The Corporate Collapse Pattern

How Great Companies Destroy Themselves

Kodak invented digital photography. Then digital photography killed Kodak.

Blockbuster turned down Netflix for $50 million. Enron was named "America's Most Innovative Company" six years in a row--while committing fraud. Nokia owned 40% of the mobile phone market and dismissed the iPhone as a toy.

What do these catastrophes have in common? More than you'd expect.

The Corporate Collapse Pattern examines history's most dramatic business failures--from Kodak's innovation trap to WeWork's delusions of grandeur--to uncover the recurring patterns that appear when great companies destroy themselves.

You'll discover:

• Why success is the most dangerous thing that can happen to a company
• How the same cycle of hubris, denial, and death spiral plays out across every industry
• The seven warning signs that appeared before each collapse--and why they were ignored
• Why corporate boards almost never save failing companies
• How Theranos fooled a board full of generals and a $47 billion valuation evaporated at WeWork in weeks
• What the companies that survived their near-death experiences--Microsoft, Apple, IBM--did differently

Case studies include: Kodak, Blockbuster, Nokia, Enron, Theranos, WeWork, Sears, Silicon Valley Bank, and Lehman Brothers.

This isn't a book of management theory or business school platitudes. It's a clear-eyed, pattern-driven look at why great companies destroy themselves--and a practical framework for recognizing when it's happening to yours.

Includes: A Corporate Collapse Warning Signs Checklist you can apply to any organization, a timeline of major corporate collapses, and a curated further reading list.

Book 2 in The Collapse Pattern Series, from the author of The Collapse Pattern: How Great Civilizations Destroy Themselves.