I always suspected it was a fixation by investors who are fixated on price discovery. It's easier for the Almighty Market to weigh and punish a company with a

I always suspected it was a fixation by investors who are fixated on price discovery. It's easier for the Almighty Market to weigh and punish a company with a simple narrative and narrow product line. It encourages snap judgements. You're making desktop computers? There's no chance for 200% YoY growth anymore, you may as well be selling steam locomotives. Gotta save the budget to invest in non-fungible tulips, ya'know? A conglomerate tends to have cross-bracing that makes this harder. You can't say "Well, the Red Widget Division is worth investing in, but their Blue Widgets lose money, except Red Widget builds their stuff out of Blue Widget's waste products sold at sweetheart prices, and the whole operation is being bled to finance R&D for Taupe Widgets that won't hit the market until 2030." You have to buy the package and trust that it's all being competently managed to actually harness the synergy and opportunity.