A terrific article, courtesy kurzweilai.net/, offers an interesting and chilling premise:
Will corporations prevent the Singularity?
Given how unenlightened many companies are, the possibly of something like this happening is certainly not impossible though the web, and the connects it engenders, make this happenstance, IMHO, a remote possibility though other factors such as climate change, environment degration and resource depletion could do the deed without corporate assistance. With this in mind, Ben Goertzel's take on finance and the viability of companies in the future is both original and compelling when viewed through the lens of accelerating tech.
Interestingly enough, the future of finance in the 24th century was intelligently discussed in First Contact when Lily was transported to the Enterprise in order to save her life. During her recovery, Picard explained to her how civilization functions in his time, something very different from Lily's tumultuous year of 2063 marking the end of the second dark age of man thanks to Zefram Cochran's invention of warp drive. Food for thought if you ask me.