Foster and Kaplan’s 2001 book, Creative Destruction, showed over the previous 50 years, the life expectancy of firms in the Fortune 500 had declined from 75 to 15 years. Those firms that do remain have only done so by adapting so drastically that they barely resemble the firms they were 15 years prior. General Electric has been around for 123 years. By 2001, the financial arm of GE accounted for 41% of its profits. Under twenty years of Jack Welch’s leadership, the behemoth of industrial manufacturing had become almost as much a financial institution as a manufacturing concern. Because of the 2008 financial crisis and GE's Lehman Brothers-level of financial risk, Welch's successor is on a trajectory to reduce financial services to only 10% of GE's overall business. The GE of 123 years ago has changed drastically, but the team members, customers and community still carry the weight of its values, for better or worse. 

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