Citations
569 research papers and sources
'Dunbar's number' deconstructed
Critical reanalysis finding wide confidence intervals (4-520) for human group size predictions, suggesting the specific '150' Dunbar's number should b...
15N in symbiotic fungi and plants estimates nitrogen and carbon flux rates in Arctic tundra
This research using isotope tracers demonstrated that 50-80% of nitrogen in temperate forest trees comes directly from mycorrhizal decomposition rathe...
1997 Letter to Shareholders
Bezos's 1997 shareholder letter is the clearest articulation of Pacific Salmon strategy in business history. The explicit statement that Amazon would...
40 Years of Evolution: Darwin's Finches on Daphne Major Island
This is the definitive scientific account demonstrating that natural selection is observable within human lifetimes, not just geological time. The Gra...
A brief history of generative models for power law and lognormal distributions
Technical review of mechanisms generating power law and log-normal distributions, discussing when each applies. Essential for understanding that multi...
A General Model for the Origin of Allometric Scaling Laws in Biology
Why does metabolic rate scale with body mass to the 3/4 power across all organisms - from bacteria to blue whales? West, Brown, and Enquist's 1997 Sci...
A History of the Span of Management
This historical review traced the evolution of span of control concepts in management theory, from early prescriptive rules (5-6 subordinates maximum)...
A homologous protein-coding sequence in Drosophila homeotic genes and its conservation in other metazoans
This landmark paper discovered that Hox genes are conserved across the animal kingdom - from fruit flies to humans. This conservation demonstrates tha...
A Message from Co-Founder and CEO Brian Chesky
Brian Chesky's May 5, 2020 memo announcing 1,900 layoffs (25% of Airbnb's workforce) is a masterclass in strategic catabolism. The memo explicitly des...
A new evolutionary law
Why do companies with decades of dominance collapse overnight? Van Valen's 1973 analysis of extinction patterns in the fossil record revealed a devast...
A note on trophic complexity and community stability
This paper introduced the term 'keystone species,' comparing the ecological role to an architectural keystone whose removal causes structural collapse...
A Pacific Culture among Wild Baboons: Its Emergence and Transmission
This 30-year longitudinal study provides the strongest evidence that leadership style creates measurable physiological consequences for both leaders a...
A Pharyngeal Jaw Evolutionary Innovation Facilitated Extinction in Lake Victoria Cichlids
Examines how the cichlid pharyngeal jaw innovation - a second set of jaws in the throat allowing independent specialization of oral and pharyngeal jaw...
A Process Model of Internal Corporate Venturing in the Diversified Major Firm
Classic paper on internal corporate venturing, documenting how new ventures within large corporations must achieve structural separation to develop di...
A quantitative study of the roots and root hairs of a winter rye plant
This foundational study quantified the extraordinary scale of fibrous root systems, demonstrating that a single rye plant can have 14 million roots wi...
A re-evaluation of carbon storage in trees lends greater support for carbon limitation to growth
Research on root carbohydrate dynamics and energy flow during regeneration. Documents how trees store energy in roots, deplete it during regrowth, and...
A Review of Ecological Determinants of Territoriality within Vertebrate Species
Expanded Brown's original economic defendability model to include predation risk and information asymmetry as factors in territorial economics. This e...
A Simple Mechanism for Irreversible Tidewater Glacier Retreat
Explains the geometric triggers and feedback loops that cause irreversible glacier retreat. Critical for understanding why Columbia Glacier's retreat...
A Theory of Corporate Spin-offs
Theoretical framework for optimal timing and structure of corporate separations. Informs the chapter's guidance on when to execute controlled calving...
Acorn dispersal by birds and mammals
This ecological research establishes squirrel caching as the primary dispersal mechanism for oak trees. The study documents how unretrieved acorns (20...
Acquisition of the IBM PC Business by Lenovo
This documents IBM's first major strategic apoptosis event: the December 2004 announcement and May 2005 completion of selling the PC division to Lenov...
African Cichlid Fish: A Model System in Adaptive Radiation Research
Reviews Lake Victoria's extraordinary cichlid radiation - over 500 species arising in approximately 15,000 years, the fastest known vertebrate radiati...
Aggressive Mimicry in Photuris Fireflies
Discovery that Photuris firefly females mimic the flash patterns of Photinus females to lure and consume Photinus males. Demonstrates how honest signa...
Airbus, Bombardier and Investissement Québec Conclude C Series Partnership
Announcement of Airbus acquiring majority control of Bombardier's C Series program (rebranded A220) for effectively zero dollars. The acquisition demo...
Aircraft in Warfare: The Dawn of the Fourth Arm
Lanchester's Square Law, originally developed for military strategy, provides the mathematical basis for understanding why coalition size matters more...
Alteration of North American streams by beaver
This paper documents how beavers as ecosystem engineers create wetland habitat, increase biodiversity, and modify hydrology across landscapes. Beavers...
Amazon Is Buying Whole Foods for $13.7 Billion
Breaking news coverage of Amazon's $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods - an all-cash transaction at $42/share (27% premium), completed August 28,...
Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire
Detailed history of Amazon including AWS's development from Andy Jassy's team of 57 to global cloud dominance. Documents the 2003 executive retreat wh...
Amazon Web Services Annual Revenue 2013-2024
Documents AWS revenue growth from launch in 2006 to $107.6 billion in 2024. Demonstrates Amazon's 'growth at the tips' strategy - building retail infr...
Amboseli Elephant Research Project: Matriarch Knowledge and Herd Survival
The Amboseli elephant research provides the foundational evidence for how accumulated knowledge in matriarchs creates survival advantages. The 1993 dr...
An ecosystem engineer, the beaver, increases species richness at the landscape scale
Empirically demonstrated that beaver engineering increases biodiversity at landscape scales by creating habitat heterogeneity. Beaver modifications (p...
An empirical demonstration of risk-sensitive foraging preferences
Caraco et al. provided the first clear empirical demonstration that animals switch between risk-averse and risk-seeking behavior based on energy reser...
An Empirical Genetic Assessment of the Severity of the Northern Elephant Seal Population Bottleneck
Genetic analysis confirming only two mitochondrial DNA haplotypes in northern elephant seals, consistent with an extreme founder event. Contrasts with...
An experimental study of the small world problem
Rigorous follow-up to Milgram's 1967 study with detailed methodology and statistical analysis, providing the scientific foundation for small-world net...
An introduction to niche construction theory
Accessible introduction to niche construction theory summarizing two decades of research since the foundational 2003 book. Covers theoretical developm...
An Investigation of Hindsight Bias in Nascent Venture Activity
This study provides direct empirical evidence that entrepreneurs exhibit substantial hindsight bias - their recalled probability of success after quit...
Anatomical Enablers and the Evolution of C4 Photosynthesis in Grasses
Identified anatomical preadaptations (large bundle sheath cells, short interveinal distances) that made certain grass lineages 10-20x more likely to e...
Ancient Woodland: Its History, Vegetation and Uses in England
Authoritative source on coppiced woodlands in England, documenting oak stools dated to 1,000+ years old. Rackham's work provides the biological founda...
Annual Financial Reports
Official financial reports documenting Nintendo's $13 billion cash reserves and zero debt position during the Wii U hibernation period - the reserve b...
Annual Financial Reports and Earnings Releases 2020-2024
Pfizer's financial reports document the fastest phototropic reorientation in pharmaceutical history - the COVID-19 vaccine development and manufacturi...
Annual Report
Primary source for Haier's RenDanHeYi distributed micro-enterprise model serving as the chapter's main example of distributed organizational architect...
Annual Report (Form 10-K)
Official SEC filing documenting Apple's financial state in 1997 - the primary source for the $1 billion cash / $1 billion burn rate figures that made...
Annual Report 2022
Primary source for Maersk case study data including market share, vessel counts, and network structure.
Annual Report 2022
Primary source for Ping An Good Doctor case study: 400+ million registered users, AI-assisted triage handling majority of consultations, integrated ph...
Annual Report 2022-23
Primary source for Reliance Industries case study data including revenue, vertical integration structure, and business segments.
Annual Report 2023
Documents Novo Nordisk's $26 billion diabetes care revenue and global R&D organization with research centers in Denmark, United States (Boston, San Fr...
Annual Report 2023
Primary source for TSMC case study including revenue ($70 billion), 54% foundry market share, geographic diversification strategy (Arizona and Japan f...
Annual Report 2023/24
Primary source for Singapore Airlines case study data including revenue (SGD 19 billion), operational reliability metrics, and COVID-19 recovery strat...
Annual Report and Form 20-F
Primary source for BP's current operations and organizational structure following post-Deepwater Horizon recentralization of safety and risk managemen...
Annual Report Fiscal Year 2024
Corporate financial data demonstrating Siemens' modular divisional structure and performance. Provides evidence that modular structures can enable sca...
Annual Report, Form 10-K
Primary source for Visa's scale and distributed payment processing architecture demonstrating hybrid design - distributed transaction processing with...
Annual Report, Form 10-K
Primary source for Walmart's scale, operations, and centralized logistics architecture serving as the chapter's main example of centralized organizati...
Annual Report, Form 10-K, Fiscal Year 2022
Documents Other Bets segment operating losses ($6.1 billion in 2022) and the challenges of diversifying from Google's core business. Details Loon shut...
Annual Report, Form 10-K, Fiscal Year 2022
Primary source for Shopify case study: 2+ million merchants, $196 billion GMV, integrated payments and fulfillment. Supports convergence analysis with...
Annual Report, Form 10-K, Fiscal Year 2022
Primary source for Teladoc case study data: 54 million members, 20+ million visits annually, $2.4 billion revenue. Documents B2B2C distribution model...
Annual Reports 2011-2024
Tencent's annual reports document the company's dramatic phototropic shifts from QQ Desktop to WeChat mobile, tracking the resource reallocation that...
Annual Reports 2020-2024
Singapore Airlines' reports document 50 years of sustained directional growth toward a single gradient: premium long-haul business travelers. The COVI...
Annual Results 2023
Primary source for EDF case study including revenue (€140 billion), nuclear fleet status, and 2022 stress corrosion crisis impact (€17.9 billion loss)...
Annual Review 2024
Primary source for Nestlé case study including revenue (CHF 91.4 billion), supply chain diversification strategy, and coffee sourcing from multiple or...
Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder
Nassim Taleb's Antifragile introduces a concept beyond resilience: systems that don't just survive stress but actively benefit from it. While robust s...
Apoptosis: A Review of Programmed Cell Death
This comprehensive review establishes the biological foundation for organizational apoptosis. The key insight is that 50-70 billion cells die daily th...
Apple iPod Sales 2006-2014
Documents iPod sales peaking at 54.83 million units in 2008, then declining as iPhone cannibalized the product. By 2014, iPod represented just 1.25% o...
Apple: Number of Employees 2007-2024
Data often reveals what narrative obscures. MacroTrends' financial database documents that Apple grew from 21,600 employees in 2007 to 164,000 in 2024...
Aramco's oil production costs least in the world at $2.8 per barrel
IPO prospectus data showing Saudi Aramco's cost advantage from scale. Production cost of $2.8/barrel (vs. industry average ~$15) demonstrates how infr...
Arctic Tern Pole-to-Pole Migration Studies
Documents the longest migration of any animal - 44,000 miles annually, pole-to-pole. Demonstrates extreme migration economics: 5-10% annual mortality...
Are wolves saving Yellowstone's aspen? A landscape-level test of a behaviorally mediated trophic cascade
Challenges the simple trophic cascade narrative by finding that wolf-driven vegetation recovery is more complex and spatially variable than initially...
ASML Is the Only Company Making the $200 Million Machines Needed to Print Every Advanced Microchip
This article provides primary source documentation of ASML's monopoly position in EUV lithography. The specific details - $200 million per machine, 18...
Baboon hierarchy and stress research
Robert Sapolsky's 40-year study of baboon troops in Kenya provides the most comprehensive data on hierarchy stability factors in primates. His researc...
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
Investigative account of the Theranos fraud, documenting how Elizabeth Holmes used visual signaling (Steve Jobs aesthetic, prestigious board, sleek de...
Bare Essentials: The Aldi Way of Retailing
Insider account by a former Aldi executive documenting the extreme simplification that enabled Aldi's success: 300-600 SKUs, 90% private label, no-fri...
Bat predation and sexual advertisement in a neotropical anuran
This foundational study on tungara frogs established the principle that acoustic signals involve trade-offs between attracting desired receivers (mate...
Behavior, biochemistry, and hibernation in black, grizzly, and polar bears
This classic paper established the remarkable fact that bears don't eat, drink, urinate, or defecate for up to six months during hibernation - yet eme...
Beiträge zur Sozialpsychologie des Haushuhns
This seminal paper introduced the concept of 'pecking order' (Hackordnung/hackliste) to science, fundamentally changing our understanding of social hi...
Berkshire Beyond Buffett: The Enduring Value of Values
Analyzes Berkshire Hathaway's decentralized management model where subsidiaries operate autonomously, sharing only capital with headquarters. Document...
Bet hedging in a guild of desert annuals
Empirical demonstration of bet-hedging through seed dormancy in actual desert annual plant communities. Venable's long-term field study confirmed theo...
Beyond DNA: integrating inclusive inheritance into an extended theory of evolution
Proposes an 'inclusive inheritance' framework integrating genetic, epigenetic, behavioral, and ecological inheritance into evolutionary theory. Provid...
Beyond the '3/4-power law': Variation in the intra- and interspecific scaling of metabolic rate in animals
Critical review noting variation in metabolic scaling exponents (0.65-0.85) across taxonomic groups, challenging the universality of precise 3/4 scali...
Biodiversity and ecological redundancy
Foundational paper on functional redundancy in ecosystems. Walker established the concept that multiple species performing similar ecological roles pr...
Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning: Current Knowledge and Future Challenges
This synthesis paper resolved the early debate about whether diversity-stability relationships were real or merely artifacts of sampling effects. The...
Biodiversity and ecosystem stability in a decade-long grassland experiment
Does diversity really matter, or is it just ecological romanticism? David Tilman's team answered this question with the longest-running biodiversity e...
Biodiversity and litter decomposition in terrestrial ecosystems
This review examined how decomposer diversity affects decomposition rates and nutrient cycling. The finding that diverse decomposer communities proces...
Biodiversity effects on ecosystem functioning in a 15-year grassland experiment: Patterns, mechanisms, and open questions
This comprehensive analysis of the Jena Experiment in Germany provides crucial evidence for functional complementarity and ecosystem multifunctionalit...
Biodiversity increases the resistance of ecosystem productivity to climate extremes
This paper directly addresses how biodiversity provides insurance against climate extremes - the core thesis of the chapter's biology section. The res...
Biofilms as complex differentiated communities
This paper established that biofilms are not simple bacterial mats but complex differentiated communities with organized structure. The authors showed...
Biofilms: survival mechanisms of clinically relevant microorganisms
This comprehensive review established that bacterial biofilms - formed through quorum sensing coordination - exhibit 100-1,000× greater resistance to...
Biogeochemistry: An Analysis of Global Change
This comprehensive textbook provides the scientific foundation for understanding carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and water cycles at ecosystem and globa...
Biological robustness
Seminal review defining robustness as the property allowing systems to maintain function against perturbations. Kitano identifies redundancy as a key...
Biological signals as handicaps
Provides the mathematical formalization of Zahavi's handicap principle, demonstrating rigorously that costly signals can be evolutionarily stable hone...
Biomass allocation to leaves, stems and roots: meta-analyses of interspecific variation and environmental control
This meta-analysis established that plants allocate 30-60% of captured energy to growing and maintaining roots, with allocation reaching 70% in resour...
Biosphere 2 Caloric Restriction Observations
Biosphere 2 participants experienced accidental caloric restriction when food production fell short. Roy Walford (a longevity researcher among the cre...
Blue Ocean Strategy
Framework distinguishing 'red ocean' strategies (convergent competition for existing market space) from 'blue ocean' strategies (divergent creation of...
Body mass, metabolic rate, heart rate, and respiratory quotient during hibernation in black bears
Early quantitative study of bear hibernation physiology providing baseline data on metabolic rates, heart rates, and mass loss. This data contributed...
Body size and metabolism
In 1932, Max Kleiber measured the metabolic rates of animals from 30-gram mice to 600-kilogram steers and discovered one of biology's most fundamental...
Boeing versus Airbus: The Inside Story of the Greatest International Competition in Business
Newhouse's account of the Boeing-Airbus duopoly shows how competitive equilibrium stabilizes in concentrated industries. The book documents how produc...
Breath-holding and its breakpoint
Research demonstrating limits of voluntary override in hybrid respiratory control - chemoreceptor feedback eventually forces involuntary breathing, il...
Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation
Definitive account of Lego's crisis (2003-2004) and regeneration under CEO Jørgen Vig Knudstorp. Documents the diversification failures (theme parks,...
Bristlecone pine, oldest known living thing
Original discovery documentation of 4,800+ year old bristlecone pines in the White Mountains of California. Schulman's discovery revolutionized unders...
Butterflies and plants: A study in coevolution
This foundational paper introduced the concept of escape-and-radiate co-evolution, fundamentally changing how biologists understand the reciprocal evo...
CALERIE (Comprehensive Assessment of Long-term Effects of Reducing Intake of Energy)
CALERIE is the first controlled human trial of caloric restriction, though limited to 2 years. It provides direct evidence that CR mechanisms operate...
Calving Processes and the Dynamics of Calving Glaciers
Comprehensive scientific review of fracture mechanics and stress thresholds in glacier calving. Provides the technical foundation for understanding ho...
Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy
Introduces 'creative destruction' concept - how capitalism evolves through the extinction of old firms and business models, replaced by innovative ent...
Carillion: Joint Report of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Work and Pensions Committees
Parliamentary investigation into Carillion's collapse documenting aggressive accounting, underbidding on contracts, £2 billion owed to 30,000 supplier...
Cell Biology by the Numbers
This authoritative reference provides the quantitative foundation for understanding cell membranes. When the chapter states that cell membranes are 7-...
Cellular control of the synthesis and activity of the bacterial luminescent system
Kenneth Nealson's 1970 discovery fundamentally changed how we understand bacterial life. Studying Vibrio fischeri - bacteria that live in squid light...
Challenges in the quest for keystones
This comprehensive review by leading ecologists (including Paine himself) established rigorous criteria for identifying keystone species and distingui...
Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Filing
Official bankruptcy filing documenting Marvel's $700 million debt and providing the legal framework that enabled strategic hibernation. Chapter 11 ser...
Chemical Oscillations, Waves, and Turbulence
Kuramoto's mathematical model of coupled oscillators provides rigorous foundations for understanding synchronization as an emergent phenomenon. The mo...
Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes
This foundational 6-year observational study at Arnhem Zoo established that primate leadership is fundamentally political, not purely physical. De Waa...
Circadian rhythms in drinking behavior and locomotor activity of rats are eliminated by hypothalamic lesions
Published simultaneously with Moore & Eichler's work, this study independently confirmed that SCN lesions eliminate circadian rhythms. Stephan and Zuc...
Cleaner Fish Labroides dimidiatus Manipulate Client Reef Fish by Providing Tactile Stimulation
This foundational research on cleaner fish mutualism reveals that cooperation between potential predators and prey is maintained through sophisticated...
Clonal dynamics in western North American aspen (Populus tremuloides)
Genetic analysis establishing Pando aspen colony age at 10,000-40,000 years, making it one of Earth's oldest and largest organisms. The research demon...
Collective dynamics of 'small-world' networks
Landmark paper that revolutionized network science by discovering that most real-world networks - from social connections to neural circuits to power...
Columbia Glacier Photographic Collection
Documents the 20km retreat of Columbia Glacier from 1980-2020, providing the empirical foundation for the chapter's central biological metaphor. The p...
Community structure, population control, and competition
This influential paper proposed the 'green world hypothesis': predators control herbivore populations, allowing vegetation to flourish. The HSS paper...
Comparative Analysis of Gene Expression for Convergent Evolution of Camera Eye Between Octopus and Human
Molecular analysis revealing that 1,019 of 1,052 genes expressed in octopus eyes were present in the common bilaterian ancestor. This suggests deep co...
Comparing tropical forest tree size distributions with the predictions of metabolic ecology and equilibrium models
Analyzes forest tree size distributions across multiple tropical forests, finding variation in distributional form (power law, log-normal, Weibull) de...
Concepts and terminology of apical dominance
Foundational research on auxin-cytokinin regulation explaining why dormant buds activate when terminal growth is removed. Cline's work explains the ho...
Consequences of the Allee Effect for Behaviour, Ecology and Conservation
Defines and reviews Allee effects - positive density dependence where fitness declines as population size decreases below critical thresholds, creatin...
Contingency and Determinism in Replicated Adaptive Radiations of Island Lizards
Landmark paper demonstrating that Caribbean anole radiations on different islands independently evolved similar sets of ecomorphs, suggesting ecologic...
Convergent Sequence Evolution Between Echolocating Bats and Dolphins
Discovered that the hearing gene Prestin shows convergent amino acid substitutions in echolocating bats and dolphins - the same molecular solutions to...
Cooperation and conflict in quorum-sensing bacterial populations
This paper applied evolutionary game theory to quorum sensing, demonstrating that cheaters (bacteria that don't produce autoinducers but benefit from...
Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2021
Documents TSMC's workforce of 75,000+ engineers, 5-7% annual attrition rate (versus 15-20% semiconductor industry average), and talent retention strat...
Cours d'économie politique
Original observation that approximately 80% of Italy's land was owned by 20% of the population. Pareto proposed the mathematical formula for income di...
Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
This influential design philosophy applies biological nutrient cycling principles to industrial materials and products. The authors distinguish 'biolo...
Creative Destruction: Why Companies That Are Built to Last Underperform the Market - and How to Successfully Transform Them
Documents accelerating corporate extinction rates: S&P 500 company average lifespan declining from 60+ years to ~20 years. Analyzes why operational ex...
Cross-kingdom signaling: exploitation of bacterial quorum sensing molecules by the green seaweed Ulva
This paper demonstrated that quorum sensing is not just intraspecies communication - other organisms can eavesdrop on and respond to bacterial signals...
Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers
Technology adoption lifecycle framework that maps to succession stages. Moore's 'chasm' between early adopters and mainstream corresponds to the Pione...
Cuckoos, Cowbirds and Other Cheats
Comprehensive review of brood parasitism showing evolutionary arms race between parasites and hosts. Demonstrates how deception systems evolve and the...
Daily torpor and hibernation in birds and mammals
This comprehensive review established the spectrum of metabolic suppression strategies from daily torpor to deep hibernation, articulating the fundame...
Darcin: a male pheromone that stimulates female memory and sexual attraction to an individual male's odour
This research revealed that a single urinary protein (darcin) triggers both immediate attraction and long-term spatial memory formation in female mice...
Deception by flexible alarm mimicry in an African bird
Fork-tailed drongos are thieves with an extraordinary strategy: they mimic the alarm calls of meerkats and other species, triggering panic that lets t...
Decomposition in Terrestrial Ecosystems
This classic textbook synthesized decomposition biology including the cascade of decomposer organisms from scavengers to mineralizers. It established...
Deep Water: The Gulf Oil Disaster and the Future of Offshore Drilling
The official investigation into the Deepwater Horizon disaster identified alarm system failures as contributing causes. The report documented how gas...
Defective repair replication of DNA in xeroderma pigmentosum
Discovery linking xeroderma pigmentosum to nucleotide excision repair defects, demonstrating consequences of impaired DNA repair redundancy. Patients...
Depth of roots in soil
This research documented the extreme depths that taproots can reach, including the famous mesquite tree taproot that extended 53 meters (175 feet) to...
Design Rules: The Power of Modularity
This comprehensive treatment of modularity in product design and industry structure is foundational for understanding modular architectures in busines...
Design Structure Matrix Methods and Applications
This book provides methods for mapping organizational and product interactions to identify modular boundaries. Design Structure Matrices (DSM) visuali...
Developmental basis of limblessness and axial patterning in snakes
This paper demonstrates how snake body plans evolved through changes in Hox gene expression patterns rather than changes to the Hox genes themselves....
Dictyostelium: Evolution, Cell Biology, and the Development of Multicellularity
Foundational text on the cellular slime mold Dictyostelium discoideum, which serves as the chapter's opening example of distributed control architectu...
Die Riechschwelle des Seidenspinners
This foundational research demonstrated that male silk moths can detect single molecules of the sex pheromone bombykol, representing the extreme sensi...
Die Stoffbewegungen in der Pflanze (Material Movement in Plants)
Münch's pressure flow hypothesis explained how phloem transports sugars bidirectionally through plants - a mechanism fundamentally different from pass...
Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Relating to Two New Sciences
First articulation of the square-cube law and its implications for animal scaling. Galileo demonstrated that giant animals couldn't simply be scaled-u...
Discovery of daf-2 Insulin/IGF-1 Pathway in C. elegans Aging
Cynthia Kenyon's discovery that mutations in the daf-2 gene (insulin/IGF-1 receptor) could double C. elegans lifespan revolutionized aging research. T...
Disruption, disintegration and the dissipation of differentiability
This paper analyzes how modular architectures evolve over industry lifecycles and affect competitive dynamics. The authors show that as industries mat...
Distributed Attention and Shared Emotions in the Innovation Process: How Nokia Lost the Smartphone Battle
Academic analysis of Nokia's decline from 50% smartphone market share in 2007 to below 3% by 2013. Documents how distributed decision-making authority...
Diversification's Effect on Firm Value
Landmark academic study quantifying the diversification discount at 13-15%. Provides empirical foundation for understanding why conglomerates trade be...
DNA Replication Fidelity
This paper provides detailed analysis of the molecular mechanisms ensuring DNA replication fidelity. It documents the multiple layers of error correct...
Do stocks outperform Treasury bills?
Demonstrates extreme concentration in stock market wealth creation - just 4% of listed stocks accounted for ALL net wealth creation above Treasury bil...
Do Trees Talk to Each Other?
This accessible summary of Suzanne Simard's research on mycorrhizal networks documents the 'wood wide web' - fungal networks that connect trees across...
Douglas Fir Seedling Survival Studies
Documents that of 1,000 Douglas fir seeds that germinate in a forest, fewer than 5 survive to reproductive age (40-50 years). This 99.5% mortality rat...
Drastic Population Fluctuations Explain the Rapid Extinction of the Passenger Pigeon
Genetic analysis revealing passenger pigeons had low genetic diversity despite enormous population size, making them vulnerable to population collapse...
Duet-splitting and the evolution of gibbon songs
Geissmann's comprehensive review of gibbon vocal behavior documented how gibbons coordinate elaborate duets for territorial defense and pair bonding....
Ecological and evolutionary traps
Introduced the concept of evolutionary traps - situations where environmental change causes organisms to make maladaptive choices based on formerly re...
Ecological novelty and the emergence of evolutionary traps
Extends evolutionary trap theory to understand how rapid environmental change creates traps. Distinguishes between traps caused by novel cues (new sti...
Ecological Responses to the 1980 Eruption of Mount St. Helens
Comprehensive 25-year synthesis of interdisciplinary research on ecological recovery following the Mount St. Helens eruption. This work documents the...
Ecological traps in changing environments: Ecological and evolutionary consequences of a behaviourally mediated Allee effect
Models how ecological traps can cause population-level consequences through behavioral mechanisms. Shows how individually rational choices can lead to...
Ecology of desert plants. II. The effect of rain and temperature on germination and growth
This classic study established how desert plants filter environmental noise from signal through sophisticated rainfall sensing. Desert seeds don't ger...
Effective leadership and decision-making in animal groups on the move
This seminal Nature paper demonstrated how temporary, information-based leadership emerges in animal groups without permanent hierarchies. Using golde...
Effects of ambient temperature on metabolic rate, respiratory quotient, and torpor in an arctic hibernator
This paper quantified the mortality rates of deep hibernators, establishing the 3-8% winter mortality figure that demonstrates the restart risk trade-...
Effects of Salmon-Derived Nitrogen on Riparian Forest Growth and Implications for Stream Productivity
This foundational study establishes the scientific basis for the salmon-forest keystone species example that opens Chapter 8. The research documents t...
Elements of Physical Biology
This foundational work established the mathematical treatment of predator-prey population dynamics, creating equations showing how coupled populations...
Elephant Seal Genetic Variation and the Use of Simulation Models to Investigate Historical Population Bottlenecks
Documents the severe genetic bottleneck in northern elephant seals, hunted to approximately 20 individuals by 1892. Despite recovery to over 200,000 i...
Ellis-van Creveld Syndrome and the Amish
Classic paper documenting the founder effect for Ellis-van Creveld syndrome in the Lancaster County Amish. The condition occurs in 1 in 200 births (ve...
Emergence of Scaling in Random Networks
Why do a few websites get billions of visitors while most get dozens? Barabási and Albert's 1999 Science paper discovered that real networks - from th...
Energy maximization in the diet of the shore crab, Carcinus maenas
Elner and Hughes provided the empirical demonstration that shore crabs optimize mussel selection exactly as optimal foraging theory predicts. Their de...
Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch, and the Transformation of World Food Production
This definitive history explains how the Haber-Bosch process for converting atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia enabled 20th century population growth by...
Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
Sheldrake's book provides broader context for understanding fungi as Earth's hidden infrastructure - connecting ecosystems, decomposing matter, and en...
Epigenetics: Tales of Adversity
This Nature overview synthesizes the Dutch Hunger Winter studies and their broader implications for understanding transgenerational epigenetic inherit...
Epiphyseal Plate
Comprehensive overview of growth plate biology including meristem function in plants and epiphyseal plate function in animals. Documents closure timin...
Equal numbers of neuronal and nonneuronal cells make the human brain an isometrically scaled-up primate brain
Established that the human brain contains approximately 86 billion neurons using the isotropic fractionator method, revising earlier estimates that ra...
Estimates of the Magnitudes of Major Marine Mass Extinctions in Earth History
Updated statistical analysis of extinction magnitudes, estimating End-Permian species-level extinction at ~81% (from genus-level data) and providing r...
Evidence for Endosymbiosis
This educational resource documents multiple lines of evidence for endosymbiotic theory: mitochondria and chloroplasts have their own DNA, divide inde...
Evolution and revolution as organizations grow
Greiner's model of organizational growth stages shows how companies hit predictable crises as they scale. Each growth phase ends in a crisis that requ...
Evolution in Mendelian Populations
Sewall Wright's 1931 paper laid the mathematical foundation for understanding how genes flow between populations and how population size affects evolu...
Evolution of ageing
Kirkwood's disposable soma theory reframes aging from biological defect to strategic resource allocation. The insight that organisms invest just enoug...
Evolution of lactase persistence: an example of human niche construction
Detailed case study of lactase persistence as gene-culture coevolution. Dairy farming (behavioral niche construction) created selection pressure for a...
Evolution of the Brain and Intelligence
Established the encephalization quotient methodology for comparing brain sizes across species. Documents human EQ of ~7-8, meaning human brains are 7-...
Evolutionary consequences of niche construction and their implications for ecology
Early theoretical paper establishing that niche construction has evolutionary consequences distinct from natural selection. Shows mathematically how e...
Evolutionary diversification of TTX-resistant sodium channels in a predator-prey interaction
This molecular-level analysis revealed the precise genetic mechanisms underlying snake resistance to newt toxin - amino acid substitutions in voltage-...
Evolutionary Rate at the Molecular Level
The landmark paper introducing the neutral theory of molecular evolution. Kimura argued that most mutations at the molecular level are selectively neu...
Evolving responsively: adaptive mutation
This foundational paper challenges the textbook view that mutations are purely random, clock-like events occurring at constant rates regardless of env...
Experimental evidence for tipping points in social convention
This paper provided experimental evidence that social conventions can shift suddenly when committed minorities reach a critical threshold (~25% of pop...
Experimentally induced life-history evolution in a natural population
Reznick's Trinidad guppy experiments provide the most famous empirical demonstration of life history trade-offs and rapid evolution of allocation stra...
Exploitation of herbivore-induced plant odors by host-seeking parasitic wasps
This research demonstrated that plants actively recruit predators of their attackers through chemical signaling - releasing specific volatile compound...
Extraterrestrial Cause for the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction
The foundational paper proposing asteroid impact as the cause of the K-Pg extinction, based on anomalous iridium concentrations 600x above background...
Extreme Bradycardia and Tachycardia in the World's Largest Animal
This groundbreaking study provided the first direct measurements of blue whale heart rates in the wild. The researchers found heart rates of 4-8 beats...
Failure to launch: Critical mass in platform businesses
This paper analyzed why many platform businesses fail to achieve critical mass, despite having viable products. Evans and Schmalensee showed that two-...
Female baboon coalition formation and reciprocity
Joan Silk's 30-year study of baboon female coalitions provides crucial evidence for reciprocity tracking in primate coalitions. Unlike male chimpanzee...
Female Mate Choice Based on Carotenoid-Based Male Plumage Coloration
Foundational research on house finches demonstrating that carotenoid-based plumage coloration serves as an honest signal of male quality. Brighter mal...
Final Report on the August 14, 2003 Blackout in the United States and Canada: Causes and Recommendations
Definitive analysis of the 2003 Northeast blackout affecting 55 million people. Demonstrates how cascading failures can overwhelm supposedly redundant...
Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest
Simard's book synthesizes decades of mycorrhizal network research into an accessible narrative, popularizing the 'Wood Wide Web' concept and mother tr...
Fire as an evolutionary pressure shaping plant traits
Foundational research on fire-adapted regeneration mechanisms including serotiny (sealed cones requiring fire to open) and lignotubers (underground bu...
Fire: A Brief History
Historical analysis of fire suppression policy in US forests and its catastrophic consequences. Pyne documents how preventing small fires for 80+ year...
Firm Advises, Helps Fund Amazon's Stunning $13.7 Billion Acquisition of Whole Foods
Investment bank perspective on the Amazon-Whole Foods deal structure. Notes that within six weeks of initial discussions, the deal was announced and w...
Flocks, herds and schools: A distributed behavioral model
How do thousands of birds coordinate perfectly without a leader? Craig Reynolds' 1987 Boids simulation proved that no leader is necessary. He programm...
Food Hoarding in Animals
This comprehensive treatise on food hoarding behavior across animal species provides the foundational framework for understanding storage strategies i...
Food web complexity and community dynamics
This critical review challenges the notion that ecosystems are neatly organized into discrete trophic levels. Real food webs are continuous networks w...
Food web complexity and species diversity
This foundational paper describes the Pisaster starfish removal experiment that established the keystone species concept. Paine demonstrated that remo...
Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
Introduces the concept of the 'narrative fallacy' - our tendency to construct causal stories for outcomes determined largely by random sampling. Argue...
Foraging Theory
Stephens and Krebs wrote the definitive textbook synthesizing optimal foraging theory. This comprehensive work integrated the scattered literature int...
Form 10-K Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2002
This SEC filing provides primary source documentation of Blockbuster at its peak: record revenues of $5.57 billion in 2002, over 8,500 stores worldwid...
Fourth Quarter and FY 2024 Results
Reports consolidated revenue of approximately $220 billion with over 260,000 employees across 74 countries. Demonstrates square-cube law challenges: c...
Fractals
Feder's textbook provided comprehensive mathematical treatment of fractal measurement, including the box-counting method for calculating fractal dimen...
Freeze avoidance in a mammal: body temperatures below 0°C in an Arctic hibernator
This groundbreaking paper documented that Arctic ground squirrels can supercool their bodies to -2.9°C - below freezing - without ice formation. This...
Frequency-dependent Batesian mimicry
Demonstrates that Batesian mimicry effectiveness depends on mimic-to-model ratio. When mimics become too common, predators learn to ignore warning sig...
From mouse to whale: A universal scaling relation for the PR interval of the electrocardiogram of mammals
Confirms heart rate scaling as mass^-0.25 across mammals and establishes that lifetime heartbeats are approximately constant (~1.5 billion) regardless...
From superstorms to factory fires: Managing unpredictable supply-chain disruptions
This article provides a framework for supply chain risk management and discusses Toyota's post-2011 supply chain visibility improvements. The authors...
G is for Google
Official announcement of Google's restructuring into Alphabet, creating the holding company structure with separated Google core and Other Bets. Demon...
Gene Flow in Natural Populations
Comprehensive empirical review validating the Nm = 1 threshold across species. Documented how marine organisms with high larval dispersal show less lo...
Gene Up-Regulation in Response to Predator Kairomones in the Water Flea, Daphnia pulex
This detailed molecular analysis shows how environmental chemical signals trigger gene expression changes that produce defensive morphology in Daphnia...
Genetic Basis of Total Colourblindness Among the Pingelapese Islanders
Identifies the CNGB3 gene mutation causing achromatopsia in the Pingelapese population of Micronesia. The condition affects 6-10% of the population (v...
Genetic Evidence for High-Altitude Adaptation in Tibet
Identified EPAS1 as the strongest signal of natural selection in Tibetan genomes, explaining their blunted hemoglobin response to high altitude. Tibet...
Genetic Restoration of the Florida Panther
Documents the 1995 genetic rescue of the Florida panther, demonstrating that calibrated gene flow (8 Texas pumas into 25-30 Florida panthers = 32% mig...
Genetic Traces of Ancient Demography
Estimates human effective population size at approximately 10,000 based on genetic diversity patterns. Discusses the population bottleneck around 70,0...
Genome-Wide Signatures of Convergent Evolution in Echolocating Mammals
Expanded molecular convergence analysis to entire genomes, finding 200+ genes with convergent changes in echolocating bats and dolphins. Many were rel...
Germination and seedling establishment in orchids: A complex of requirements
This review explains the extreme germination strategy of orchids - the smallest seeds in nature, lacking endosperm and requiring mycorrhizal fungi par...
Germination, genetics, and growth of an ancient date seed
This landmark study documents the germination of a 2,000-year-old date palm seed from Masada, Israel - the oldest viable seed ever germinated. The res...
Global Smartphone Revenue Market Share Q4 2024
This industry analyst data documents the striking disparity between Apple's unit market share (~17-27%) and their revenue capture (46% of global smart...
Going green to be seen: Status, reputation, and conspicuous conservation
Demonstrates costly signaling in human prosocial behavior - people choose less luxurious green products to signal status and prosociality. Direct appl...
Golden-winged Sunbird Territorial Economics Studies
Empirical demonstration of resource-defense threshold with precise caloric accounting. Gill's tracking of 47 sunbirds over 3 years across different fl...
Goodbye Pareto principle, hello long tail: The effect of search costs on the concentration of product sales
Academic analysis of how reduced search costs affect sales concentration in online markets. Provides empirical evidence on long tail dynamics showing...
Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck - Why Some Thrive Despite Them All
Introduces 'Return on Luck' concept: successful companies don't experience more luck events but get higher returns on the luck they experience. When a...
Grizzly bears and black bears prevent trabecular bone loss during disuse (hibernation)
This research demonstrated that bears prevent bone loss during months of immobility - a phenomenon that defies normal physiology and is being studied...
Groupon Announces Pricing of Initial Public Offering
Primary source for Groupon's IPO pricing at $20/share, valuing the company at $12.7 billion - the largest internet IPO since Google in 2004. The subse...
Groupon Prices Its IPO At A $12.7B Valuation, Has A Lot To Prove
Contemporary analysis documenting Groupon's expansion to 43 countries with 83 million email subscribers and 7,000 employees. The article's skeptical t...
Growth Plates: What You Need to Know
Orthopedic surgeon documenting that growth plates (epiphyseal plates) typically close at ages 14-16 for girls and 16-19 for boys. Height increase stop...
Growth, innovation, scaling, and the pace of life in cities
Extends biological scaling theory to urban systems, demonstrating that cities exhibit both sublinear scaling (infrastructure, β≈0.85) and superlinear...
Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-Based Management
Documents how management practices diffuse across organizations through talent mobility, consulting, and industry benchmarking - creating convergence...
Heart Rate Patterns of Captive Asian Elephant in Their Natural Habitat
This study documented elephant cardiac function, confirming the low metabolic rate predicted by Kleiber's Law for large mammals. With heart rates aver...
Hedging One's Evolutionary Bets, Revisited
This paper provides the foundational theoretical treatment of bet-hedging strategies in evolutionary biology, explaining how organisms maximize long-t...
Hibernation and seasonal fasting in bears: the energetic costs and consequences for polar bears
How much does hibernation cost? Robbins' 2012 study quantified the energetics of bear hibernation and the fitness consequences of inadequate reserves....
Hibernation in black bears: independence of metabolic suppression from body temperature
Bears do hibernation differently. Tøien's landmark 2011 Science paper revealed that black bears achieve 75% metabolic suppression with only modest tem...
Hierarchical Control and Optimum Firm Size
Williamson's economic analysis showed that hierarchical organizations face diminishing returns to scale due to information loss and control problems a...
High frequency of hypermutable Pseudomonas aeruginosa in cystic fibrosis lung infection
This landmark study demonstrated that 20-40% of Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains in cystic fibrosis lungs are hypermutators with defective DNA repair ge...
High-Precision Timeline for Earth's Most Severe Extinction
High-resolution dating showing the main End-Permian extinction pulse occurred in less than 60,000 years - remarkably rapid by geological standards. Li...
Hormesis
This overview documents the history and modern understanding of hormesis, from Schulz's original observations through the 1943 coining of the term by...
Hormesis: Why It Is Important to Toxicology and Toxicologists
This comprehensive history traces hormesis from Hugo Schulz's 1888 discovery that low doses of poisons stimulated yeast growth, through the concept's...
How and Why Species Multiply: The Radiation of Darwin's Finches
Comprehensive account of Darwin's finch radiation based on four decades of field research by the Grants. Documents the approximately 18 species that d...
How Blockbuster Failed at Failing
Analysis of Blockbuster's failed regeneration attempt (2004-2010) from business journalism perspective. Documents the strategic responses to Netflix d...
How culture shaped the human genome: bringing genetics and the human sciences together
Reviews evidence for gene-culture coevolution in humans, showing how cultural practices (agriculture, dairy farming, cooking) have shaped human geneti...
How Earth's atmosphere evolved to an oxic state: A status report
Reviews evidence for atmospheric evolution and the role of biological processes in transforming Earth's atmosphere. Connects geological and biological...
How Lego Became the Apple of Toys
Follow-up analysis of Lego's regeneration showing sustained success through 2014 market leadership. Documents the continuation of core focus strategy...
How Long Is the Coast of Britain? Statistical Self-Similarity and Fractional Dimension
Mandelbrot's seminal paper introduced the concept that natural structures exhibit self-similarity across scales and can have non-integer dimensions. B...
How Marissa Mayer Created Google's School for Young 'Superheroes'
First-hand account of Google's Associate Product Manager (APM) program created by Marissa Mayer in 2002. Documents the 'stem cell' hiring strategy - r...
How Netflix Corrected Its Mistake Called Qwikster
Analysis of Netflix's rapid course correction - sensing customer feedback signals through sentiment tracking, cancellation rates, and stock price, the...
How Warren Buffett Built a $500 Billion Company on the Basis of Trust
Documents Berkshire's 'delegation just short of abdication' model where subsidiary CEOs have complete operational authority and headquarters employs f...
Human alteration of the global nitrogen cycle: sources and consequences
Humans have fundamentally broken one of Earth's essential cycles. Peter Vitousek's landmark 1997 synthesis documented that industrial nitrogen fixatio...
Hydraulic limits to tree height and tree growth
Ryan and Yoder's review synthesized evidence for hydraulic limitation as the primary constraint on tree height. Their work showed that trees slow grow...
Image scoring and cooperation in a cleaner fish mutualism
This research provides experimental evidence that cleaner fish (Labroides dimidiatus) adjust service quality based on reputation effects, demonstratin...
Immunity through DNA deamination
This paper explains somatic hypermutation in immune B cells - a controlled, targeted form of increased mutation that generates antibody diversity. It...
Immunological function of the thymus
This foundational paper opens the chapter by revealing that what appeared redundant (the thymus, which atrophies after puberty) was actually essential...
In the Matter of Knight Capital Americas LLC: Order Instituting Administrative and Cease-and-Desist Proceedings
Official SEC findings on Knight Capital's August 2012 software failure causing $440 million loss in 45 minutes. Demonstrates that redundancy adds comp...
Industry Life Cycles
Empirical research on industry evolution patterns showing predictable shakeout phases where many competitors consolidate to few. Provides quantitative...
Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy
Seminal analysis of network effects, standards battles, and winner-take-all dynamics in digital markets. Provides strategic framework for understandin...
Information transfer and behavioural inertia in starling flocks
This study measured how information (like directional changes) propagates through starling flocks. Turning waves travel at 20-30 meters per second - f...
Interaction ruling animal collective behavior depends on topological rather than metric distance: Evidence from a field study of starling flocks
Why don't starling flocks fragment at low density or become chaotic at high density? Ballerini's field study of wild starling flocks in Rome made a cr...
Interview with Tim Ferriss
First-hand account from Marvel Studios architect David Maisel on the 2005 bet-the-company decision. Maisel details the $525M credit facility negotiati...
Interviews and Kodak Archives
First-hand accounts of the 1975 digital camera invention at Kodak and the 1976 executive demonstration. Documents the 'that's cute - but don't tell an...
Investigation Report: Refinery Explosion and Fire (15 Killed, 180 Injured)
Investigation of 2005 Texas City refinery explosion revealing systemic problems rooted in excessive decentralization - inadequate corporate oversight,...
iPod Discontinuation Announcements
Chronicles iPod line discontinuation: Classic in 2014, Shuffle and Nano in 2017, Touch in 2022. Total lifetime sales exceeded 450 million units, but A...
Isolation by Distance
Extended population genetics theory to continuous geographic distributions. Demonstrated that limited dispersal creates genetic differentiation even w...
Job market signaling
Nobel Prize-winning paper applying signaling theory to economics. Shows how education functions as a costly signal of ability in job markets, even if...
Joining Forces: Making One Plus One Equal Three in Mergers, Acquisitions, and Alliances
Evidence-based framework for managing post-merger integration. Documents cultural clash dynamics when acquiring company imposes processes on acquired...
Keystone Interactions: Salmon and Bear in Riparian Forests of Alaska
This research adds crucial nuance to the salmon-forest story: nitrogen influx to forests increases significantly only when both salmon AND bears are p...
Kodak
Comprehensive corporate history documenting: 1975 digital camera invention, 70% profit dependency on film, 2012 bankruptcy filing. Illustrates how inc...
Landscape patterns of sapling density, leaf area, and aboveground net primary production in postfire lodgepole pine forests, Yellowstone National Park
This long-term study documented recovery trajectories and productivity increases following the 1988 Yellowstone fires, providing evidence that the 'de...
Large predators and biogeochemical hotspots: brown bear (Ursus arctos) predation on salmon alters nitrogen cycling in riparian soils
This research expanded understanding of salmon-derived nutrient cycling by examining the role of bears in distributing marine-derived nutrients throug...
Lead and Disrupt: How to Solve the Innovator's Dilemma
Framework for organizational ambidexterity - simultaneously exploiting existing businesses while exploring new ones. Argues that structural separation...
Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman
Chouinard's account of founding Chouinard Equipment and Patagonia. Details the 1972 decision to discontinue pitons despite comprising 70% of revenue,...
Life History Invariants: Some Explorations of Symmetry in Evolutionary Ecology
Charnov's work formalized life history theory, establishing the mathematical framework for understanding energy allocation trade-offs that underlies t...
Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe
Conway Morris argues that convergent evolution is pervasive and predictable - the same solutions arise repeatedly because the fitness landscape has a...
Living at the Physiological Limits: Field and Maximum Metabolic Rates of the Common Shrew
This research documented the extreme metabolic demands of shrews - the highest mass-specific field metabolic rate in mammals. Shrews must eat 150-200%...
Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree: Ecology and Adaptive Radiation of Anoles
Definitive monograph on anole adaptive radiation. Documents how anoles on each Greater Antilles island independently evolved the same six 'ecomorphs'...
Long-term Caloric Restriction Studies in Rhesus Monkeys
These 30+ year studies provide the strongest evidence that caloric restriction benefits extend to primates - and potentially humans. The Wisconsin stu...
Long-term spatial memory in Clark's nutcracker
This research demonstrates the extraordinary spatial memory capabilities of Clark's nutcrackers, achieving 90-95% cache recovery rates across thousand...
Long-term Wolf Territorial Studies
Long-term territorial studies providing data on wolf pack territory scaling, intrusion frequency, and defense costs. The logarithmic scaling problem (...
Loss of a circadian adrenal corticosterone rhythm following suprachiasmatic lesions in the rat
One of two independent 1972 studies that first identified the suprachiasmatic nucleus as essential for circadian rhythms. Moore and Eichler showed tha...
M-Pesa
This comprehensive history documents M-Pesa's launch in March 2007, its rapid adoption reaching 70% of Kenyan adults by 2011, and transaction volumes...
Machiavellian Intelligence: Social Expertise and the Evolution of Intellect in Monkeys, Apes, and Humans
Byrne and Whiten's work on Machiavellian intelligence provides the theoretical framework for understanding the cognitive complexity required for coali...
Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule
This influential essay articulated a framework that transformed how tech companies think about time allocation. Graham identified two fundamentally in...
Making Silicon Valley: Innovation and the Growth of High Tech, 1930-1970
This historical account documents how thirty-one companies spun out of Fairchild Semiconductor between 1965-1970, creating the foundation of Silicon V...
Mammalian hibernation: cellular and molecular responses to depressed metabolism and low temperature
This comprehensive review established the foundational understanding that hibernation is controlled metabolic suppression at the cellular and molecula...
Managing the Risks of Organizational Accidents
Framework for understanding redundancy in high-reliability organizations including aviation. Reason's 'Swiss cheese model' of accident causation expla...
Managing the Unexpected: Resilient Performance in an Age of Uncertainty
High-reliability organization principles including redundancy design. Weick and Sutcliffe's research on organizations that operate under high-stakes c...
Mantis Shrimp Vision and Visual Communication
Research establishing that mantis shrimp possess 16 color receptors and can see polarized light, forming the basis for understanding their meral sprea...
Marissa Mayer
Background on Mayer as Google's 20th employee and first female engineer, who started the APM program in 2002 after recognizing a gap between product t...
Marketing Lessons: Whatever Happened to Starbucks?
Academic analysis from UNSW researchers documenting Starbucks' expansion strategy error: 'They launched too rapidly and didn't give the Australian con...
Marvel Studios: The Architecture of a Cinematic Universe
Comprehensive analysis of Marvel's bankruptcy (1996) to Disney acquisition (2009) trajectory. Documents the regeneration timeline, character licensing...
Mass Extinctions in the Marine Fossil Record
The landmark paper that identified and quantified the 'Big Five' mass extinctions in Earth's history based on marine fossil diversity. This research e...
Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation
Framework for understanding how industries evolve through distinct phases toward 'dominant design' - the industry standard that ends experimentation a...
Mate selection - a selection for a handicap
Why do peacocks waste energy growing enormous tails that make them easier to catch? Amotz Zahavi's 1975 handicap principle revolutionized understandin...
Matriarchs as repositories of social knowledge in African elephants
This landmark study demonstrated empirically that older elephant matriarchs serve as repositories of social knowledge critical for group survival. Gro...
Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs
Definitive account of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), documenting how Andy Grove developed the framework at Intel in the 1970s and how Doerr introd...
Mechanisms of DNA damage, repair, and mutagenesis
Comprehensive review of DNA repair pathways demonstrating redundant repair mechanisms. The paper explains how multiple overlapping pathways (BER, NER,...
Mechanisms of Succession in Natural Communities and Their Role in Community Stability and Organization
Landmark paper that distinguished facilitation (early species enable later species) from inhibition (early species prevent later species) as successio...
Mesopredator release and avifaunal extinctions in a fragmented system
This paper demonstrated how removing top predators causes explosion of medium-sized predators, increasing predation pressure on small prey. The mesopr...
Metabolites: a helping hand for pathway evolution?
This paper examines modularity in metabolic pathways and reveals important limitations - shared metabolites create interdependencies that complicate t...
Metapopulation Ecology
Comprehensive treatment of metapopulation theory with detailed case studies including the checkerspot butterfly. Documents how local populations on se...
Micromotives and Macrobehavior
Schelling's influential book explored how individual behaviors aggregate into collective patterns, including tipping points and coordination games. Hi...
Mobile Money: The Economics of M-PESA
This academic analysis of M-Pesa economics provides rigorous evidence that mobile money adoption significantly increased financial inclusion in Kenya,...
Mobile Payments Go Viral: M-PESA in Kenya
This World Bank analysis documents M-Pesa's explosive growth trajectory and analyzes the agent network as critical symbiotic infrastructure. The paper...
Models, Mechanisms and Pathways of Succession
Modern synthesis of succession theory that moved beyond Clements' deterministic view to incorporate multiple pathways and mechanisms. Important for un...
Modularity, flexibility, and knowledge management in product and organization design
This paper links product modularity to organizational modularity, arguing that modular products enable modular organizations. The authors show that th...
Molecular Biology of the Cell
How does a cell detect a single molecule of hormone in a bloodstream containing trillions of molecules? Alberts' Molecular Biology of the Cell documen...
Monarch Butterfly Multi-Generational Migration
Documents unique multi-generational relay migration - 3,000 miles across 4 generations with no individual completing the loop. Generation 4 'super gen...
Monkey responses to three different alarm calls: evidence of predator classification and semantic communication
This landmark study demonstrated that vervet monkeys have referential alarm calls - vocalizations that function like words, referring to specific exte...
Morphometry of the Human Lung
Weibel's detailed morphometric analysis of human lung structure documented the fractal branching of the bronchial tree - 23 generations of airway bran...
Multiple Causes of High Extinction Risk in Large Mammal Species
Quantifies extinction risk factors in mammals: small geographic range, low population density, slow life history (late maturity, low fecundity), and h...
Mutualism
This comprehensive synthesis of mutualism biology covers evolutionary origins, ecological dynamics, and mechanisms preventing cheater spread. Bronstei...
Mutualistic Cleaner Fish Maintains High Escape Performance Despite Privileged Relationship with Predators
This research shows that cleaner wrasses maintain escape capabilities even when cleaning large predators like groupers, demonstrating that mutualism i...
Mycorrhizal Network
This overview of mycorrhizal symbiosis documents that plants provide up to 30% of photosynthesized carbon to fungal partners in exchange for soil nutr...
Neocortex size as a constraint on group size in primates
Robin Dunbar's research on the relationship between neocortex size and social group limits provides the biological basis for understanding coalition s...
Net transfer of carbon between ectomycorrhizal tree species in the field
Trees are supposed to compete for sunlight, water, and nutrients. Suzanne Simard's 1997 Nature paper proved they also cooperate. Using radioactive car...
Netflix Culture Deck
The original 127-slide presentation that codified Netflix's culture principles and has been viewed over 20 million times. This document demonstrated t...
Netflix Earnings: 800,000 U.S. Subscribers Lost in Q3
Contemporary reporting on Netflix's Q3 2011 earnings call where Hastings acknowledged the Qwikster decision was 'Netflix not listening.' Documents the...
Netflix Loses 800,000 Subscribers After Price Hike, Qwikster Debacle
Primary source documenting the 2011 Netflix Qwikster crisis - 800,000 subscriber loss in Q3 2011 (24.6M to 23.8M), the first quarterly decline in year...
Netflix vs. Blockbuster: Battle Strategies
Analysis of competitive dynamics between Netflix and Blockbuster, documenting why Blockbuster's regeneration attempts failed despite significant inves...
Netflix: Number of Employees 2011-2024
This tracks Netflix's workforce growth from under 2,000 employees in 2010 to approximately 14,000 in 2024. The data supports the chapter's argument th...
Network Science
Free online textbook covering network science fundamentals including small-world and scale-free networks, written by a founder of the field. The open...
Networks: An Introduction
Comprehensive textbook covering network theory from random graphs to scale-free networks, providing the mathematical foundations for anyone wanting to...
Neuronal avalanches in neocortical circuits
Original observation of power law neural avalanche distributions in cortical slice preparations, proposing that brains might operate near critical poi...
Niche Construction: The Neglected Process in Evolution
The foundational text formalizing niche construction theory. Challenges the traditional view of evolution as adaptation to fixed environments, instead...
Nintendo Wii Lifetime Unit Sales Worldwide
Official sales data documenting Nintendo's phenotypic plasticity across console generations: Wii (101.63M units - best-selling home console until Swit...
Nongenetic inheritance and its evolutionary implications
Comprehensive review of inheritance mechanisms beyond DNA, including ecological inheritance, epigenetic inheritance, and cultural inheritance. Provide...
Noninvasive stress and reproductive measures of social and ecological pressures in free-ranging African elephants
This study extended the findings on elephant matriarchs by demonstrating survival advantages during actual drought conditions. Groups with matriarchs...
Not All M&As Are Alike - and That Matters
Analyzes acquisition integration strategies and documents how full integration often destroys the distinctive capabilities that motivated the acquisit...
Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution
Foundational text on gene-culture coevolution. Argues that cultural evolution is a distinct evolutionary process that interacts with genetic evolution...
Nurse Log Establishment in Pacific Northwest Forests
Documents that approximately 70% of western hemlock and 40% of Sitka spruce seedlings establish on nurse logs in old-growth Pacific Northwest forests....
Observations on Tree Branching Patterns
Leonardo da Vinci's observation that 'all the branches of a tree at every stage of its height when put together are equal in thickness to the trunk be...
Ode to Luther Gulick: Span of Control and Organizational Performance
This empirical study examined the relationship between span of control and organizational performance across public sector organizations. The findings...
Okinawa Centenarian Study
Okinawa, Japan has one of the world's highest concentrations of centenarians. Traditional Okinawan diet involves eating until 80% full ('hara hachi bu...
On Being the Right Size
Haldane's classic essay popularized the square-cube law and its implications for biology. His vivid examples (giants collapsing, insects drowning in s...
On growth-accelerating substances in the coleoptile of Avena sativa
Went's discovery of auxin - the plant hormone responsible for phototropic bending - solved the mystery Darwin had identified 46 years earlier. By demo...
On optimal use of a patchy environment
MacArthur and Pianka's paper launched optimal foraging theory as a formal field of study. They established the fundamental premise that organisms shou...
On the Evolution of Photoreceptors and Eyes
This landmark review estimated that eyes have evolved independently at least 40 times across animal phyla, documenting the diversity of eye types (com...
On the Firing Line: My 500 Days at Apple
First-hand account from Apple CEO Gil Amelio documenting the company's near-death state before Steve Jobs' return. Provides crucial context for unders...
On the origin of mitosing cells
This revolutionary paper proposed the endosymbiotic origin of mitochondria and chloroplasts, establishing that mutualism can drive major evolutionary...
On the theory of central place foraging
Orians and Pearson extended optimal foraging theory to situations where organisms must return to a fixed location, fundamentally changing the optimiza...
Open Letter to eBay Shareholders
The catalyst for eBay's controlled spinoff of PayPal. Icahn's letter articulated the conglomerate discount destroying shareholder value and forced the...
Optimal foraging, the marginal value theorem
Charnov's marginal value theorem is the foundational mathematical framework for the entire chapter. It formalizes when organisms should leave a resour...
Optimizing reproduction in a randomly varying environment
Early theoretical work establishing the mathematical foundation for optimal seed germination strategies in variable environments. Cohen's model showed...
Optimizing the success of random searches
Viswanathan et al. proved mathematically that Lévy flight patterns (mostly short moves, occasional long jumps) are optimal for finding sparse, randoml...
Organisms as ecosystem engineers
Introduced the concept of ecosystem engineers - organisms that modify their physical environment in ways that affect resource availability for other s...
Our History
Official corporate history documenting McDonald's growth to over 40,000 restaurants in 100+ countries. This illustrates successful asexual reproductio...
Pacific Salmon and the Ecology of Coastal Ecosystems
This research demonstrated that salmon-derived nutrients can account for 20-40% of the nitrogen in riparian vegetation near spawning streams. The find...
Pacific Salmon Migration and Natal Stream Homing
Documents fatal migration strategy (100% adult mortality after spawning) and philopatry (natal stream homing via olfactory imprinting). Critical for u...
Patagonia's Next Chapter: Earth Is Now Our Only Shareholder
Announcement of the Chouinard family's transfer of Patagonia ownership to the Patagonia Purpose Trust (2% voting stock) and Holdfast Collective nonpro...
Persistent Epigenetic Differences Associated with Prenatal Exposure to Famine in Humans
This landmark study on the Dutch Hunger Winter (1944-45) provides the first empirical evidence that early-life environmental conditions cause persiste...
Perspective: Complex adaptations and the evolution of evolvability
This influential paper defines evolvability and connects it to modularity in genotype-phenotype maps. The authors propose that modular design improves...
Phase 3 Clinical Trial of Investigational Vaccine for COVID-19 Begins
Documents the timeline of mRNA-1273 development: genetic sequence published January 11, 2020; vaccine designed within 2 days; first batch shipped Febr...
Phosphorus cycle: A broken biogeochemical cycle
This analysis reveals the unique fragility of the phosphorus cycle - unlike nitrogen, phosphorus has no atmospheric reservoir and cannot be replenishe...
Photoreceptor Signaling Networks in Plant Responses to Shade
This paper explains how plants integrate signals from multiple photoreceptor types to create a comprehensive picture of their light environment - and...
Phototropin Blue-Light Receptors
This comprehensive review details how phototropin proteins function as the molecular sensors for directional light detection. Phototropins are 'litera...
Phylogenetic distribution and evolution of mycorrhizas in land plants
This research established that mycorrhizal fungi colonize 90% of plant species, demonstrating that the fungal partnership is not an exception but the...
Physiology, Acid Base Balance
This medical reference confirms the narrow tolerances that homeostatic systems maintain. Blood pH must stay at 7.35-7.45 - a deviation of 0.4 is fatal...
Phytochrome and Plant Growth
This foundational text on phytochrome biology explains how plants sense light quality to make developmental decisions. Phytochromes distinguish red li...
Plant Succession: An Analysis of the Development of Vegetation
Frederic Clements' 1916 work established the foundational insight that ecosystems develop through predictable stages, like organisms growing from infa...
Platform Revolution
This book synthesized research on platform economics, providing practical frameworks for building and scaling platform businesses. The authors emphasi...
Population Dynamics of Wolves in North-Central Minnesota
Provided territory size data consistent with wolf pack research across North America, supporting the scaling relationships used in the chapter's analy...
Portfolio Selection
This foundational paper established modern portfolio theory, demonstrating mathematically that diversification reduces risk through imperfect correlat...
Power laws, Pareto distributions and Zipf's law
Accessible introduction to power laws across natural and social systems. Discusses mechanisms generating power law distributions including preferentia...
Power-law distributions in empirical data
Definitive statistical framework for detecting power laws in real data. Provides maximum likelihood estimation methods, goodness-of-fit testing, and l...
Power-law statistics and universal scaling in the absence of criticality
Challenges neural criticality hypothesis by demonstrating that alternative mechanisms (network modularity, sampling bias, specific inhibitory circuit...
Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility
Patty McCord's book expands on the Netflix Culture Deck she created as Chief Talent Officer from 1998-2012. The deck has been viewed over 20 million t...
Prairie Dogs: Communication and Community in an Animal Society
Prairie dogs were thought to have simple alarm calls: one chirp for 'hawk,' another for 'coyote,' generic warnings triggering generic responses. Con S...
Prefire heterogeneity, fire severity, and early postfire plant reestablishment in subalpine forests of Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
This primary research documented the vegetation recovery patterns following the 1988 Yellowstone fires, providing empirical evidence that apparent des...
Primary Succession and Ecosystem Rehabilitation
How does life colonize bare rock after a volcanic eruption? Walker and del Moral's comprehensive synthesis documents the mechanisms of primary success...
Primate Post-Conflict Affiliation and Reconciliation Research
Frans de Waal's pioneering research on primate reconciliation provides the biological foundation for the entire chapter's thesis. His work demonstrate...
Primitive and Definitive Erythropoiesis in Mammals
Documents that approximately 2 million red blood cells enter circulation from bone marrow every second in healthy adults. This establishes the stagger...
Private equity performance: Returns, persistence, and capital flows
Documents extreme dispersion in venture capital returns where top quartile VC firms vastly outperform bottom quartile, demonstrating that skill hetero...
Protein turnover in muscle and liver during hibernation
This research explained one of hibernation's mysteries: how bears maintain muscle mass despite months of immobility. The urea-to-protein recycling mec...
Quorum sensing in bacteria
This foundational review established the core principles of quorum sensing that continue to guide research today. Miller and Bassler articulated how b...
Quorum sensing in bacteria: the LuxR-LuxI family of cell density-responsive transcriptional regulators
This paper provided the original molecular characterization of quorum sensing mechanisms, describing how the LuxR-LuxI system enables bacteria to dete...
Quorum sensing inhibitors: a bargain of effects
This paper reviewed therapeutic strategies for disrupting bacterial quorum sensing (quorum quenching) as an alternative to antibiotics. By interfering...
Quorum sensing: cell-to-cell communication in bacteria
This comprehensive review established the modern understanding of quorum sensing as a fundamental bacterial communication mechanism. Waters and Bassle...
Rapid Adaptive Radiation of Darwin's Finches Depends on Ancestral Genetic Modules
How did 18 species of Darwin's finches diversify in just 1-2 million years - evolutionary blink-of-an-eye speed? This 2022 genetic study revealed the...
Rates of rewarming, heart and respiratory rates and their significance for oxygen transport during arousal from torpor in the smallest mammal, the Etruscan shrew Suncus etruscus
Documents the extreme metabolic demands of the smallest mammal, providing empirical data on how scaling constraints affect the smallest organisms. The...
Ray Kroc
This source documents Ray Kroc's 1961 acquisition of McDonald's from the McDonald brothers for $2.7 million - a sum calculated to deliver $1 million e...
Receptor Sensitivity in Bacterial Chemotaxis
This foundational research on E. coli chemotaxis demonstrates how bacteria navigate using remarkably limited information. The run-and-tumble mechanism...
Reciprocal food sharing in the vampire bat
This landmark study discovered the mechanism behind vampire bat cooperation: individual recognition and memory. Wilkinson demonstrated that bats remem...
Reciprocal rewards stabilize cooperation in the mycorrhizal symbiosis
Why hasn't cheating destroyed the 400-million-year partnership between plants and mycorrhizal fungi? Kiers' 2011 Science paper documented the enforcem...
Recovery after brain injury: Mechanisms and principles
Reviews neural plasticity and redundant motor pathways enabling recovery after stroke. The chapter uses the case study of James Chen, a stroke patient...
Red Blood Cell Production
Authoritative NIH source confirming the human body produces approximately two million red blood cells every second, with each cell taking about two da...
Red Deer: Behavior and Ecology of Two Sexes (40-year study)
Landmark 40-year study of red deer stag territorial behavior demonstrating graduated escalation. The four-level escalation ladder (roaring → parallel...
Remarks on a Group of Ground Finches from Mr. Darwin's Collection, with Characters of the New Species
The original paper where John Gould identified Darwin's Galápagos bird specimens as closely related finches rather than distinct families. Gould recog...
Report of Anton R. Valukas, Examiner, In re Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
2,200-page bankruptcy examiner report detailing Lehman's collapse, documenting 31:1 leverage, exposure to illiquid real estate assets, and the extinct...
Response Rescaling in Bacterial Chemotaxis
This paper documents logarithmic sensing in E. coli - cells respond to relative (percentage) changes in concentration rather than absolute levels. Thi...
Restructuring Through Spinoffs
Provides evidence that spinoffs outperform the market by 30%+ over 3 years. Supports the chapter's thesis that controlled calving creates value when e...
Retail Competitive Dynamics Studies
Provided analytical framework for understanding Walmart vs Target territorial overlap dynamics. Hausman's retail competitive research informed the cha...
Revenue of Samsung Electronics Worldwide 2005-2024
Tracks Samsung's growth from regional player to global conglomerate spanning electronics, shipbuilding, insurance, and theme parks. Documents how spra...
Ringtone: Exploring the Rise and Fall of Nokia in Mobile Phones
Doz and Wilson's comprehensive analysis of Nokia's decline provides the detailed case study of how a market leader can hit multiple growth walls simul...
Robustness and Evolvability in Living Systems
Comprehensive treatment of robustness mechanisms in biological systems, including genetic redundancy, metabolic pathway redundancy, and developmental...
Role of fire in regeneration from seed
This review examines how fire-dependent seeds use heat shock as a germination trigger. Seeds of species like Banksia and eucalyptus require temperatur...
Role of linkers in communication between protein modules
This paper explains the mechanism that enables protein domain modularity to work - the linker sequences that connect domains. The research shows that...
Running with the Red Queen: The Role of Biotic Conflicts in Evolution
This modern analysis of Van Valen's hypothesis explains how the Red Queen framework revolutionized thinking about selection - emphasizing biotic inter...
Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act represents the regulatory response to Arthur Andersen's collapse and the Enron scandal. It codified structural separations to p...
Scale-free correlations in starling flocks
This physics-based study demonstrated that starling flocks operate at 'criticality' - a phase transition point between order and chaos. At this critic...
Scale: The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life
West's popular science book synthesizes decades of research on scaling laws across biology, cities, and companies. He demonstrates that companies face...
Scaling laws of marine predator search behaviour
Sims et al. provided extensive empirical evidence that marine predators including albatrosses exhibit Lévy flight patterns when foraging. GPS tracking...
Scent-Marking in Wolves
Foundational study on wolf scent marking behavior and degradation rates. The finding that scent marks degrade 30% per week (worthless after 3 weeks) f...
Sea otters: Their role in structuring nearshore communities
This paper established sea otters as keystone species in kelp forest ecosystems by comparing Aleutian islands with and without otter populations. The...
Seasonal hibernation in mammals
Recent comprehensive review of hibernation physiology confirming mortality rate ranges and mechanisms across mammalian hibernators. Provides updated s...
Seasonal Speedup Along the Western Flank of the Greenland Ice Sheet
Documents Jakobshavn Glacier as the fastest glacier on Earth, retreating 30-40 meters per day during the 2010s. Provides an extreme example of positiv...
SEC Form 10-K, Fiscal Year 2021 and 2022
Documents Zoom's explosive growth during the pandemic: employee headcount grew from approximately 2,500 (January 2020) to 6,787 (end of fiscal 2022),...
Seed dormancy and the control of germination
This comprehensive review synthesizes molecular, physiological, and ecological perspectives on seed dormancy. It explains how dormancy mechanisms act...
Seeds: Ecology, Biogeography, and Evolution of Dormancy and Germination
This ecological perspective on seed biology complements Bewley's physiological approach by focusing on how dormancy and germination strategies evolved...
Seeds: Physiology of Development, Germination and Dormancy
This comprehensive textbook is the authoritative reference on seed biology, covering the molecular, cellular, and whole-plant aspects of seed developm...
Selfish sentinels in cooperative mammals
This research revealed that meerkat sentinel behavior - seemingly altruistic vigilance for the group - has complex selfish incentives. Sentinels are t...
Selforganization of matter and the evolution of biological macromolecules
Eigen's foundational work introduced the concept of the 'error threshold' - the highest mutation rate a population can sustain without fitness collaps...
Serengeti-Mara Wildebeest Migration Studies
Foundation for chapter's core metaphor of migration economics. Documents 2 million wildebeest, 800-mile annual migration, 250,000 deaths (12.5% mortal...
Sexual Selection Theory Development
Darwin's puzzlement over the peacock's tail - which kept him up at night in 1860 - led to the foundational insight that competition for mates drives d...
Should you invest in the long tail?
Empirical challenge to the long tail thesis arguing that hits remain disproportionately important even in digital markets. Provides counterbalance to...
Signalling of need by offspring to their parents
Analyzes nestling begging calls as costly honest signals of hunger. Begging is energetically expensive and increases predation risk, ensuring only tru...
Silent night: adaptive disappearance of a sexual signal in a parasitized population of field crickets
This study documented one of the fastest observed examples of evolution in response to acoustic eavesdropping. When parasitoid flies that locate hosts...
Size and shape in biology
McMahon's paper provided rigorous mathematical treatment of how structural scaling works in biology. He showed why elephants have proportionally thick...
Skill and luck in private equity performance
Statistical decomposition of skill versus luck in venture capital performance, addressing survivorship bias in concentrated investment strategies. Pro...
Sleepmore in Seattle: Later school start times are associated with more sleep and better performance in high school students
This natural experiment provided compelling evidence that chronotype-aware scheduling improves outcomes. When Seattle Public Schools delayed start tim...
Social Control of Deception Among Status Signalling House Sparrows
Classic research demonstrating that house sparrow throat bibs function as conventional badges of status maintained by social enforcement rather than p...
Soil invertebrates and ecosystem services
This comprehensive review documented how soil invertebrates, including earthworms, drive decomposition and nutrient cycling. The finding that earthwor...
Somatic motor and sensory representation in the cerebral cortex of man as studied by electrical stimulation
Classic study establishing the motor homunculus - the topographic organization of motor cortex where adjacent brain regions control adjacent body part...
Some Demographic and Genetic Consequences of Environmental Heterogeneity for Biological Control
The original paper introducing the metapopulation concept. Developed the extinction-colonization model where equilibrium patch occupancy equals 1 - e/...
Species abundance distributions: Moving beyond single prediction theories to integration within an ecological framework
Comprehensive review of species abundance distribution theories, discussing when power law, log-series, and log-normal distributions apply to ecologic...
Specific hypotheses on the geographic mosaic of coevolution
Thompson's geographic mosaic theory explains why co-evolutionary dynamics vary across locations - the same species interaction can be mutualistic in o...
Sprouting in temperate trees: A morphological and ecological review
Comprehensive review of epicormic sprouting mechanisms - how dormant buds hidden beneath bark activate after damage. Del Tredici's synthesis explains...
Squirrel Spatial Memory Research
Lucia Jacobs' research at UC Berkeley established the scientific foundation for understanding how squirrels use spatial memory to relocate cached food...
Starbucks Failed Expansion Plan in Australia Explained
This analysis documents Starbucks' Australian failure: entered in 2000, grew to ~90 stores, closed 61 in 2008, accumulated A$143 million in losses. It...
Statistical Yearbook of the Church 2021
Primary source for Catholic Church organizational data including member counts, hierarchical structure, and parish numbers.
Steve Jobs
In 1997, Apple was 90 days from bankruptcy, losing $1 billion annually, with a product line sprawling into chaos. Steve Jobs' return marked one of bus...
Stevey's Google Platforms Rant
The leaked memo documenting Amazon's 2002 API mandate requiring all teams to expose functionality through service interfaces. Explains how this mandat...
Stotting in Thomson's gazelles: An honest signal of condition
Demonstrates that gazelle stotting behavior is an honest signal of fitness to predators. Cheetahs selectively abandon pursuit of stotting gazelles, sh...
Structural Inertia and Organizational Change
Hannan and Freeman's influential paper argued that organizations develop structural inertia that resists change, even when the environment demands ada...
Structure, function and evolution of multidomain proteins
This paper establishes the foundational understanding of protein domain modularity that the chapter uses to introduce biological modularity principles...
Survival without Recovery after Mass Extinctions
Analyzes trait-based extinction selectivity during mass extinctions, documenting how geographic range predicts survival more strongly than ecological...
Symbiogenesis
This comprehensive overview of endosymbiotic theory documents the scientific consensus that mitochondria arose from alphaproteobacteria engulfed by an...
Tempo and Mode in Evolution
Foundational work introducing key concepts in macroevolution, including adaptive zones and the idea that lineages radiate rapidly when colonizing new...
Tetrodotoxin resistance in garter snakes: An evolutionary response of predators to dangerous prey
This paper documented one of the most dramatic examples of a predator-prey arms race: the escalating toxicity of newts and resistance of snakes. The r...
The -3/2 Self-Thinning Law
Documents one of the most robust patterns in ecology - as plants grow, density decreases predictably according to the formula: log(density) = -3/2 × l...
The 1980 eruptions of Mount St. Helens, Washington
Primary government documentation of the Mount St. Helens eruption's geological and ecological impacts. Provides the factual foundation for understandi...
The 5 Big Mistakes That Led to Ron Johnson's Ouster at JC Penney
This post-mortem analysis of JCPenney's failed retail transformation provides critical lessons about phototropism failure modes. Ron Johnson correctly...
The Airbnb Story: How Three Ordinary Guys Disrupted an Industry, Made Billions... and Created Plenty of Controversy
Gallagher's book provides the detailed narrative of Airbnb's early survival decisions, including the pivotal $5,000 photography bet. This primary sour...
The Architecture of Complexity
Why are nearly all complex systems - from organisms to organizations to watch mechanisms - hierarchically organized? Herbert Simon's 1962 classic demo...
The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time
Evolution isn't ancient history - it's happening right now, and Jonathan Weiner's Pulitzer Prize-winning book proves it. The Beak of the Finch documen...
The Big Scientific Debate: Trophic Cascades
Provides accessible summary of ongoing scientific debate about wolf-driven trophic cascades in Yellowstone, illustrating how ecological network effect...
The Biodiversity of Species and Their Rates of Extinction, Distribution, and Protection
Reviews genetic rescue as a conservation strategy, documenting when migration between populations rescues declining populations from inbreeding depres...
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
Philosophical treatment of fat-tailed distributions and their implications for risk and prediction. Argues that rare, high-impact events ('Black Swans...
The Boeing 737 MAX Aircraft: Costs, Consequences, and Lessons from its Design, Development, and Certification
This Congressional investigation documented how competitive pressure between Boeing and Airbus contributed to the 737 MAX disasters that killed 346 pe...
The Business of Platforms: Strategy in the Age of Digital Competition, Innovation, and Power
This analysis of platform ecosystems frames them as mutualistic networks where platform and complementors create value together. The book examines how...
The causes and consequences of Wal-Mart's growth
Basker's economic analysis of Walmart's growth trajectory shows how the company approached and hit saturation limits. The paper documents the shift fr...
The Chicxulub Asteroid Impact and Mass Extinction at the Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary
International panel of 41 experts reviewing 30 years of evidence concluded definitively that asteroid impact caused the K-Pg extinction, settling the...
The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior
Goodall's 50+ year study at Gombe Stream National Park provides the longest continuous observation of primate leadership dynamics. Her documentation o...
The cricket as a thermometer
Dolbear's Law, published in 1897, established that snowy tree cricket chirp rate is precisely correlated with temperature (count chirps in 15 seconds,...
The definition of El Niño
Standard scientific reference for understanding El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the 2-7 year interannual climate cycle that creates unpredictable...
The Distribution of Cellular Turnover in the Human Body
This landmark Weizmann Institute study provides the rigorous quantification behind the chapter's claim that humans replace approximately 330 billion c...
The Ecology of Adaptive Radiation
The definitive treatment of adaptive radiation theory. Evaluates ecological causes of radiation, including divergent natural selection and competition...
The Economics of Blockbuster Failure
Case study documenting Blockbuster's failure to adapt to digital disruption despite seeing Netflix coming. Provides detailed analysis of the successio...
The economics of superstars
Foundational economic model explaining extreme compensation concentration among top performers. Shows that small differences in talent translate to la...
The Essential Guide to Electronics in Shenzhen
Practitioner's guide to the Shenzhen hardware ecosystem documenting the unique capabilities that enable 'Shenzhen speed' - idea to prototype in 2 week...
The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon
Stone's comprehensive history of Amazon documents the company's product development pattern of many small experiments with occasional massive bets. Th...
The Evolution of C4 Photosynthesis
Comprehensive review documenting 62+ independent origins of C4 photosynthesis across 19 angiosperm families. C4 is more efficient than C3 photosynthes...
The Evolution of Cooperation
Axelrod and Hamilton's formal analysis of tit-for-tat strategy proved mathematically what vampire bats demonstrate biologically: cooperation can be ev...
The Evolution of Diversity in Avian Territorial Systems
Foundational paper establishing the economic defendability model for territorial behavior. Brown's formulation that territory is defended when benefit...
The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms, with Observations on their Habits
Darwin's final scientific book, published months before his death, documents his 40-year study of earthworms as ecosystem engineers. His meticulous ob...
The Fourth Dimension of Life: Fractal Geometry and Allometric Scaling of Organisms
West, Brown, and Enquist's 1999 follow-up to their landmark 1997 paper extended fractal scaling theory across biological time. They demonstrated that...
The Fractal Geometry of Nature
Mandelbrot's book-length treatment established fractal geometry as a scientific field, demonstrating that fractals describe an enormous range of natur...
The function of the thymus and its impact on modern medicine
A 60-year retrospective by the discoverer of thymus function, summarizing how his initial findings launched modern immunology and led to understanding...
The Genetical Evolution of Social Behaviour
Hamilton's kin selection theory provides the foundational explanation for why organisms sacrifice for relatives - a key puzzle in explaining alarm cal...
The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection
R.A. Fisher's 1930 masterwork established the mathematical foundations of population genetics and introduced runaway selection theory - explaining how...
The Grandmother Hypothesis
The grandmother hypothesis explains the evolutionary puzzle of why humans (and some other species) invest resources in post-reproductive individuals....
The Handicap Principle: A Missing Piece of Darwin's Puzzle
Comprehensive book-length treatment of costly signaling theory, extending the handicap principle to numerous biological and human contexts. Essential...
The Hidden Power of Social Networks: Understanding How Work Really Gets Done in Organizations
Organizational charts lie. Rob Cross and Andrew Parker's 2004 book introduced Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) to reveal how work actually gets d...
The History of the Standard Oil Company
Ida Tarbell's investigative journalism documented how Standard Oil established and maintained industry-wide dominance through systematic hierarchy est...
The Individualistic Concept of the Plant Association
Challenged Clements' climax theory by arguing plant communities are assemblages of individuals responding to environmental gradients, not unified orga...
The inheritance of acquired epigenetic modifications
Examines how epigenetic modifications (chemical tags affecting gene expression without changing DNA) can be inherited across generations. Shows how pa...
The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail
Clayton Christensen's The Innovator's Dilemma explains why market leaders fail not despite excellence, but because of it. His research across steel mi...
The Intuitive Psychologist and His Shortcomings: Distortions in the Attribution Process
This seminal paper coined the term 'fundamental attribution error' - the systematic tendency to overweight dispositional (personality-based) explanati...
The keystone species concept: A critical appraisal
This modern synthesis examines the evolution of the keystone concept and its application across ecosystem types. The paper provides an updated perspec...
The keystone-species concept in ecology and conservation
This critical analysis examined how the keystone concept should be defined and applied in conservation contexts. The paper addressed important questio...
The large-scale organization of metabolic networks
Demonstrated that E. coli and other metabolic networks exhibit scale-free topology with power-law degree distributions (γ ≈ 2.2). This revealed that b...
The limits to tree height
Why don't trees grow to 500 meters? Koch et al.'s 2004 study of California redwoods identified the absolute physical limit: ~115-130 meters, determine...
The logic of risk-sensitive foraging preferences
Stephens provided the theoretical foundation for understanding why risk-sensitivity is mathematically rational. His analysis showed that when survival...
The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More
Influential thesis that digital economics make the power law tail profitable in ways impossible for physical businesses. Near-zero marginal costs, glo...
The Luxury Strategy: Break the Rules of Marketing to Build Luxury Brands
Kapferer and Bastien articulate why luxury brands face natural growth ceilings and how LVMH's strategy works within those limits. Their 'anti-laws of...
The Machine That Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production
Why can competitors see Toyota's manufacturing methods but not replicate them? Womack, Jones, and Roos' landmark MIT study documented the Toyota Produ...
The mammalian sinoatrial node
Comprehensive review of sinoatrial node function demonstrating how distributed pacemaker cells create robust cardiac rhythm control with built-in redu...
The Manager's Span of Control
Urwick's influential article established span of control as a central concern in organizational design, arguing that managers can effectively supervis...
The Matthew effect in science
Describes 'rich-get-richer' dynamics in scientific citations and reputation - eminent scientists get disproportionate credit for contributions while u...
The multifaceted mismatch-repair system
Detailed analysis of mismatch repair contributing over 100-fold to replication fidelity. Demonstrates how this single repair pathway provides enormous...
The Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution
Kimura's comprehensive monograph expanding on his 1968 Nature paper. Provides detailed mathematical treatment of neutral evolution and extensive empir...
The New Future of Work Report
This large-scale study of 30,000 Microsoft employees provided empirical validation for the maker's schedule concept. Researchers found that makers wit...
The New Future of Work: Research from Microsoft on the Evolving Hybrid Workplace
Research on hybrid work network effects showing that remote and hybrid workers spend 40-60% of time in meetings when remote but form fewer new connect...
The onset of collective behavior in social amoebae
Research on how collective behavior emerges in Dictyostelium, providing quantitative understanding of the transition from individual to collective act...
The organization of behavioral repertoire in motor cortex
Modern understanding of motor cortex organization showing how the brain's centralized motor control enables complex coordinated behaviors through inte...
The Origin of Huntington's Chorea in the Afrikaner Population of South Africa
Traces Huntington's disease in the Afrikaner population through 14 generations to a single Dutch colonist who arrived in 1652. Over 200 affected indiv...
The Origin of Mitochondria
This educational resource explains evidence for mitochondrial endosymbiosis: mitochondria retain bacterial-type ribosomes, circular DNA, and double me...
The Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution
Kauffman's work on Boolean networks and the 'edge of chaos' provides theoretical foundations for understanding when and how emergence produces adaptiv...
The oxygenation of the atmosphere and oceans
Detailed analysis of atmospheric and oceanic oxygenation over geological time. Provides evidence for how cyanobacterial niche construction transformed...
The Pacific Decadal Oscillation
Comprehensive scientific review of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation - a 20-30 year climate cycle that affects regional precipitation and temperature ac...
The Paleozoic origin of enzymatic lignin decomposition reconstructed from 31 fungal genomes
This landmark study demonstrated that lignin-degrading white rot fungi evolved approximately 290 million years ago, coinciding with the end of Carboni...
The Physiological Principle of Minimum Work: I. The Vascular System and the Cost of Blood Volume
In 1926, Cecil Murray derived a mathematical law that governs everything from blood vessels to river deltas to corporate distribution networks: the cu...
The Power of Movement in Plants
This was Charles Darwin's final scientific work, completed when he was 71 years old and in failing health. The book documented his elegant experiment...
The Power of Resilience: How the Best Companies Manage the Unexpected
This book analyzes supply chain disruptions including the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake's effects on the automotive industry. Sheffi shows how modular supply...
The Quark and the Jaguar: Adventures in the Simple and the Complex
Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann's accessible book explains criticality and phase transitions in complex systems. Gell-Mann shows how systems at the bo...
The Real Story Behind Apple's 'Think Different' Campaign
Firsthand account from the creative director who led Apple's 1997 brand transformation under Steve Jobs. Documents the organizational renewal that pre...
The relational view: Cooperative strategy and sources of interorganizational competitive advantage
This foundational strategy paper established how partnerships create competitive advantages unavailable to individual firms. Dyer and Singh argued tha...
The report of the Ecological Society of America Committee on the Scientific Basis for Ecosystem Management
This influential synthesis from the Ecological Society of America argued for fire's ecological role in ecosystem management, fundamentally shifting po...
The Resilient Enterprise: Overcoming Vulnerability for Competitive Advantage
Framework for supply chain redundancy and resilience strategies. Sheffi's work provides theoretical foundation for understanding how organizations can...
The rise of oxygen in Earth's early ocean and atmosphere
Comprehensive review of the Great Oxygenation Event - the most consequential niche construction in Earth's history. Cyanobacteria's oxygen production...
The roaring of red deer and the evolution of honest advertisement
Classic study demonstrating that red deer roaring contests are honest signals of stamina and fighting ability. Higher roaring rates predict contest ou...
The role of product architecture in the manufacturing firm
This paper defines product architecture and distinguishes integral from modular architectures. Ulrich provides foundational concepts for understanding...
The role of the funny current in pacemaker activity
Key research on the ionic mechanisms underlying cardiac pacemaker cell automaticity - the fundamental biological basis for distributed cardiac rhythm...
The role of time and energy in food preference
Emlen's work, published the same year as MacArthur and Pianka, independently developed similar optimal foraging predictions. His focus on how time and...
The Roles of Mutation, Inbreeding, Crossbreeding and Selection in Evolution
This foundational paper introduced the adaptive landscape metaphor that revolutionized understanding of evolution and provides the theoretical basis f...
The shade-avoidance syndrome: multiple signals and ecological consequences
This paper provides deeper biological context on shade avoidance syndrome, exploring how plants make the all-or-nothing gamble of etiolation. The ecol...
The small world problem
Original small world experiment that sent letters through acquaintance chains from Nebraska to Boston, finding a median of 5 intermediate links - layi...
The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron
Definitive account of Enron's rise and collapse, documenting mark-to-market accounting abuses, off-balance-sheet SPE fraud, and the extinction vortex...
The social significance of avian winter plumage variability
Demonstrates that house sparrow badge size is kept honest by social enforcement rather than production costs. Males with artificially enlarged badges...
The Socioecology of Elephants: Analysis of the Processes Creating Multitiered Social Structures
This GPS tracking study of 200+ African elephants provides quantitative evidence for knowledge-based leadership succession. The 92% vs. 45% calf survi...
The Structure and Function of the Na,K-ATPase Isoforms in Health and Disease
This research establishes one of the chapter's most striking statistics: cells spend 20-40% of their energy just running membrane pumps. Brain cells c...
The structure of the nervous system of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans
First complete connectome of any organism - a 15-year effort mapping all 302 neurons and their ~7,000 synaptic connections in C. elegans. This monumen...
The Success Equation: Untangling Skill and Luck in Business, Sports, and Investing
Provides framework for placing activities on a 'skill-luck continuum.' When effective population size is large (Ne > 100), outcomes reveal strategy qu...
The ten-year cycle in numbers of the lynx in Canada
This classic analysis of Hudson's Bay Company fur records established the 9-10 year lynx-hare population cycle, providing nearly a century of empirica...
The Theory of Island Biogeography
Why do some organisms produce millions of offspring with minimal investment while others produce just one or two with enormous care? MacArthur and Wil...
The Theory of the Growth of the Firm
Penrose's foundational work established the resource-based view of firm growth, arguing that managerial capacity limits how fast firms can grow. Her i...
The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World's Greatest Manufacturer
Detailed explanation of Toyota Production System principles and Taiichi Ohno's methods. Provides the 'how' behind Toyota's 40-year succession, includi...
The Unified Neutral Theory of Biodiversity and Biogeography
Demonstrates that neutral (non-selective) processes - where species are ecologically equivalent - can generate highly unequal species abundance distri...
The Use of Knowledge in Society
Hayek's seminal paper articulates how market prices serve as an emergent information aggregation mechanism, coordinating economic activity across mill...
The Winner-Take-All Society
Analyzes how technology and globalization create winner-take-all markets with extreme income concentration. Shows that small differences in performanc...
Thirty Years of Permanent Vegetation Plots, Mount St. Helens, Washington
Roger del Moral's four-decade study of Mount St. Helens recovery provides the most detailed documentation of succession after catastrophic disturbance...
Threshold models of collective behavior
Granovetter's seminal paper provided the theoretical foundation for understanding threshold-based collective action in human systems. He showed how in...
Time Travelling with IKEA Catalogues 1951-2021
This historical documentation of IKEA's catalog evolution provides primary source evidence for the company's phototropic pivots over 70 years. The cat...
Towards the Circular Economy: Economic and Business Rationale for an Accelerated Transition
This foundational report established the economic case for circular economy principles modeled on natural nutrient cycling. It introduced the butterfl...
Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production
This book by Taiichi Ohno, the architect of Toyota's revolutionary production system, explains how Just-in-Time manufacturing and kanban achieve distr...
TP53 copy number expansion is associated with the evolution of increased body size and an enhanced DNA damage response in elephants
This research revealed that elephants have 20 copies of the p53 tumor suppressor gene compared to just 1 in humans, explaining their remarkably low ca...
Tracking the seasons: the internal calendars of vertebrates
This paper explains how animals use photoperiod (daylight duration) as the trigger for hibernation preparation. Understanding that hibernation entry i...
Trader Joe's: The Best Chain in America?
Trade publication coverage documenting Trader Joe's operational metrics: ~4,000 SKUs, 80% private label, highest revenue per square foot in U.S. groce...
Transcriptional Profiling of Predator-Induced Phenotypic Plasticity in Daphnia pulex
This research documents the molecular mechanism of predator-induced defenses in Daphnia - specifically the 'neckteeth' that develop when juveniles det...
Transient sexual mimicry leads to fertilization
Documents cuttlefish displaying different signals to different audiences simultaneously - honest to females, deceptive to rival males. Shows strategic...
Transplanted Suprachiasmatic Nucleus Determines Circadian Period
This landmark study definitively proved that the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) is the master circadian clock in mammals. By transplanting SCN tissue f...
Tree Mortality Report: California Drought 2012-2016
This report documented that California's 2012-2016 drought killed an estimated 129 million trees, but not all species died equally. Deep-rooted specie...
Trophic Cascades in Yellowstone: The First 15 Years After Wolf Reintroduction
When wolves returned to Yellowstone in 1995 after 70 years, ecologists expected elk populations to decline. What they didn't expect was for rivers to...
Two Routes to Functional Adaptation: Tibetan and Andean High-Altitude Natives
Comparative analysis showing Tibetans (blunted hemoglobin, increased blood flow) and Andeans (elevated hemoglobin) evolved different physiological sol...
Underground signals carried through common mycelial networks warn neighbouring plants of aphid attack
This study demonstrated that mycorrhizal networks transmit not just resources but information - specifically, warning signals about pest attacks. When...
Understanding the rhythm of breathing: so near, yet so far
Research on respiratory rhythm generation illustrating hybrid control architecture - automatic brainstem control combined with voluntary cortical inpu...
Universal Registration Document 2022
Primary source for Danone case study data including revenue breakdown by category, brand portfolio, and organizational structure.
Unpredictable Evolution in a 30-Year Study of Darwin's Finches
Summary of the Grants' landmark long-term study on Daphne Major documenting how the 1977 drought caused 85% mortality in medium ground finches, with s...
Variazioni e fluttuazioni del numero d'individui in specie animali conviventi
Volterra's independent derivation of predator-prey equations was inspired by Adriatic fisheries data showing how reduced fishing during WWI increased...
Ventilation of termite mounds: new results require a new model
Detailed analysis of how termite mound architecture creates a buffered microclimate with stable temperature and humidity despite extreme external fluc...
Vernalization, Competence, and the Epigenetic Memory of Winter
This research characterized in detail how the FLOWERING LOCUS C gene is epigenetically silenced by prolonged cold exposure, explaining the molecular m...
Vicarious Learning, Undersampling of Failure, and the Myths of Management
This is the definitive paper on survivorship bias in business research and management theory. Denrell demonstrates mathematically that risky practices...
Visa payments system outage causes chaos
Case study of Visa Europe hardware failure illustrating both risks of centralization (European region went down) and benefits of distribution (other r...
Volkswagen diesel scandal has cost the carmaker $30 billion
Documents total VW Dieselgate costs reaching approximately $30 billion including fines, settlements, and buybacks. Provides the headline figure used t...
Volkswagen to spend up to $14.7 billion to settle allegations of cheating emissions tests
Official documentation of VW emissions scandal settlement, providing concrete data on the costs of coordination failure at scale. The $14.7 billion in...
Wal-Mart to the rescue: Private enterprise's response to Hurricane Katrina
Case study of Walmart's Hurricane Katrina response illustrating both the advantages and limitations of centralized architecture - local managers takin...
Walmart Germany Case Study (1997-2006)
Documents $1B+ loss from philopatry - importing U.S. retail model to Germany without adaptation. Mandatory smile policies violated German labor law, b...
Watching Evolution Happen in Two Lifetimes
Accessible summary of the Grants' discoveries for general audiences. Documents how the 1977 drought provided 'stunning insights into evolution in acti...
WeWork $47 Billion Valuation from SoftBank
The $47B valuation in January 2019 represented peak corporate temperature - a valuation requiring continued thermal runaway (growth at all costs) to j...
WeWork Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy
The November 6, 2023 bankruptcy filing represents the final temperature reading: zero. Despite emergency cooling measures in 2019 (layoffs, location c...
WeWork IPO Withdrawal
The September 17, 2019 IPO withdrawal marked the moment when public markets refused to provide the capital needed to sustain WeWork's operating temper...
WeWork Loses $1.9B on $1.8B in Revenue During 2018
Documented the fundamental unit economics failure at WeWork - losing more money than revenue generated. This represents thermal runaway in its purest...
WeWork S-1 Filing
The S-1 filing revealed the thermodynamic reality of WeWork's business: $1.8B revenue against $1.9B losses in 2018, with burn rate doubling every 12 m...
WeWork Valuation Collapse Analysis
Documents the valuation collapse from $47B to $8B following failed IPO, with SoftBank's October 2019 bailout valuing the company at less than $8 billi...
What Is Strategy?
Introduces the concept of strategic convergence - when operational improvements diffuse industry-wide, eroding competitive advantage. Porter argues su...
Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? Inside IBM's Historic Turnaround
First-person account of IBM's near-extinction (1993, $8 billion loss - largest in corporate history) and turnaround through pivot from hardware to ser...
Whole Foods Market
Comprehensive history of Whole Foods including the 2017 Amazon acquisition, subsequent integrations (Prime discounts, online ordering), and cultural c...
Why Bamboos Wait So Long to Flower
Janzen first proposed the 'predator satiation' hypothesis explaining why bamboo species flower synchronously on 40-120 year cycles. This counterintuit...
Wii
Comprehensive history of Nintendo's strategic pivots: from power-focused GameCube (22M units) to accessibility-focused Wii (101M), failed hybrid Wii U...
Wolves: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation
Comprehensive reference work on wolf territorial behavior, providing global context for territorial patterns. Confirms that the core pattern - intrusi...
Worker cooperatives as an organizational alternative: Challenges, achievements and promise in business governance and ownership
This paper analyzed Mondragon and other worker cooperatives, examining how democratic governance with quorum requirements creates resilient organizati...
Yellowstone Wolves: Science and Discovery in the World's First National Park
This comprehensive synthesis of 25 years of wolf research includes population dynamics, hunting behavior, and ecosystem effects. It represents the mos...