NPR.

There have been a bunch of breakups recently.

It is true.

There's been Bill and Melinda, Kim and Kanye, but of course we're not talking about them.

This is the indicator.

We're talking about, you know, the much more sensational here.

We're talking general electric and Johnson and Johnson.

I really thought those crazy kids would make it.

I thought Johnson and Johnson would be together forever.

But while a lot of old American conglomerates like these seem to be kind of going extinct,

there is a new breed evolving to take their place at the top of the food chain.

Tech companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon, they have been buying up a hodgepodge of

companies and industries that they have not traditionally worked in.

This is the indicator from Planet Money.

I'm Stacy Mannick-Smith.

And I'm Greg Rizalski.

Conglomerate is basically a bad word on Wall Street.

Investors hate them.

But at the same time, we're seeing the rise of this new kind of conglomerate, the tech

lomerate, and investors seem to love them.

Call it the conglomerate paradox.

Today on the show, the rise and fall and rise of the conglomerate are the tech glomerates

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