If These Companies Existed in Real Life, We Might Solve a Lot of Problems

We need Monsters, Inc. and Wayne Enterprises. We need Superman to found a new Boeing and a new Calvin Klein. And Coca-Cola, Nike and Armani might consider buying the companies from the Spider-Man, Ant-Man and Hulk stories. Here is what they are.

Plenty of people have fantasized about having Batman or Iron Man in their lives. But I have to say, what I would rather see in real life is Batman's Wayne Enterprises and Iron Man's Stark Industries.

How would that work? Let's just extrapolate from the superhero stories. Wayne Enterprises and Stark Industries both own advanced technology. They could help solve problems of energy, food safety and weapons, and make the world people live in safer.

Then there is this year's hit film Ant-Man. You will notice a company in it called Cross Technologies. Its current chief executive is a villain, but the company's core technology, a suit that shrinks the wearer to the size of an ant, ends up in military use, and once the right side gets hold of it, it helps keep the peace.

Hypotheticals are worth having, because technology and imagination bring the future closer. Beyond the superhero world, the movies have invented plenty of companies of every kind. Let's get to know them, and imagine what the world would look like if they came into our real lives.

Monsters, Inc.: Like a Household Solar Power Station, It Could Solve Some Energy Problems

Company history: Monsters, Inc. is in fact a power company. We know electricity can be generated from water, fire, nuclear fission, wind and geothermal heat, but this company turns children's screams into electricity to power its city. Later, after a technological breakthrough, the company discovered that a child's laughter produces ten times as much electricity as a child's cries. From then on it ran on laughter, and its results kept climbing.

From Monsters, Inc.. In industry standing, the real-life equivalent is ExxonMobil.

If you have seen Monsters University, you know this is the company every student in the monster world dreams of working for from childhood. It is also that world's main source of electricity, so it should enjoy the same status as ExxonMobil in the oil industry, and it has fairly cutting-edge energy technology too.

What makes it cutting-edge is that its power generation produces no pollution. But since it runs on children's laughter or screams, the production model presumably isn't rounding up five thousand disobedient kids and putting them to work in a factory. More likely every household would get something like a "sound power bank". Once charged, it could power your own home. Sounds rather convenient.

The Monsters, Inc. factory at work

Take the "household solar power stations" that some people in Chinese cities have started to try. Photovoltaic simply means generating power from sunlight. You spend 30,000 to 40,000 yuan to install one, you receive a subsidy of 0.42 yuan for every kilowatt-hour you generate, and you can sell any electricity you don't use to the state, so all told it is a decent investment. A sound generator, though, should be simpler to install, and it would sit indoors. Something like this might happen: you notice the house is running low on power, and you say, "Come on, sweetie, give me a smile." Once it is charged, you plug in the rice cooker and start dinner.

The biggest advantage is that this technology would end large-scale blackouts in cities for good. Whatever the disaster, say you are stuck in the subway during a power cut, one of the passengers could pull out a power bank: "Heh, I told my kid a few jokes yesterday and he laughed all afternoon. Here, use it." Last year Chile suffered a massive blackout that trapped more than ten thousand subway passengers, led to looted supermarkets and halted copper mines, and affected as many as nine million people.

By the way, you can't force anyone to laugh when generating power this way, or it becomes a humanitarian issue. So cartoons and comedies that make children happy would have to shoulder the job of generating power. One day you might see a headline like "China's Box Office Passes 10 Billion Yuan, Supplying Three Months of the Nation's Electricity."

It isn't only China. The United States and other countries need this too. The US now has more than 600 coal-fired power plants, the country's single biggest source of greenhouse gases. Because of this, last year the US Environmental Protection Agency announced new carbon emission rules, which means coal-fired plants are about to face higher costs. Meanwhile, according to World Nuclear Association forecasts, in 20 years global electricity demand will be nearly two-thirds higher than it is today. And it isn't only the US: South Africa, India and Argentina have all run into power shortages in recent years. If Monsters, Inc. could really help, it would shake up the industry.

So is it possible in real life? In fact, materials already exist that convert the energy of sound vibrations into electricity. They depend on high decibel levels, and for now the electricity they produce is tiny. A shout or two does nothing. You would have to scream like the little boy in The Tin Drum, and even then a lone voice would barely be enough to switch a device on... To power a whole city, you would need tens of millions of children screaming together.

Maybe it would be better to get Pikachu to generate the power first.

The Daily Prophet: A Newspaper Full of Animated GIFs, Going Strong for Nearly 300 Years

Company history: Founded before 1743 and directly under the Ministry of Magic, with headquarters in Diagon Alley, London. Copies are delivered to subscribers by owl, at a subscription price of 1 Knut (a little over 0.1 yuan in our money). It has a morning edition and an evening edition, plus a weekend edition, the Sunday Prophet, and its rival is The Quibbler. Among its best-known stories is the "Gringotts break-in", and for a time it served as Voldemort's mouthpiece.

From the Harry Potter series. Judging by its coverage, it is a cross between the former Soviet Pravda and Britain's The Sun, while the other publication, The Quibbler, is like a sensationalist version of Gushi Hui (a Chinese story magazine).

When Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the first Harry Potter film, came out, many people daydreamed about the moving news photographs in the Daily Prophet, and especially about a spell that could correct mistakes in a story at any time. When Rowling wrote it she probably didn't realize that this is just like people reading news on their phones today, only with a few more GIFs.

The Daily Prophet

But the Daily Prophet is not as wonderful as it looks. It is in fact a semi-official paper, controlled by the Ministry of Magic itself, yet it also runs a lot of gossip, a bit like a combination of the old Soviet Pravda and Britain's later The Sun. The paper's famous reporter Rita Skeeter sometimes writes stories that don't match the facts, and many people in the wizarding world have been misled by them.

Later Harry Potter's wife, Ginny Potter, still chose to work at the paper. Not because it has so many GIFs, but because media jobs in the wizarding world are so scarce that it is the only place elite graduates are willing to go. The other paper, The Quibbler, is actually not bad. The Ministry of Magic doesn't control it, and its views are free and independent. Unfortunately it has never been very sharp, and it has a sensationalist feel that most intellectuals look down on.

The paper finally drew mainstream attention when it published an article the Daily Prophet could not, titled "Harry Potter Speaks Out at Last: The Night I Saw He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named Return." It began to sell well, and once it was banned, its standing rose further.

The Daily Planet: Superman Has Gone Freelance. He Should Start His Own Company

Company history: The media outlet where Superman worked in the fictional city of Metropolis. It was later bought by a large corporation and switched to covering entertainment gossip. Superman couldn't accept this, so he started his own blog and went off to write the news there.

From the Superman series. Judging by its coverage, it is equivalent to USA Today. But if Superman started a company himself, he could easily build a DuPont, a Calvin Klein or a Boeing.

Superman is a reporter, although we hardly ever see him write a story. Perhaps he takes on too much outside work, constantly flying around the city beating up bad guys. In the end he chose to go freelance and carry on with his reporting. If he ever came to China, he would probably open a WeChat official account.

Still, we suggest Superman start a company. He already has more than enough ability. If it were a media company, then because he is Superman, he would never end up like the Daily Prophet, controlled by a terrorist like Voldemort. He can stand up to any other force, and the same goes for companies in any other industry.

So we have drawn up a few options for him to choose from:

The first is agriculture. When he was a baby, the spaceship carrying him landed on the Kent farm in Smallville, Kansas, which means he grew up there, and with Superman's powers of understanding he should know a lot about farming. Kansas happens to be a major US "farm state" and the country's top wheat producer; most of the bread Americans eat comes from there. If Superman went into business in this area, he should have the agricultural might of a DuPont.

The second is clothing, mainly underwear, of course. In this business Superman wouldn't even need to buy advertising. He is himself the spokesman for wearing underwear on the outside, and he was promoting a new way of life in person before he ever started a company. Think about it: if the waistband carried not a stranger's name, "Calvin Klein", but "Superman", how impressive that would be. So Superman might also consider buying CK.

The third is defense, where he could at least stand on equal footing with Boeing. Look at what Superman can do. He can fly, so he could make his mark in aviation. "Man of Steel" actually undersells him: he can withstand nuclear blasts that steel cannot, and if this could be applied to construction and other parts of real life, it would help a great deal against terrorism. His wounds heal instantly, so he might contribute something to pharmaceuticals and medicine. He can hear very faint sounds from very far away, and he can tune his ears to different frequencies. If this technology were widely used, crimes and terrorist attacks could be detected in advance, sparing the world a great deal of harm.

Superman could already do everything when he was this small

On top of that, he has instant recall and superhuman strength... Hmm, his two peers, Batman and Iron Man, neither of whom has superpowers, are both in the defense business. Shouldn't Superman give it a try?

Buy n Large: A Yogurt Company That Ended Up Buying Buckingham Palace

Company history: It started as a company selling yogurt, and somewhere along the way its business suddenly took off. It bought a men's clothing company, and from then on it went down the road of mergers and acquisitions. By the time Earth became a garbage dump, it had monopolized almost every industry, including agriculture, food, household goods, media, construction and aerospace... It even bought Buckingham Palace to use as its offices.

From WALL-E. In terms of monopoly power, it is equivalent to AT&T in its day.

One real-world question science fiction films often pose is what kind of doomsday a Big Brother-style corporation could bring about if it turned evil. For example, you may not have noticed what kind of terrifying era humanity lived through before the lovable robot WALL-E appeared. Yes, this is another kind of terrorism.

The logo of this company, Buy n Large, appears in many shots of the film: on gas stations, banks, shopping malls, newspapers... every restaurant along an entire street belongs to it. If you lived on that Earth, you would find that the flight you took and your child's diapers were the same brand. This was the unprecedentedly dark world humans lived in before WALL-E appeared, in the 29th century, with Buy n Large a true Big Brother.

A Buy n Large bank

So by the time the film opens, Earth is already unfit for humans. In the end the company that controlled everything was put in charge of cleaning up Earth's garbage, and it began developing robots. That is how WALL-E came to exist.

The company itself was in fact viral marketing that Pixar used to promote the film. Pixar invented a real-looking website, products and departments for it, and hid many Easter eggs in the film, some of which you will surely spot on a rewatch. But the most intriguing part of the company's story, how a yogurt business made its money and ended up in energy and aerospace, is something Pixar never made up.

By comparison, the history of another famous company, the Umbrella Corporation in Resident Evil, is much clearer. Umbrella started as an ordinary drug maker. When the drug business did well, it moved into medical hardware, and finally into computers and the defense industry. But all of these businesses were a smokescreen. Its real plan was what it was secretly doing behind the scenes: researching biological viruses and making biological weapons.

So Umbrella made its money by producing biological weapons and selling them to governments around the world, at very high profit. But recovering these weapons was risky. Eventually the dumps for the waste reached capacity, the virus began to leak, and an entire city paid the price. The company panicked and did every bad thing imaginable.

That is how the "Resident Evil" outbreak came about. Both companies count among the giants of fictional movie companies, but both sound as if they made destroying humanity their mission. They meant harm from the start, and their expansion methods and conduct are a bit too extreme.

Weyland Corporation: Once Control Changed Hands, a Great Company Went Astray

Company history: The film Prometheus, from a few years ago, is about its early days. It launched a renewable energy project that earned it enormous profits and made it the most valuable company in history. In the end, however, it declined, and in the story it is eventually bought by Walmart.

From the Alien series. Judging by the company's early ideals, it is equivalent to Google.

Another giant is the Weyland Corporation. If it really existed, it could be called a great company. Only after a female chief executive took over and control changed hands did bad decisions and desperation push it onto the road of "doing evil." In its early years, the company developed technologies humanity still longs for today, such as cryogenic sleep, which could be used to save terminally ill patients, and geological probes, which could be used to detect signs of life.

One of Weyland's products: the android

With these two technologies, they began a bigger plan: to travel to other planets in search of more advanced life forms. This became the "Prometheus" project.

But it was a failed corporate strategy, drawn up by the new female chief executive who took over as the founder's life was nearing its end. It cost too much (1 trillion), it was pushed forward too hastily, and no one weighed the risks or how it would actually be carried out. The company ran into its biggest crisis and its share price began to plunge. At that point the new chief executive made an even worse decision, merging with a Japanese rival, Yutani, and the principles the company had meant to uphold began to waver.

This is the Alien story we see, or that some of us are too scared to watch: the company spends its days recklessly trying to capture hideous monsters alive, launches an alien colonization plan, and in the end even harms civilians.

Wayne Enterprises: Essentially a Talent Agency That Happens to Have Greater Powers

Company history: Founded in the nineteenth century, with roughly 170,000 employees in 170 countries. Its businesses span technology, food, shipping, aviation, electricity and entertainment. It works with the government and supplies fighter aircraft to the US Navy and Air Force. It is a family business, and its current owner is Bruce Wayne, who is Batman.

From the Batman series. Judging by its main business, it is equivalent to the American talent agency Creative Artists Agency, or CAA.

All right, let's first look at the range of Batman's abilities. Whatever Superman, discussed above, can do, Batman can lend a hand with, especially in developing weapons and equipment and in defense manufacturing. Batman, too, is a boss who can take on terrorists directly, so there is no need to worry about evil forces getting their hands on the company, and it can take on the great task of protecting the world.

But what makes Batman more impressive is that, beyond all of the above, he also has the energy to develop new businesses, namely what looks like the main business of today's Wayne Enterprises: um, talent management and entertainment.

Think about it. Without this company, Batman would be no different from an ordinary person, just a talented man with many skills and a strong body. He couldn't fly or transform as he does now, or keep threatening to save the Earth. In defense, Iron Man's Stark Industries can do the same, and people have long argued over which is stronger, Stark Industries or Wayne Enterprises. But when it comes to style, um, Wayne Enterprises has the edge.

Iron Man, "Tony Stark", working on his armor

Like Iron Man, Batman has no superpowers. As a boy, Bruce Wayne watched his parents murdered before his eyes and set out to teach himself. He went east to learn martial arts, along with how to investigate and track. He trained as a military pilot and in special weapons, earned several engineering degrees, and traveled the world in his youth, which broadened his experience. He also happened to have a well-funded family business.

This family business is involved in a great many fields, but its most successful product is Batman himself. First, this product has excellent hardware. Look at Batman's suit: it has a long-range microphone worth US$1,000, a monocular night-vision device worth US$5,000, a retinal projection system worth US$10,000, and even the knee pads cost US$150. Wayne Enterprises is both a technology company and a luxury goods company.

But its character as a talent agency is often more striking. Although Bruce Wayne, in his ordinary life, never reveals that he is Batman, he has built the Batman brand very successfully.

First, look at the vehicles he chooses. On every mission Batman rides a very expensive Batcycle or Batmobile, and he likes to cruise around the city first. This is good promotion: now there is nobody in the city who doesn't know him. It works like holding a launch event before a film opens.

Second, after a fight he sometimes doesn't go straight home. He stands alone on a city overpass in his cape and looks cool for a while. He is plainly posing! Iron Man would never hang around on the street in his armor after a battle, and the Hulk certainly wouldn't.

Third, he is very picky about his jobs, taking on only high-IQ types. The classic example is the Joker in The Dark Knight, and then the Scarecrow, Bane and Ra's al Ghul, all extremely formidable opponents. It is like choosing brand endorsements: Batman goes upmarket.

Batman rule number one: the gear has to be cool

Although this agency seems to have signed only him, if you think of the superhero world as show business, the company has helped quite a few stars. The organization Batman belongs to is called the Justice League. He provides it with strong financial support (his personal net worth is US$7 billion), which keeps it running, and he also supplied its space station. If Wayne Enterprises came to the real world, it should buy some advertising companies and talent agencies, and might become an entertainment giant. And with his public relations skills, he could be one of the most inspiring superheroes, spreading good values and giving people on Earth freedom from fear.

The Justice League includes Superman, Wonder Woman, the Flash and Green Lantern... Of these famous superheroes, only Batman is an ordinary person, who got where he is entirely through teaching himself and making good business decisions.

Gru's Studio: Probably a Big Business, but It Failed Before It Started

Company history: The company had great prospects. A man named Gru had a plan to steal the moon, but the plan fell apart when his moon-stealing tool, the "shrink ray", was itself stolen, setting off a chain of mishaps. Gru, however, discovered a new field and remade himself completely as a stay-at-home dad. The film gives no company name, so let's call it "Gru's Studio" for now.

From the Despicable Me series. Judging by its prospects, it could become Kimberly-Clark, the company that makes Huggies diapers.

The company had goals, a plan, money, a studio, a rocket and a team (the Minions). Everything was in place, except that the core technology he had stolen, the shrink ray, was stolen from him on the way by another thief. So in the company's earliest days he made the most serious mistake of all: the technology wasn't his own, and once it was stolen he had no idea how to quickly build another one. In fact it was a knockoff company.

This company has great teamwork

For all his lofty ambitions, this villain's mode of production was rather backward. He was the only one doing creative work, and everyone else was an assembly-line worker, all looking alike and wearing the same overalls, much like Chaplin's Modern Times, about factory life in the American Great Depression. He finally hired three employees who could think for themselves, namely three human children. Gru planned to have them pretend to sell cookies, slip into a rival's premises and grab the weapon back. But these three new employees had no relevant job training either, and in the end the plan stalled. Fortunately, Gru eventually reformed.

Still, if Gru devoted himself to learning how to be a dad, he could make some baby and toddler products, and maybe help rescue China's dairy industry. He could also take charge of children's public safety in this world.

Other Companies Worth Considering

1. Oscorp: If Nike Needs More "Lighter, Faster" Technology, Here Is Some

Spider-Man Peter Parker's girlfriend once interned here, and the company's owner is the New York scientist Norman Osborn. Spider-Man became Spider-Man because a spider in this company's lab bit him. This superpower could have let him team up with the company to fight evil in peace. Unfortunately the company's owner went over to the evil side himself. To gain superpowers too, he injected himself with a drug and became the "Green Goblin", and so this powerful company, once it fell under malign control, did even greater damage. It's not easy being Spider-Man.

But in real-world terms, if such technology were used properly, it really could make people agile, just as in the film, where Peter Parker, the weak, bullied boy, starts dribbling past one opponent after another on the basketball court and never misses a shot. Nike could look into how that works.

2. RDA: The West India Company of the Mining World

This is the mining company in Avatar, the "Resources Development Administration." It developed an advanced rapid-transit system that let it ship people to the planet Pandora, win mining rights there and profit from them. Its military force should be the strongest of all, but the company's appetite for profit far outweighs any wish to make the world better. The Pandorapedia says the company is organized much like the old Dutch West India Company, so when it arrived on Pandora, it too became an invader.

3. Pinge Doce, a Brazilian Soda Company: Coca-Cola Could Consider Buying It

The Hulk, that is Bruce Banner, once worked at this soda company. In fact he was in hiding there and didn't care much about the company. By then he had already been exposed to gamma rays and had the Hulk's powers. One day he accidentally cut his hand, and his blood dripped into the soda. An older employee drank it and fell ill. The US military noticed, and through it tracked down the Hulk. So this company clearly has a serious food safety problem... We suggest Coca-Cola buy it and plan for the long term. In Portuguese the company's name means a sweet drink, so it could launch as a new product, something like "Hulk Zero."

4. Cross Technologies: Armani Could Consider Buying It

This is another company torn by infighting and taken over by evil forces, which nearly let its advanced technology fall into villains' hands. Fortunately the company's former owner found someone on the right side and had him protect the peace. But setting all that aside, this technology really could be very useful in military operations. In fact this is a menswear brand, except that whoever puts on the clothes shrinks to the size of an ant... Armani could consider buying it. Once a person is that small, stealing the enemy's secrets and attacking the enemy's strongholds become easy, though, once again, it must not fall into evil hands.