[sek]

They are scared and this is the motivator for their decisions. A company can't act like that, this will lead to a downward spiral.

This is a common behavior of companies who are over their peak.

There is a record of companies who tried to be everything for everyone and failed miserably.

[pork]

Straw man, but nonetheless, care to substantiate with examples?

[sek]

AOL is the best example and they are in the same market. IBM, Apple without Jobs and i think Microsoft's stock correlates also to these indicators.

The economic theory behind this is very good explained in this TED talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce...

There are a lot of other examples of companies on their peak, acted defensive and then failed. I would count GM as another popular example, but the ones above are better when you compare them to Facebook.

[rfrey]

"Apple without Jobs" is already a data point for failed companies?

[klausa]

I think he meant 1985-1997 period.