This essay is an installment of The Long Game, a Big Think Business column focused on the philosophy and practice of long-term thinking by Eric Markowitz, a partner at Nightview Capital and forthcoming author of OUTLAST. Follow him on X (@EricMarkowitz) and LinkedIn. Not long ago, I traveled to Kyoto while researching my book project, which explores the secrets of endurance among some of the oldest companies in the world. On the morning before I left Japan, I decided to take a last-minute walk to a small tea caddy shop I had heard about. According to popular legend, this shop helped inspire Steve Jobs’ design philosophy for the iPhone box. The cylindrical tea caddies here are hammered so precisely that the lid appears to float downward when you close it, sealing with an almost magical sense of inevitability. Winding through residential streets lined with low wooden buildings, I eventually found the shop. A simple sign on the door read: Kaikado. For a first-time visitor, it’s easy to miss — and even a little hard to figure out how to enter. …