Even The Lean Startup guru Eric Ries is thinking long term — so much so that he's currently launching a new public
equities market called the LTSE, or Long - Term Stock Exchange, that rewards
companies that
stick around.
From the perspective of someone interested in making investments with 20 + year holding periods in mind, you need to be careful of owning banks because of the debt to
equity levels involved in the investment, you need to be wary of technology
companies because they must constantly be innovating to remain profitable and relevant (unlike, say, Hershey, which could
stick with its business model of selling chocolate bars for the next century), and retail stocks which are always subject to the risk of a new low - cost carrier arriving on the block.