There's a huge problem with survivor's bias in business analysis. We tend to try to look at all the successful companies and figure out what they all do the same so we can all do it. Rarely does one look at the many more failed companies and look at what they did that the successful companies did not, so that it can be avoided.

A big part of that may be that it's much easier to pick a few successful companies to compare than to find a good sample of the many many more failed or mediocre businesses. Oh, and big names sell better.