Bear Flag Blog

We are living through a transformative time in business. Companies that have been around for decades - sometimes, centuries - are disappearing. When I graduated from business school seven and a half years ago, there were five large investment banks all recruiting sharp young minds to work for them. Now three of those five are gone. Companies whose presence has been a part of the business or retail world for years suddenly won't be ever again. Not to sound maudlin - these aren't people dying, and Circuit City was a bunch of assholes anyway - but the changes are coming thick and fast, and the world of the future will not be the world of yesterday.

At any rate, I've decided to keep track of these bankruptcies for my own interest, tracking just how many familiar names have closed shop during the great culling of 2008-2009. Not all of them will cease to exist, as it is possible to emerge from bankruptcy and live again (Ms. Fields cookies did so in 2008), but I daresay most are gone forever.

Today's victim: Gottschalks. (And Goody's, but they're not familiar to me.) Founded in 1904.

*Late Update - and I already have to add Nortel Networks, which also declared bankruptcy today...

The list so far: