I ranked 31 companies by their chances of still being great compounders in 30 years. What did I get wrong?

I tried to separate business quality from valuation and rank these companies only on their ability to compound intrinsic value per share over roughly 30 years. Current valuation is deliberately excluded.

**A+**
Microsoft

**A**
Alphabet, S&P Global

**B+**

Amazon, Experian, Intuit, Intuitive Surgical, Mastercard, Meta, Moody’s, MSCI, RELX, Visa

**B**
ASML, Autodesk, Broadcom, Cadence, Constellation Software, Copart, Nvidia, Schneider Electric, Synopsys, TransDigm, TSMC

**C**
Adobe, Costco, Netflix, Novo Nordisk, ServiceNow, Tencent, Topicus

Some placements will probably be unpopular. ASML, Broadcom, Nvidia and TSMC are B—not because they aren’t exceptional businesses, but because cyclicality, capital intensity, customer concentration and geopolitical risk become more important over three decades.

Microsoft is the only A+ because it has several embedded platforms and unusually broad reinvestment optionality.

What would you change?

I also publish a monthly ranking of where I see the biggest valuation dislocations. Latest one here:

https://michaelhillaert1.substack.com/p/valuation-dislocation-august-2026?r=6vawcp