Aging nations have arteries clogged with obsolete laws, slowing blood flow and preventing oxygen from reaching all parts of the body politic. Physicians call this arteriosclerosis; historians see decline of empire.
For the most ambitious young people, the corporate ladder is obsolete.
Technology is changing so fast that knowledge about specifics can quickly become obsolete. That's why so much of what technicians learn is on the job.
If your customer base is aging with you, then eventually you are going to become obsolete or irrelevant. You need to be constantly figuring out who are your new customers and what are you doing to stay forever young.
New technology is useful, but it's inefficient and ugly; it knows it'll be obsolete by lunchtime tomorrow, so it has no incentive to be anything else.
The Lone Star Card will make food stamp coupons obsolete.
I sold Blockbuster because I saw what was coming: the satellite dish, technology that would make the business obsolete in a few years. Why would people go to a store for a video and then have to return it when they had a dish?
If American schooling is inadequate now, just imagine how much more obsolete it will be when today's kindergarten students graduate from high school in just 12 years.
I feel that education needs an overhaul - courses are obsolete and grades are on the way out.
Everywhere, the rate of change is so fast that large U.S. companies are in constant danger of disruption. Not from competition in China or India, no. They're in danger of being made obsolete from two guys/gals in a garage in Silicon Valley, or anyone, anywhere, empowered by exponential technology, willing to risk it all, driven by their passion.