Built to Suck: The Inevitable Demise of the Corporation...and How to Save It?

CORPORATIONS ARE DYING. CAN THEY BE SAVED?

In late 2018, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos addressed his entire staff in an all-hands meeting. “Amazon will fail and go bankrupt one day” he said. “Your job is to delay this for as long as possible!”

Advertising icon, Jay Chiat, once said: “Let’s see how big we get before we suck.” In Built to Suck, longtime corporate provocateur Joseph Jaffe argues that the Corporate Era is rapidly coming to an end. The biggest reason? The central operating system that powers the corporation, namely SIZE, will be its downfall. Size is no longer a growth enabler; it’s a growth inhibitor. This conclusion is backed up with empirical evidence and the indisputable fact that the lifespan of the corporation has shrunk dramatically from 75 to just 15 years. And all of this has happened in just the past 50 years.

Between 2016-2018 alone, just over half of the Fortune 500 companies had declining revenues. So is this the end for the corporation as we know it? Possibly. Probably.

At least until companies can figure out how to “embrace their Heresy” and deliver on 4 key pillars that are outlined in this book: Digital Disruption, Talent Resurrection, Customer Obsession and Corporate Citizenship. Built to Suck doesn’t pull any punches and serves notice to the corporate world: your business model is flawed and your days are numbered. Can you meet the challenge and move your organization’s journey from “survival to thrival” – or will you fail and fade into obsolescence like so many others? This is the most urgent question facing the modern corporation today, and Built to Suck is the wake-up call and roadmap to success that every corporation desperately needs.