The book Peopleware has a statement about an old company that stuck in my mind for years as it's such a haunting image:
The few remaining employees of the Dutch East India Company (founded in 1651 and once the largest company in the world) now spend forty hours a week filling out paperwork...
If this were true, they'd belong around #45 on the list. However, I once heard DeMarco and Lister (the authors) give a talk. Afterwards I went up to DeMarco and told him I'd always remembered that story and was wondering where they had gotten it, since they hadn't given a reference.
He looked at me for a second and said, "Did we say that?" I assured him they did. He paused again and said, "Huh. Usually we only make stuff up for our talks, not our books!"
(I don't have the book anymore, but the quote helpfully comes up in Google book search: http://books.google.com/books?q=peopleware+dutch+east. I had to add the last two words from memory, so they're just a paraphrase.)
The Dutch East India Company was founded in 1602 and was the first to issue stock. The company ended in 1798 when the government took over the company after it went into decline predominantly due to wars with Britain and France.