> 50, 500 or even 5000 barely connected people
5000 barely connected people isn't a corporation, it's a mob. A corporation has more to it.
In fact people aren't much more important that the software that runs on them. Because that's what all the bureaucracy is - all those rules and bylaws and contractual obligations and checklists and playbooks and regulation - software running on a runtime made of meat, one form letter or internal memo at a time.
Most of the time, losing people is to corporation what clipping a toe nail is to an adult, or a bit flip to a modern computer - a non-event you barely notice and carry on.
> higher intelligence can emerge
Nobody said "higher intelligence". I mentioned animals, ant supercolonies, but the same patterns of behavior is visible in even most basic multi-cellular and single-cellular organisms.
> Do not anthropomorphize.
Nobody says you need to.
(Except with LLMs, where refusing to do so means you'll just remain confused about what can or cannot, should or should not, be done with them.)