In the 1550s, a series of English sailing expeditions went searching for a supposed “Northeast Passage” to China, which they hoped to locate near the top of Europe. No one found it — but English sailors did figure out how to routinely reach Russia. The subsequent founding of the Muscovy Company, the first joint stock trading company, provided a model for many similarly-structured later enterprises. “England opened and sustained a direct trade with Muscovy,” says MIT professor Mary Fuller. “The English had been voyaging in a scattershot way. But in…
