21. The Collapse of Complex Companies

A society has collapsed when it displays a rapid, significant loss of an established level of sociopolitical complexity. The term ‘established level’ is important. To qualify as an instance of collapse a society must have been at, or developing toward, a level of complexity for more than one or two generations. (Tainter, 1988, p. 4)

The Collapse of Complex Societies

2022 has heralded a season of mass lay-offs for most of the big companies in the tech industry. Meta (Facebook) and Intel have cut double-digit percentages of their staff. Other companies are rumoured to be preparing their own cuts. Twitter has cut its staff numbers in half, with more inevitably to come, either through attrition or further layoffs. Investors, none of whom understand how software development systems work, are campaigning for even more bloodletting on a scale not seen since the dot-com crash in the early 2000s.