The VOC (Dutch East India Company) story is the first major corporate/empire decline case: extraordinary returns through the 17th century Dutch Golden Age → overextension and debt accumulation → effectively wiped out in the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War (1780–1784). The VOC’s balance sheet collapse (assets declining, debt rising) preceded the guilder collapse by a decade. Corporate leverage in dominant-empire companies tracks the empire cycle — spectacular gains on the way up, near-total destruction on the way down.