They did almost die, but that's why it's a great example. Why did they almost die? Because they started shitting out bad products. Why did they turn around? Because they re-evalutaed and looked at the products they were offering and reduced the number of them in order to focus more on those few products.
> Also, using a company founded in 1998 (16 years old) as a counter example to the parent argument who's scope was "centuries" is not ideal.
The scope of "centuries" is a joke. He didn't cite any examples, and "business" in the 1400's isn't really relevant or meaningful in 2014. My examples were to illustrate how absurd his "centuries" comment was by pointing that two of today's largest companies are very young (I haven't done a count but I'd be surprised if any/many of the top 100 companies were much more than one century old.)