Coming back in a hostile business environment will be slow and painful, if ever, and the type of reservoirs under deep water, while enormously prolific, decline very fast.

FORBES: Oil Supply Disruption: A Sure Bet On Job Losses

Bostock and the rest of the board call the offer insufficient and adopt a poison pill-type HR plan to make it virtually impossible for Microsoft to go through with the deal in a hostile manner.

FORBES: So Long Roy Bostock. Don't Let the Door Hit You On the Way Out.

They are faced with increasingly difficult physical circumstances: the food web is thinning out, many animals and plants have gone missing, their main food source a type of primitive grass is threatened, and they have to be on the lookout constantly for hostile animals, other less-evolved dinosaurs with more violent survival strategies.

FORBES: Prototyping The Distant Future