They say nothing lasts forever, but is that true in business?

In this edition of the bottom line, we'll be looking at whether any companies are so powerful

they can truly be described as unassailable.

Hello, welcome to the programme, and this week we're asking if any company ever is unassailable,

invulnerable.

There's a ubiquitous fear around at the moment that Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google,

the so-called fangs, are running our lives and taking over the world, that no one can dislodge them.

It's an understandable fear, but similar things were said of Microsoft and before that, IBM, or indeed decades ago, Standard Oil.

Or in this country, Marx and Spencer and Tesco.

In the end, thanks to private competition or sometimes government regulation, most unassailable

companies turn out to be more assailable than anyone thought.

Well, I have with me a Guardian article from just 11 years ago on MySpace,

a social network platform bought by Rupert Murdoch in the 2000s.

The piece was entitled, Will MySpace ever lose its monopoly?

It claimed MySpace was a natural monopoly and, quote,

could eventually extend Murdoch's influence in ways that would make his

grip on satellite television seem parochial. Well, it seemed a perfectly plausible argument to

make at that time, but four years after that, MySpace had dwindled to almost nothing, and it was

sold for $35 million. Could that fate await Facebook now? Well, what we'll do today is we'll talk about

invulnerability, complacency and hubris within corporations, government regulation, creative

destruction that undermines even the most powerful businesses in the end. We'll discuss it all,

and I've three guests with me with some knowledge of this topic.

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