I started thinking about it, and Corporations get a lot of criticism, or praise depending on one's political stance. However, I really personally don't know what a Corporation is, so I decided to ask /r/ELI5, and while they do that... I wanted to ask AskHistorians... what is the historical background of Corporations, and where do they come from in the American sense.
The Dutch East India Company is considered the first modern corporation.
More important than any organisational factor are the legal and regulatory frameworks needed to give investors confidence they can put their money into the stock without the management simply pocketing it and disappearing. That took centuries to perfect and requires rigorous accounting and auditing, as well as regulations regarding insider trading, the rights of minority shareholders and so on.
Many outrageous practices were common prior to the Wall Street crash and naturally this is a live issue down to the present day. Some early disasters were of legendary proportions, with the South Sea Company and the Mississippi Company being cases in point.