I am inclined to agree with twiceaday on this, even with the qualifier of people involved to complexity. Obviously, if you factor in the entire supply chain for the whole industry, the semiconductor/electronics/plastics industry is higher, but I expect there are several ties in the quartz watch system where there are few people involved but huge amounts of complexity. The layout and routing of the microcontroller and the hard real-time operating system that runs on a moderately feature-rich watch have orders of magnitude more lines of code (not a precise measure of complexity, but it's close) than even the entire count of teeth on the gears of this watch.
In fact, the argument that this involves fewer people seems to point to it being less complex. If one guy with a CNC micro lathe and some metal stock could make a precision clock like Chris of Clickspring, and a quartz watch takes huge industries with thousands of people, isn't the latter definitely more complicated?
The way this article is written suggests that the whole clock was modeled on a computer, and that they even used a constraint solving system to figure out the gearing:
"I rely on these equations and the powerful software to find a solution with our input. It's a question of using these tools to find new solutions."
Also notice the quote towards the end that they were able to redesign the whole drive train just to make it a bit thinner.
What I'm trying to say is that this watch has little in common with what people assume is a "hand made and designed watch".
So this watch feels more like your later example, where you have the huge (computer) industry behind it.
It's not a secret that the industry uses software for modeling. But it still has skilled staff operating that software.
When people emphasize the artistry and craftsmanship of mechanical timepieces at this price point, they're talking about two facts:
1. Most such watches are designed in-house according to rigorous specifications and long R&D cycles, with the majority of tooling and manufacturing processing being wholly original and unique to the firm,
2. The watches are assembled and serviced entirely by hand with a sophisticated precision that takes watchmakers years to learn.
On the upper end of the spectrum you have independent watchmakers like F.P. Journe who singlehandedly design and build entirely new systems in their movements.
In fact, the argument that this involves fewer people seems to point to it being less complex. If one guy with a CNC micro lathe and some metal stock could make a precision clock like Chris of Clickspring, and a quartz watch takes huge industries with thousands of people, isn't the latter definitely more complicated?