AI revives the conglomerate

The essay's clever move is noticing that the classic argument against conglomerates, that a holding company adds no real value beyond what its parts would be worth separately, depends on there being no shared advantage across businesses. If AI itself becomes that shared advantage, better data, better internal tooling, better operations across every unit a single owner controls, then empire building suddenly looks rational again rather than like empire building for its own sake. It is a sharp lens for watching what Musk and Bezos are actually building, and why the founders with the most AI conviction are also the ones assembling the most sprawling corporate structures.