Apparently we branded the birth of the “private equity are the new conglomerates” meme erroneously.  A reader and Going Private point to an earlier article that explicitly makes this connection. In our defense, we still believe that the size, scope and nature of the private equity industry has changed dramatically in the past 3+ years. This meme now has some real heft to back it up. For instance, few were comparing the “power” of the Blackstone Group to Goldman Sachs back then.