This list shows how much things don't change more than how they do. A lot of new ideas are really just old ideas recycled and updated. Look at movie plots and

This list shows how much things don't change more than how they do. A lot of new ideas are really just old ideas recycled and updated. Look at movie plots and popular music - even movies that aren't explicitly remakes are often very similar to old movies that most people have never seen. The same thing for business ideas - just as development of railroads and parcel post allowed Sears to develop as a catalog company, Amazon was made possible by the internet and electronic payments - and they've gone about capitalizing on it in much the way Sears did - by getting very big very fast, etc. Studying the past teaches us about the future.