And yet, acquirers generally lack a strategic logic that can survive market changes; as a result their empires of hype can be undone very swiftly by market discipline.
Back when Woods' marriage to Elin Nordegren was very publicly coming undone and alleged mistresses were coming forward in shocking numbers, Vonn couldn't help but joke about her future boyfriend.
England's 10/12/13 axis will have to find a way to control Jamie Roberts (and account for his expert decoy running), as the often sensational lines through which he chooses to hurl his enormous frame have undone the very best defences in the world.
Like any mythological hero, he is thus undone by the very gift that makes him heroic.
At one point in their careers, in very different ways, they were undone by fame.
It seemed the Taliban were being undone by the very people they had defeated, or in some cases co-opted, not long ago.
"Sarah's Key," Gilles Paquet-Brenner's adaptation of Tatiana de Rosnay's best-selling novel, is undone by its very premise: that the two stories it tells can coexist in the same film.
Then Paul triumphed, the Tea Party proved its muscle and McConnell, eyeing his own 2014 re-election bid, had to worry about being undone by the very romance with naysaying outsiders that lofted Paul to victory.
With the help of sound metrics drawn from the world of finance — "a higher level of accountability," in his words — some of the ecological harm caused by the very same corporations can be undone.
It was hard to escape the impression that Blatter had been undone by the very tools he had often used to control and expel his enemies during his 40 years at Fifa, 17 of them as president.
