I think it's unlikely that AI efforts will go as railroads have. I think being an AI foundation model company is more like being an airplane builder than like a railway company, since you develop your technology.
Plenty of those that similarly went bankrupt over the years, and now the USA mostly has Boeing that's reached a set of continual crises and being propped up by the government.
Yes, of course, but they usually live for a long time.
Boeing tries to compete with Airbus, where the engineers make maybe 70% of what they do in the US, and has upon that made some really bad decisions. Many aircraft companies are profitable.
