There is a great article at Forbes titled, Complacency Kills, on how big companies die. It is written by Tom Mendoza, president of NetApps at Forbes. Having lots of former Sun Microsystems employees at NetApps, I know for a fact they do truly care about culture and their employees.
Here is a snippet:
"Here’s how to recognize complacency and fight it.
In the 1980′s, Digital Equipment was a powerhouse, seemingly unstoppable. But Digital got complacent. It failed to respond to technological changes—and it was gone in ten years.
In 2000, what would you have bet that Sun Microsystems would still be in business by 2010? It would have been a bad bet. Sun was on top of the world then, but by 2008, its stock had lost 80% of its value and it disappeared the next year. Sun’s sprawling corporate headquarters now houses Facebook.
These and other companies failed for many reasons, but complacency was front and center. Why didn’t they do something about it?"
