Collapse Proof

What Makes Systems Survive When Everything Else Falls

After six books examining why civilizations, companies, economies, empires, technologies, and institutions destroy themselves, one question remains: what makes the survivors different?

Collapse is the default. Most civilizations fail. Most companies disappear within decades. Most empires crumble. Most technologies become obsolete. The systems that endure are the anomaly--and they share a specific set of structural characteristics that can be identified, studied, and applied.

Collapse Proof is the other side of the coin. Drawing on survivors from every domain--civilizations that lasted millennia, companies that crossed centuries, technologies that evolved instead of dying, institutions that maintained trust through upheaval, and one small country that has survived 700 years by being boring on purpose--this book extracts the principles that separate the things that last from the things that don't.

You'll discover:

• Why China's dynastic cycle and Japan's deliberate reinventions represent two different models of civilizational survival
• How Beretta (500 years), Nintendo (135 years), and Kongo Gumi (1,400 years) outlasted virtually every competitor
• What the Byzantine Empire did differently to outlast Rome by a thousand years
• Why TCP/IP, Unix, and SQL survived decades while flashier technologies died around them
• How Microsoft went from a "lost decade" under Ballmer to the most valuable company on Earth under Nadella
• Why Switzerland is the most collapse-proof country in history--and why almost no one can replicate it
• The ten principles that collapse-proof systems share across every domain
• Why resilience has real costs--and why Wall Street punishes it
• A practical framework for assessing and improving the resilience of your organization

This is not a self-help book wearing a "resilience" label. It's systems-level analysis grounded in historical evidence. The practical chapter and assessment framework are the application layer, but the foundation is what actually worked across centuries and domains--not motivational advice.

Includes: A Collapse-Proof Assessment Framework, a Survival Hall of Fame profiling history's longest-lasting systems, a complete Collapse Pattern Series reading guide, and a curated further reading list.

The capstone of The Collapse Pattern Series. You've learned why things fall apart. Now learn what holds them together.