Takara: I'm not qualified to speculate about the psychology of people who live through these kinds of experiences. That said, I suspect that the people who are most susceptible are the ones with some kind of real investment in the organization. As far as we know from the story, there are only two... Chris, who had already been dismissed and had to deal with the ignominy of being fired from the dream that he founded, and Peter, who participated in public protests but ultimately agreed that closure was the right decision. There might have been a few other committed people among the staff, but it's not clear from the case that there were any others left among the board. For Jonathan and Eric, I think this was just a way to be involved in their community.

So, I'm guessing that that even if people had to deal the psychological implications of failure, it likely didn't impact their careers too much. Chris was a mover that doesn't care what others think... he'll just go create something new. Peter was a CPA by day, and the media aspects that he loved were spun off as new organizations. Hopefully the staff members were able to find new work, as people are looking for new jobs all the time.

Mark