[dangus]

I'm not talking about size and success, I'm talking about participation in a diverse array of industry verticals.

My example is not meant to specifically talk about active investing, I'm just picking out companies to discuss within a hypothetical index holding.

> Intel. Nokia. Blockbuster. Yahoo.

Interesting, 3/4 of these still exist and are doing reasonably well. If you bought their stocks 30 years ago you'd be up on your investment on all of them except for Blockbuster. Obviously, they're not top performers in that timespan (although Nokia ADR pays dividends like other telecoms so maybe it is a good investment in the right index).

You have inadvertently demonstrated some of my point here: companies that serve diverse verticals stick around for decades. For example, Nokia’s consumer business evaporated but their telecom business is still here. See also: BlackBerry.