I loved Legos, and spent all kinds of time building moon bases, spaceships, houses, submarines, and much more. I would be one of those adults slightly disappointed that all Legos seem to be based on licensed settings now. That said, it seems to be a strategy that works.
I built spaceships because I was into aerospace, and my granddad would take me out to the airport to look at planes; we greeted the Concord when it came to Tulsa. Boeing was one of those Big American Companies I saw mentioned all the time, and it's been interesting to read about them in some of my classes - in particular, my microeconomics class featured a case about the Airbus SuperJumbo vs the Boeing Dreamliner.
I have to admit I was partial to the Dreamliner, partly because so much of the case history told the story of what Airbus was doing wrong and Boeing was doing right. Either way, they both pursued different markets. The case history stopped around 2005, when Airbus was first encountering production delays - and now, apparently, Boeing is as well, in large part due to their outsourcing model.
(Tangent - this is the kind of problem outsourcing always brings about. I don't believe outsourcing is particularly good or bad, but it certainly requires more orchestration on the part of the outsourcer, something most are not prepared for. In my current position, it's clear that we can't just turn over functions to our outsource partners, though I doubt that, as Boeing has, we'll end up buying one of those partners).
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/business/global/06lego.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/business/06boeing.html
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