[Rinzler89]

>Porsche, Siemens, Krupp, Thyssen, Bosch were all startups back in the day, just in hardware

Yeah and they all got big and wealthy by exploiting laws, loopholes, state subsidies and even slave labor back in their days. Let's not pretend the German industrialists from 100 years ago who started those businesses were some patron saints and beacons of legality and morality.

I was working for a big German scrap metal business a while back and during the Christmas party the CEO got so drunk he started bitching how much better it was in the past when he could engage in corruption and tax fraud to grow the business without being caught compared to today when this isn't possible anymore.

None of those companies you listed could have gotten remotely as wealthy in the legal and regulatory environment of today.