Henry Ford and Thomas Edison

These major businesses (listed in alpha order) no longer sell their original core product(s).

o Apple: its core product was a circuit board
o Corning: Technical and pharmaceutical glass
o DuPont: gunpowder
o The Gap: phonograph recordings in a retail store
o GE: elevators
o LG: hygiene and health products
o Monsanto: saccharin
o Nintendo: playing cards
o Nokia: paper mill products
o IBM: commercial scales and punch card tabulators
o 3M: corundum for grinding wheels
o Tiffany: stationery.
o Xerox: photography paper

Charles Darwin nailed it in The Origin of the Species (1859): “It is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able to adapt to and to adjust best to the changing environment in which it finds itself.” (1859)

What about months and years to come? Alvin Toffler, in Future Shock: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” (1970)