Why Societies — and Startups — Collapse

Keith McFarland:

Diamond concludes that societies collapse when they fall on hard times and make one or more of four fundamental mistakes:
1) They fail to anticipate problems.
2) They don’t respond promptly when problems arrive.
3) They exhibit something he calls “bad” rational behavior.
4) They adopt “disastrous values.”

I don’t know about you, but I think this is a pretty good list for business failure, too.

Technorati tags: startup, failure, business, societies