In the preface to the 2004 reprint of In Search of Excellence, Thomas Peters and Robert Waterman wrote: "Our main detractors point to the decline of some of the companies we featured. They miss the point.... We weren't writing Forever Excellent, just as it would be absurd to expect any great athlete not to age." Is the analogy the authors make between great firms and great athletes accurate? Should we expect firms to become less successful as they age, just as athletes do?