Software developers talk about technical debt, meaning the cost of rewriting quick and dirty code to make it fit for purpose. If not repaid, then tech debt, like the monetary kind, can incur “interest”, making change even more expensive to implement later.
Cultural debt may be a similar phenomenon in many businesses, particularly in the tech sector. The fast-moving, risk-taking, win-at-all costs corporate culture that enabled a start-up like Uber to succeed is too buggy for a global public company and has to be updated.
One intriguing question is whether Apple will have to repay its cultural debt as it squares up for a fist-fight with regulators. Will the monomaniacal culture that allowed it to become one of the most successful and profitable businesses in history need to be reimagined?