This is a linkpost for http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2017/02/21/prescientific-organizational-theory/
This is a bit confusing, but almost all of them, actually, modulus name changes, acquisitions, and antitrust actions.
GE is still GE.
Continental Tobacco Company is split, and the biggest part is now Lorillard, which makes Newports and other cigarette brands. But parts were split off and turned into parts of basically all the major cigarette manufacturers now. This was due to antitrust.
US Steel is still huge, and Federal Steel, Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company, and American Steel & Wire Co. are part of it now. National Lead Company is now (basically) CompX, The American Sugar Refining Company, after antitrust action is now part of C&H Sugar, which makes Domino Sugar. Pacific Mail Steamship Company was bought, and turned into American President Lines, which is a huge shipper today.
Changes in value are mostly not due to lack of adaptability, but change in the types of businesses that make money.
We were originally talking about a "meteoric event that could extinct Google, Facebook, etc. and leave only small, adaptable companies".
At issue here is the identity of a (large) company. When a company dies, its assets do not disappear, its brand names are usually bought by someone, its managers move on to other positions, even its corporate culture may survive in smaller chunks of the company that continue to exist under new ownership. Eventually that all disperses and the former company's ghosts dissipate, but it can take a long time.
So I can ...