Conglomerates will never die out, but their form is evolving

INDUSTRIAL CONGLOMERATES have long been considered the megafauna of the corporate world: big beasts like mastodons, who were condemned to extinction by spear-wielding corporate raiders in the 1980s. But a better analogy is with cockroaches because, against the odds, conglomerates have refused to die out. They flourish in most climates and are highly adaptive. And they have long been considered pests—at least to shareholders and business-school professors, if not to their numerous employees.