Citation
Scale: The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life
TL;DR
Scaling laws apply to companies as well as organisms
West's popular science book synthesizes decades of research on scaling laws across biology, cities, and companies. He demonstrates that companies face the same mathematical scaling constraints as organisms - and that unlike cities, companies don't achieve superlinear scaling in innovation.
The book provides the overarching theoretical framework connecting biological scaling to organizational limits, arguing that growth limits are universal physics rather than management failures.
Key Findings from West (2017)
- Scaling laws apply to companies as well as organisms
- Companies show sublinear scaling (like organisms), not superlinear (like cities)
- Most companies eventually stop growing and die, following biological patterns