Summary.
Fifty years ago, Microsoft, Wal-Mart, Intel, Apple, Cisco, Oracle, and Google didn’t even exist. Today each one has a market value exceeding $100 billion. Meanwhile, many companies that were business giants in 1960—including Bethlehem Steel, U.S. Steel, CBS, RCA, GTE, ITT, and LTV—have disappeared, shrunk, or merged into other companies. These dramatic shifts in fortune are vivid examples of the cycle of creative destruction famously described by the economist Joseph Schumpeter.