Ninety-six percent of businesses in Türkiye are family-owned. Yet their average lifespan is just 34 years. According to figures cited by the Corporate Governance Association of Türkiye (TKYD), only 64 have survived beyond a century. [1] [2]

Japan, by contrast, has 46,708 companies more than a century old. Of those, 1,836 are over 200 years old, 905 over 300 and 47 over 500. Eleven have crossed the 1,000-year mark. [3]

The scope and methodology behind the two sets of figures are not identical. But the gulf between them is far too wide to dismiss as a methodological quirk.

We know how to build companies. We do not know how to make them survive their founders.

"Dad Built It. The Kids Ruined It." Is the Easy Story

That sentence puts all the blame on the next generation while removing the founder from the story as an untouchable hero.

But the third generation usually does not destroy the company.

It merely pays the bill for the system the first generation failed to build, the successor it failed to prepare and the chair it refused to vacate.

If the Founder Is Indispensable, the Business Is Not Institutionalized

Many founders see the fact that no decision can be made without them as proof of their success.

But if every decision—from procurement and sales to hiring and collections—still has to wait for the founder, what you have is not a strong leader. It is a company deliberately made dependent on its owner.

The founder creates that dependency over many years. Then comes the declaration: "This place cannot run without me."

The founder is right.

Because what was built was not a company capable of functioning after its founder. It was an oversized personal enterprise whose machinery depended on one person's presence.

When the founder steps away, the company loses more than its leader. It loses its memory, its decision-making mechanism and its direction.

A company supposedly destroyed by the third generation was often programmed to die in the first.

Same Country, Two Very Different Founder Legacies

Uzel Makina was once counted among the world's leading tractor manufacturers. After Ahmet Uzel died in 1998, disputes over inheritance and control consumed the family for years. Despite posting revenue of TRY 622 million in 2006, the company was declared bankrupt in 2012. [4]

It would be simplistic to blame the collapse on a family feud alone. The more uncomfortable question is this:

Why had the ownership, management and future of a company of this size not been secured before the founder died?

A founder may not be able to prevent conflict within the family. But a founder can build a structure that prevents that conflict from killing the company.

Koç Group took the opposite path in the very same country. Vehbi Koç consolidated his companies under a holding structure in 1963, made room for professional management and stepped down in 1984 while he was still alive, handing leadership to Rahmi Koç. [5]

He did not wait to die before leaving the chair.

One left an inheritance. The other left a system.

The Japanese Protect the Company, Not the Family Name

Nintendo was founded in 1889 as a family business making playing cards. The founder had no son, so the business passed to a son-in-law who took the family name. [6] [7]

A century later, third-generation leader Hiroshi Yamauchi made an even more striking choice. In 2002, he handed the presidency not to a family member but to Satoru Iwata—the first Nintendo president from outside the Yamauchi family since 1889. Under Iwata, Nintendo returned to growth with the DS and Wii. [8] [9]

The family gave up its privilege over management in order to protect its legacy.

The lesson from Japan is not the tradition of adult adoption. It is the refusal to put bloodline ahead of competence.

We ask, "Which child will inherit the company?"

They ask, "Who can keep the company alive?"

A Company Is Not an Inheritance. It Is a Stewardship.

The person who keeps a company alive is not the one who bears the founder's surname. It is the person who treats the company not as inherited property, but as a responsibility held in trust.

Preparing your child to join the company is not enough. You must also be prepared to leave the company to someone who may be better equipped to run it than your child.

Institutionalization does not mean preparing a chair for an heir. It means deciding today who may occupy that chair, with what qualifications and under which rules.

That begins with a family business constitution written while the founder is still alive. It should define the conditions under which family members may work in the company, how executives are appointed, how compensation and dividends are set, how shares and voting rights may be transferred, how underperformance is handled and how disputes are resolved. [10]

But a family business constitution is not a statement of good intentions to be signed and locked in a drawer. It is a real governance framework that binds everyone—including the founder.

If the rules do not apply to the founder, it is not a constitution. It is the patriarch's wish list.

A founder who wants to create such a constitution must begin by asking the questions he or she least wants to answer:

Who will run the company if I die tomorrow? What happens if none of my children is qualified? If someone outside the family is better, can I give that person the chair? Who will remove my son or daughter for poor performance? Will family members be paid according to their needs or their performance? When will I step down? Can this company truly survive without me?

If the founder refuses to answer those questions while alive, the children will be forced to answer them later.

Not around a boardroom table, but inside a courtroom.

The first generation's job is not merely to build a company. It is to leave behind a company capable of living without its founder.

You can leave your children factories, shares and wealth. But if you leave no system, what you pass on is not an inheritance. It is a conflict whose date has merely been postponed.

And when the company finally collapses, everyone blames the third generation.

The funeral may be held in the third generation. But the death occurred much earlier.

Editorial Note

Pre-publication data note

• Estimates of the share of family-owned businesses in Türkiye vary depending on how "business" and "family-owned" are defined. The 96 percent figure is widely repeated in secondary sources, but should ideally be confirmed against a current, public and methodologically comparable dataset before publication.

• In publicly available remarks, TKYD Secretary General Güray Karacar refers to "around 60" companies in Türkiye that have survived beyond 100 years, and an average economic lifespan of 34 years. No public list or methodology supporting the exact figure of 64 could be located. "Approximately 60" is the safer wording for publication.

• The Japanese figures come from Teikoku Databank's COSMOS2 database of roughly 1.5 million companies, supplemented by additional verification. The Turkish and Japanese numbers should not be converted into a direct ratio because the databases, definitions and scope are not equivalent.

• The Uzel case is based on press reporting. Family conflict over inheritance and management is described as an important part of the collapse, not proven as its sole cause. The qualification in the main text should therefore be retained.

• Nintendo's 1889 founding and Hiroshi Yamauchi's selection of Satoru Iwata as his successor in 2002 are supported by Nintendo's official histories. The son-in-law and surname-transfer detail relies on secondary historical sources.

Sources and Links

[1] Average lifespan of family businesses in Türkiye: 34 years — Ekonomiden (Turkish)

[2] TKYD statement: "around 60" Turkish companies over 100 years old — Dijital Haber (Turkish)

[3] Japan's century-old companies survey, 2025 — Teikoku Databank (Japanese)

[4] Uzel Makina bankruptcy and intra-family disputes — Hukuki Haber (Turkish)

[5] Vehbi Koç, institutionalization, Koç Holding and his 1984 retirement — Koç Holding

[6] Nintendo's official company history: 1889 founding, DS and Wii — Nintendo

[7] Sekiryo Kaneda: son-in-law succession and surname transfer — secondary history

[8] Hiroshi Yamauchi names Satoru Iwata as his successor — Nintendo UK

[9] Satoru Iwata as Nintendo's first president outside the Yamauchi family — TIME

[10] Family constitution, governance and succession recommendations — EY Türkiye

Further reading: Adopted heirs in Japanese family firms — NBER Working Paper