Tech companies usually die quietly. Paul Graham wrote an essay around this: http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html Startups tend

Tech companies usually die quietly. Paul Graham wrote an essay around this: http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html Startups tend to be 3 or so people, and often die when one does another thing (e.g. consulting) and another does something else (starts a second startup or does a degree). Larger companies tend to just scale down. Not exactly layoffs, but salaries don't go up. The core members start quitting, and then the other staff see it as a hint that things are bad and quit too. They stop hiring new people. Core seniors are replaced with juniors or external consultants. These later gets replaced with the CTO. CTO eventually decides to try something new and exciting. Eventually there's nobody left. There are some that just run out of money and declare bankruptcy to avoid paying salaries, but this is rare. Most are gently closed down. Airbnb pivoted to cereals. One place I worked in simply didn't renew contracts for anyone and only paid the CEO who didn't close it or take salary. When my startup ran low on money, we just sold it to someone who could reuse the tech and user base. Some startups IPO, which was a bold move once, but now part of the playbook.