Response to The Collapse of Complex Business Models by Clay Shirky
This is a short, quick reaction to Shirky's post.
I agree with a lot of what Shirky says.
We just got to be careful about fully embracing the idea of simple beating complex. Small beating big has always had a great appeal to us humans, and the motif occurs a lot in ancient literature. This should make us even more careful about it because it has a romantic appeal to us.
And it can lead to some strange ideas, such as those of Microsoft when claiming their precarious business situation since they are threaten by Linux. If we start counting, Microsoft has been on the verge of collapsed threaten by little Linux for almost 20 years.
The reality is that big and complex has a strong advantage called money. And tons of it. They could make bonfires with it at their corporate camp retreats to sing around it and roast marshmallows without hurting.
And they can use this money to eradicate the competition through buyouts or just war prices. Even for quick radical internet start ups, the "live happily ever after" lines is "they got bought up by Google."
And even though some big. complex civilizations did go under, it took a mighty long time for many of them to do so. The Roman empire was very complex, and it managed to survive for about 500 to 1500 years, depending on how you count it.
http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2010/04/the-collapse-of-complex-business-mo...
