Diversification has two very different meanings depending on the business context. In personal finance, diversification is investing in a variety of assets. Diversification reduces risk. If one or a few companies go bankrupt, the investor does not lose all his or her assets. Investing in mutual funds that hold financial assets in many companies is one form of diversification. In 2002, Enron, WorldCom, and employees of other companies learned a painful lesson in the value of diversification. Many of these employees had, in addition to their livelihoods, all or most of their retirement funds in company stock. When the companies went bankrupt, they lost both their jobs and their pensions. In a product/market growth matrix, diversification is expansion of a company into new markets with new products. This strategy for growth is more risky than expanding into new markets with existing products or expansion with new products into existing markets. While business diversification is more risky, if successful, it reduces a firm’s business risk because, like personal financial investing, the company is less vulnerable if one product or one market fails. In the 1960s many U.S. conglomerates were formed, owning a diverse array of businesses. Conglomerate strategy was based on the idea that better management and financial backing would yield stronger growth than small, independent firms. In the 1980s and 1990s, many conglomerates, in an effort to become more efficient, sold off divisions, returning to their core business activities.