3M
3M manufactures 60,000 products - from Post-it Notes to N95 respirators to semiconductor polishing slurries.
On April 1, 2024, 3M completed the spinoff of Solventum, its $8 billion healthcare business. Shareholders received one Solventum share for every four 3M shares held, cleaving 20,000 employees and product lines spanning wound care to dental equipment. 3M retained 19.9% of Solventum to be monetized within five years, extracting $7.7 billion in cash payments at separation.
This was controlled calving—deliberate separation of tissue that no longer served the parent organism's function. 3M historically operated through radical decentralization (1970-1990), granting divisional autonomy that fostered invention of Post-it Notes, Scotch tape, and thousands of specialized products. But by 2024, that diversity became drag. The healthcare division consistently underperformed, posting negative to flat organic growth while 3M's industrial segments faced their own headwinds.
The biological logic is specialization through shedding. 3M kept manufacturing, industrial adhesives, safety equipment, and consumer products. Solventum took healthcare, medical supplies, and health information systems. Each entity could now allocate resources without competing for capital inside a conglomerate structure. 3M's remaining $4.7 billion revenue base (fiscal 2024) is smaller but focused.
What makes this notable is the reversal of historical strategy. 3M built an empire through diversification and decentralized innovation. The 15% rule (employees could spend 15% of time on side projects) created breakthrough products across unrelated categories. But conglomerates trade at a discount—the sum of parts is worth less together than separately. By 2024, investors and management concluded that 3M's divisions would create more value independently.
The shedding continues. In February 2025, Thermo Fisher announced acquisition of Solventum's Purification & Filtration unit for $4.1 billion—Solventum itself began autophagy within a year of independence. Both parent and offspring are divesting non-core tissue, seeking focused identities. It's modularity in action: complex organisms breaking into specialized units, each optimized for narrower niches than the conglomerate could serve.
Key Facts
3M Appears in 3 Chapters
3M's 60,000 products across 46 technology platforms create overyielding - generating far more products through technological complementarity than specialized firms could.
How 3M's diversity creates value →The '15% time' policy deliberately injects variance to prevent fixation on local optima - Post-it Notes emerged this way.
How 3M prevents genetic drift →3M maintains sustained high mutation rate through the '15% Rule' and mandating 30% of revenue from products introduced in past 4 years.
3M's mutation rate strategy →