Startups in Silicon Valley get plaudits for pivoting, but a company that has had to make some real pivots with a capital P across many decades is none other than mobile phone goliath Samsung.

I had dinner tonight with a friend whose grandfather was one of several people brought to Samsung to help them make their first entry into technology hardware. At its founding in 1938, though, Samsung was a simple trading company that dealt in local produce. Later it shifted to processing sugar cane, then it moved into textiles. That was the first in a long line of transformations in its evolution from small family business to global conglomerate. From making your own noodles to making your own smartphones, that is survival and adaptation of the highest form.

There aren't many U.S. tech companies that have even been around that long, let alone having evolved so drastically. Off the top of my head, IBM and Xerox are the only two tech companies I can think of that were founded in the U.S. prior to Samsung in 1938 and that still exist. I'm going to venture that neither of those began as noodle makers.