Yeah, we actually had our own era of “conglomerates” - they were very big from the 1960s through 1980s. Companies like ITT, Cendant, Gulf+Western, GE — formed from tons of acquisitions, sprawling across completely unrelated industries.

At one point in the 1990s, you could buy a toaster from the same company that makes airplane engines, MRI machines, and produces “Saturday Night Live.” And you may have financed that toaster through their financial arm (GE Capital). Eventually the many lines of business were spun off from companies like this.

What came next was a very different type of consolidation - companies like Comcast, Chevron, and the current “AT&T” who went from being regional players to buying as many other companies just like themselves in order to maximize economies of scale - they’re huge but really just do one or two very closely-related things.

A great example is the bowling lane people AMF, who have over the years made things like pinsetters, jet-skis, motorcycles, scuba gear, shovels, and nuclear reactors. All spun in and out of the company over its life

There have been conglomerate fads from time to time in American business. Interestingly ITT

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITT_Inc.

used to have a big position in hotels and just about everything else and it trained quality movement advocate Phil Crosby

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_B._Crosby