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by WalterBright 4352 days ago
Companies follow a pattern of rapid growth, dominance, senescence, then irrelevance as other companies eat their lunch.

Kodak is a prime example. So's RCA (who remembers them?). Sears. IBM. Xerox. All once considered unstoppable juggernauuts.

In fact, the conventional wisdom is that companies inevitably grow to take over the world. There are no instances of this happening - there are only cases where a company survived senescence by successfully making their competition illegal.
1 comments
fsck--off 4352 days ago
What about Standard Oil? Exxon Mobil is still the 3rd largest company by revenue in the world. If it was combined with another baby Standard Oil, Chevron, it would be the largest company in the world.
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WalterBright 4352 days ago
> What about Standard Oil?

Great question. In the biography of Rockefeller "Titan", the book notes that Standard Oil's market share was steadily declining throughout the antitrust trial, and Rockefeller was unable to stem the bleeding.

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