By now, it's conventional wisdom: culture can ultimately break even the most seemingly harmonious corporate match. The list of mergers that have faltered or failed because of culture clash is long. Yet despite the many high-profile cautionary tales, very few companies involved in a post-merger integration deal with the culture question as fully and aggressively as they do with, say, capturing value from cost synergies.

Want to get a sense of how new federal regulations will affect transportation tomorrow? Look at California today.

Even the most dominant companies in the world need to take a look in the mirror now and then.