In 1602, a group of Dutch merchants got together and formed a joint venture. The merchants called this venture VEREENIGDE OOSTINDISCHE CAMPAIGNIE (VOC). In English, it was known as the Dutch East India Company. The VOC was the first corporation in the history of the world. At its peak, the company had 150 merchant ships and employed nearly 50,000 people. It had 40 giant warships along with a 10,000-man private army. It accumulated all that in 35 years. And in 1637, the Dutch East India Company was valued at $7.9 trillion in todays dollars. That's twice as big as Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Google combined. That makes the Dutch East India Company the largest company the world has ever seen.     With that power also came one more special privilege...The Dutch government also gave the VOC the right to coin its own money. The coins the VOC printed were called "trade coins." The trade coins and the guilder were the world's reserve currency from 1642-1720. These trade coins were backed by the metal they were made from...and had an intrinsic value of their own. But another part of the appeal was that the Bank of Amsterdam set a fixed price for these trade coins. For a small fee, it would convert the coins to Dutch guilders. The Dutch East India Company possessed the power to mint its own currency, a privilege usually reserved for governments.