This is a linkpost for http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2017/02/21/prescientific-organizational-theory/
We were originally talking about a "meteoric event that could extinct Google, Facebook, etc. and leave only small, adaptable companies".
At issue here is the identity of a (large) company. When a company dies, its assets do not disappear, its brand names are usually bought by someone, its managers move on to other positions, even its corporate culture may survive in smaller chunks of the company that continue to exist under new ownership. Eventually that all disperses and the former company's ghosts dissipate, but it can take a long time.
So I can say that Continental Tobacco Company is dead because it doesn't exist any more and you can say that it still lives on through Lorillard and other companies. Both statements are true enough and the real question is what do we mean by a company "going extinct".
But if a company evolved repeatedly, and transformed itself, it's hard to say that the change was due to inflexibility. And in many ways, massive shocks are easier for large companies to absorb, due to their greater institutional capacity. I'm arguing that a "meteoric event that could extinct Google, Facebook, etc. and leave only small, adaptable companies" is actually the opposite of what would occur. Instead, any large-scale change allows the organizations that have the deepest pockets and largest capacity to thrive, destroying smaller companie...