Eugene Theodore has spent years inside the rooms where enterprise decisions get made — boardrooms, investment committees, turnaround engagements, incubator programs. What he found, across every sector and scale, was the same pattern playing out. Not failure. Success. Executed faithfully. Leading, eventually, to collapse. His response was Built to Collapse, a business novel introduced at the World Economic Forum in 2026 and now available globally. We sat down with him to understand what he saw, what he wrote, and what he thinks executives should actually do about it.

Your book opens with a striking premise: companies don’t collapse because they fail — they collapse because they succeed too well. Explain that.

They succeed too well using the blueprint that was given to them, yes. Companies rarely implode because no one knew what they were doing. They implode because they knew exactly what they were doing, and it wasn’t meant to help them last.

Remember Al “Chainsaw” Dunlap? Markets rewarded him for aggressive cost-cutting and short-term margin improvement. Scott Paper — stripped, flipped, and sold for $9 billion, but it was just a husk at that point. Sunbeam — gutted the workforce, 73% stock-price surge, bankruptcy three years later. These are not “marginal” examples from 30 years ago. These are the systems being used today, by executive managers, whether they’re cutting 10,000 jobs to increase their quarterly dividend by 10-cents or appease activist investors.

Extract. Impress. Exit. Collapse. Repeat.

This is not about “saving jobs”, “fair play”, or even “ethical business.” It’s about understanding that repeat this cycle once too often, and there won’t be a business left to push through the system. Every executive has the choice: Be Dunlap. Or be the leader whose successor has something tangible and sound to inherit.

You’ve advised global brands and institutions. What patterns did you see repeatedly?

Aside from the ever-repeating extract, impress, exit cycle, two structural weaknesses appear consistently: recruitment profiling and corporate memory erosion.

First, leadership stacking. Companies repeatedly recruit “top leader” profiles with identical archetypes. Visionary. Transformational. Decisive. But if every hire — especially senior ones — is wired to lead, no one’s left to build, integrate, or steward. Internally, that creates friction as strong personalities compete for narrative control instead of reinforcing institutional continuity. You soon have leaders managing the optics of a decision instead of analysing the elements needed to reach the right decisions.

Second, laughably short corporate memory. Organizations relaunch strategies that failed three years earlier, with newly branded skins attached to the same, structurally-flawed designs underneath. “Last time wasn’t the right time, now is the time” is always the justification. Meanwhile, customers’ fundamental problems have not changed because even if markets evolve, human needs move much more slowly. Durable companies focus on fundamentals. Fragile ones chase novelty.

You cannot fidget-spinner your way into enterprise durability and success.

Why present these ideas through fiction instead of a traditional business framework?

Because the world doesn’t need another “how to do business” book, another HBR “top ten best practices” article, or an editorial by a PR-polished C-Suite.

Systems don’t change when we talk or write matter-of-factly about them. They change when we’re shown what they are, how they act, and who they impact — especially if we’re forced to look in the mirror in the process and see where we fit. Telling a story is the most powerful way to convey information. And since fiction is always based on fundamental truths, it is also the best way to remain relatable while opening the audience’s minds to new possibilities for change. 

There is no finger-pointing or accusations. Just the possibility for readers to recognize different personas and dynamics, then privately — i.e., safely — assess what it means to them.

Many executives believe they are acting responsibly within the system. Where does responsibility actually sit?

I wish I could say the designers of distorted systems are fully to blame. The more uncomfortable truth is that those who operate within them share the responsibility. Systems may be designed by a few, but they are sustained by many.

Executives often argue that constraints leave them little room to maneuver. Markets demand growth, analysts demand performance, and compensation structures reward tried-and-tested behaviors. Yet constraints are not immovable.

Consider Paul Polman at Unilever. He recognized the quarterly earnings treadmill and simply opted out of it. He stopped issuing quarterly guidance, extended the company’s strategic horizon, and embedded sustainability into capital allocation decisions. He did not deny market pressure; he changed the rules of engagement with it.

His successors have leaned more heavily back into traditional performance framing and simplified ESG commitments under renewed market scrutiny. The shift illustrates the core point: the same company, the same markets, different leadership choices about which incentives to prioritize.

Intent matters. But design — and the willingness to challenge it — matters more. Leadership is not only about surviving within the system. It is about deciding which version of the system you are willing to defend.

You introduce a concept called “Community Capitalism.” How does that differ from stakeholder capitalism?

Stakeholder capitalism expanded the lens. It argued that companies should not serve shareholders alone, but also consider employees, customers, communities, and the planet. The intent was directionally right but the execution often became procedural. Stakeholders were mapped, categorized, and managed. Impact became a reporting function and ESG a compliance exercise. The system stayed intact but with more boxes to tick.

Community Capitalism shifts the center of gravity.

Instead of abstract stakeholder balancing, it focuses on the specific community whose problem the company was originally created to solve. Not society in general or global optics. A defined group of people with a real need. The discipline is simple but demanding: understand them deeply, grow alongside them, and measure success by whether their condition improves over time.

When you design around that community, externalities become harder to ignore because they show up directly in the ecosystem you depend on. You do not offset harm in one geography while extracting value in another. You strengthen the system you operate inside because if you don’t, you will see its collapse imminently.

Community Capitalism is not about broadening accountability rhetorically. It is about concentrating it structurally. Serve the problem-holder fully and everything else will align around that.

What did attending the World Economic Forum reinforce for you?

It reinforced that there are still extraordinary minds working seriously on structural change. The conversations are not naive. Leaders understand that many of the economic and political architectures built after the Second World War delivered immense progress. But they were designed for a different era.

For decades, enormous intellectual energy has been spent trying to patch and repair those systems: adjusting monetary frameworks, tweaking governance, adding ESG overlays, rebalancing regulations. The instinct has been to preserve what we have by modifying it into what we need. But everywhere I went I heard that technology is now placing so much pressure on those inherited structures, incremental repair is no longer sustainable. Digital capital moves faster than regulation while AI reshapes labor faster than policy and supply chains become more fragile and more global than ever before.

The changemakers who stood out were proposing ways to leapfrog these legacy frameworks entirely — a much harder conversation than reforming them.

If a CEO reads your book this quarter, what should they do differently next quarter?

Simple. Abandon the “next quarter” mindset.

Communicate to your shareholders that the company is being managed for the next 100 years, not 100 days. That requires conviction. It also requires evidence. Strong fundamentals. Honest reporting. Clear capital allocation logic.

Now, if all this feels too radical, ask yourself why.

Is the business not ready? Show me a business that consciously chooses a 90-day panic cycle over a decade-defining strategy. Is the market not ready? Pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, long-horizon capital, and coordinated shareholder groups are increasingly demanding responsible, resilient governance. The appetite for durability exists. Is regulation the excuse? Governments repeatedly clean up after industries that optimize themselves into fragility. Waiting for regulation is not leadership — or sound business strategy.

Or is it you? Is the real constraint that you do not want to risk your annual bonus on a strategy whose benefits may be realized by your successor? If it is the last one, be honest. Own the trade-off. But do not pretend the system made you do it.

Short-term cycles reward acceleration. Long-term enterprises reward stewardship. You get to decide which one you are building.
Built to Collapse is available now on Amazon.

Written in partnership with Tom White