Corporate executives often bet the future of billion-dollar enterprises on an innovation. IBM bet its farm on the System 360 mainframe computer, and won. DuPont spent $400 million on a plant to make Kevlar tire cord, and lost. Corning put billions on the line to build its optical fiber business, and won big. More recently it sold off many of its other businesses in order to invest more in optical telecommunications, and has been bludgeoned. Many of the executives who have been unable to create sustained corporate growth have evidenced a strong stomach for risk.
