, industrial biotech, and R&D inputs companies in the dust. But drug developers must contend with constant revenue churn as today's bestsellers lose patent protection, stricter rules (or the outright inability) about changing products, and significantly lower ceilings on peak revenue for any given product.