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128 companies
Kodak
Photography / Technology
In 1976, Steve Sasson demonstrated the world's first digital camera to Kodak executives. Thirty-six years later, the company filed for bankruptcy. Thi...
Kickstarter
Technology / Crowdfunding
The crowdfunding platform that proved two biological insights: humans need recovery time, and commitment requires thresholds. Kickstarter permanently...
Kadant
Industrial Machinery
Industrial termite colonies - machinery that breaks down wood fiber into paper pulp, separates waste from recyclables, and extracts water like xylem v...
Kahoot
EdTech - K-12
Hijacks dopamine pathways like young dolphins learning through play - timed competition triggers cortisol spikes that burn facts into memory. Social p...
Kaiser Aluminum Corporation
Aluminum
Mimics bird bone architecture - aluminum extruded into hollow tubes and rolled into sheets with strength-to-weight ratios that let jets fly and cars a...
Kaiser-Frazer
Automotive
Kaiser-Frazer's 1953 exit from U.S. car production ended Henry J. Kaiser's attempt to break the Big Three's dominance. The company that built Liberty...
Kajima Corporation
Construction
Builds like termite mounds rising from Japanese soil - coordinated teams assembling towers and tunnels from modular components. Each project reshapes...
Kakao Bank
Digital Banking
Spreads through South Korea like E. coli in rich broth - 20 million users in five years, doubling every eighteen months. Zero branches means pure meta...
Kakao Corporation
Internet & Technology
KakaoTalk reached 48.9 million monthly active users in Q3 2024—97% of South Korea's internet users—creating network effects so dominant that the platf...
Kakao Games
Gaming
Parasitic vine growing through KakaoTalk's 47 million users - games that couldn't survive alone latch onto the messaging app's social graph. Friend li...
Kakao Pay
Fintech
Cleaner fish embedded in KakaoTalk's ecosystem - taking a microscopic cut of every transaction while providing payment, investment, and insurance serv...
Kalera
Vertical Farming
Stacks photosynthesis vertically like coral reefs growing upward toward light - LED arrays replacing sun, nutrient solution replacing soil. Each urban...
Kalitta Air
Airlines
Cargo migrations crossing oceans like Arctic terns - 747 freighters hauling electronics from Shanghai to Memphis, pharmaceuticals from Brussels to Dub...
Kaman Corporation
Aerospace & Defense
Dual circulatory systems - aerospace components flowing through defense contractors, industrial bearings distributed through maintenance supply chains...
Kanebo
Cosmetics
Kanebo's 2004 fraud revelation showed the 117-year-old Japanese cosmetics company had hidden ¥200 billion in losses. The accounting fraud had been ong...
Kansas City Southern
Rail Transportation
Steel arteries running north-south like xylem vessels connecting Kansas City to Mexican industrial cities. Chemicals, grain, and auto parts flow throu...
Kao Corporation
Consumer Goods & Chemicals
Chemical synthesis like a pharmaceutical gland - surfactant molecules engineered to break surface tension, lift dirt, condition hair. Research labs is...
Kaplan
EdTech - Test Prep
Test prep as artificial selection pressure - practice exams cull weak answers, feedback loops strengthen correct patterns. Students undergo iterative...
Kapsch TrafficCom
Intelligent Transportation Systems
Tolling sensors like spider webs across highways - RFID readers detect passing vehicles, extracting microtransactions automatically. Once installed, g...
Karat
Technology
Technical interviews as artificial selection - experienced engineers probe coding ability through standardized challenges. Companies outsource their f...
Karma Automotive
Automotive - Electric
Karma Automotive, successor to bankrupt Fisker Automotive, has struggled to achieve sustainable production after Chinese investment revived the compan...
Kasikornbank
Banking
Colonizes Thailand then sends spores into Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar - proven digital banking infrastructure replicating across adjacent markets. Venture...
Kaspersky Lab
Cybersecurity
Founded in 1997 by Eugene Kaspersky after he became fascinated with malware while working at the Soviet Ministry of Defense. In 1989, his computer was...
Kaszek
Venture Capital
Kaszek demonstrates founder-turned-investor advantage at continental scale. Hernán Kazah (MercadoLibre co-founder) and Nicolás Szekasy (former Mercado...
Katerra
Construction Technology
Katerra's 2021 bankruptcy destroyed $2 billion in invested capital in a construction technology company that was supposed to revolutionize building th...
Kaufland
Hypermarket
Hypermarket warehouses like termite mounds - vast chambers storing 60,000 SKUs where shoppers forage efficiently. Central location, climate control, a...
Kavak
Automotive
Quality signaling like bower birds arranging colored objects - 200-point inspections standardize used cars, photographed from identical angles. Buyers...
Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha
Maritime Shipping
Container ships migrate across Pacific trade routes like gray whales - scheduled journeys between Asia and North America, hulls carrying thousands of...
Kayne Anderson Energy Infrastructure Fund
Asset Management
Capital stored in pipeline networks like camel humps holding fat - closed-end fund locks investor money into midstream infrastructure. Pipelines trans...
Kearny Financial Corp
Regional Banks
Regional bank rooted in New Jersey soil like oak trees - slow growth, deep roots in local communities. Deposits gathered from small businesses and ind...
Kellanova (formerly Kellogg Company)
Food Products
Engineered calorie density like acorns packed by squirrels - Pringles stack 150 chips per tube, Cheez-It crams cheese powder onto crackers. Shelf-stab...
Kellogg's
Packaged Foods
Kellogg's completed its split into two companies in October 2023: Kellanova inheriting global snacks including Pringles and Pop-Tarts with $12.7 billi...
Kelly Services
Staffing & Outsourcing
Labor broker like cleaner wrasse connecting clients and workers - matching temporary employees to short-term needs across industries. Absorbs unemploy...
Kemper Corporation
Insurance
Risk pooling like prairie dog colonies sharing sentinel duty - premiums collected from many policyholders, payouts distributed to unlucky few hit by a...
Kenan Advantage Group
Transportation & Logistics
Tank trucks like blood vessels carrying specialized cargo - petroleum, chemicals, food-grade liquids compartmentalized to prevent contamination. Bulk...
Kenco Logistic Services
Third-Party Logistics
Like ant colonies moving resources through interconnected tunnels, Kenco orchestrates goods flowing through warehouse networks. Third-party logistics...
Kennametal
Industrial
Materials science mirrors evolution's experiments - ceramics, carbides, alloys each optimized for extreme conditions. Kennametal engineers wear-resist...
Kennedy-Wilson Holdings
Real Estate
Real estate investment mirrors territorial species claiming prime habitat patches. Kennedy-Wilson identifies undervalued properties in liquid markets,...
Kenya Power & Lighting Company
Utilities
Like mycorrhizal networks shuttling nutrients through forest soil, Kenya Power distributes electrons across the national grid. State-controlled monopo...
Keppel Corporation
Conglomerate
Keppel transformed from offshore rig builder to renewable energy and urban solutions provider, divesting O&M (offshore & marine) business after oil do...
Kering
Luxury Goods
In 2024, Kering posted €17.2 billion in revenue—down 12% year-over-year—while operating margin collapsed from 24.3% to 14.9%. The group appointed thre...
Keurig Dr Pepper
Beverages
Beverage portfolio spreads risk like mixed-species forest - hot coffee, cold sodas, flavored waters each capture different consumption niches. Over 12...
Key Energy Services
Energy Services
Oilfield services operate like cleanup crews in ecosystems - rig-based well servicing and coiled tubing maintenance keep extraction infrastructure fun...
KeyCorp
Banking
Regional banks function like beaver dams - collecting capital from depositors upstream, holding reserves, releasing loans downstream to borrowers. Key...
Keyence Corporation
Industrial Automation & Sensors
Keyence Corporation achieves the industrial world's highest operating margin - 51.9% in FY2025 on ¥1.06 trillion revenue (¥549.7 billion operating pro...
Keysight Technologies
Electronic Test Equipment
Electronic test equipment probes invisible electromagnetic signals, measuring voltage, frequency, and waveforms like electric fish sensing their surro...
Keywords Studios
Technology
Keywords Studios provides creative and technical services to the global video games industry. The company offers localization, art creation, testing,...
Kforce
Staffing & Outsourcing
Matches specialized talent to temporary hosts, like cleaner fish pairing with larger species. Workers flow between client ecosystems, providing techni...
Khan Academy
EdTech - Online Learning
Broadcasts skills across generations like vocal teaching in songbird populations. Knowledge transfers freely through video instruction, building cumul...
Khosla Ventures
Venture Capital
Vinod Khosla's venture firm exemplifies r-selection investing—placing many high-risk bets on transformative technologies with the expectation that mos...
Kia Corporation
Automotive
Kia crossed KRW 100 trillion in annual revenue for the first time in 2024 (KRW 107.45 trillion, $77.5 billion), achieving an 11.8% operating profit ma...
Kick
Media
Competes for attention through elaborate displays, like bowerbirds building decorated arenas. Streamers perform for audiences, each developing distinc...
Kidder Peabody
Investment Banking
Kidder Peabody's 1994 sale to PaineWebber followed a trading scandal where Joseph Jett's fictitious profits of $350 million were discovered. The GE-ow...
Kilroy Realty Corporation
Real Estate
Constructs and defends premium office territories in coastal markets, like beavers building dams that reshape entire valleys. Properties create stable...
Kimbell Royalty Partners
Energy
Collects resource flows without extraction effort, like oxpeckers feeding on ticks from host animals. Owns mineral rights beneath working lands, recei...
Kimberly-Clark Corporation
Consumer Goods
Processes plant fiber into absorbent products that manage waste and moisture, like fungi breaking down organic matter. Tissues and diapers capture flu...
Kimco Realty Corporation
Retail Real Estate
Anchors retail ecosystems around grocery stores, like fig trees supporting diverse wildlife. Shopping centers cluster complementary businesses where f...
Kinaxis Inc.
Software
Coordinates material flows across distributed networks, like mycelial threads routing nutrients through forest soil. Software tracks components moving...
Kindbody
Fertility & Women's Health
Supports reproductive timing and investment decisions, like salmon choosing when to spawn. Egg freezing delays reproduction until conditions favor suc...
Kinder Morgan
Energy
Moves energy resources through continental pipeline networks, like xylem vessels transporting water from roots to canopy. Pressurized tubes carry gas...
King
Mobile Gaming
Triggers compulsive engagement through color-matching patterns, like cuckoos exploiting parental instincts with exaggerated begging. Candy Crush deliv...
Kingfisher Airlines
Airlines
Kingfisher Airlines' 2012 grounding demonstrated how flamboyant founders can destroy airlines through overexpansion and mismanagement. Vijay Mallya's...
Kinnevik AB
Investment & Private Equity
Spreads capital across diverse digital ventures, like fig wasps pollinating multiple fig species. Portfolio diversification hedges risk—failures in so...
Kinsale Capital Group
Insurance
Underwrites unusual risks by pooling premiums across diverse hazards, like meerkats sharing sentinel watch. Specialty lines spread unpredictable losse...
Kintetsu World Express
Freight & Logistics
Coordinates long-distance cargo movements across continents, like monarch butterflies navigating multi-generational migrations. Goods traverse air and...
Kirby Corporation
Maritime Shipping
Transports bulk liquids through river networks, like salmon navigating watersheds. Tank barges move chemicals and petroleum products along inland wate...
Kirin Holdings
Beverages
Transforms sugars into alcohol through controlled yeast fermentation, like fungi metabolizing plant matter. Brewing harnesses microbial metabolism to...
Kirin Holdings Company, Limited
Beverages & Food
Diversifies across beverages, food, and pharmaceuticals like fungi producing multiple compounds. Yeast creates alcohol in one division while related p...
Kirkland & Ellis
Legal Services
Forms coalitions to defend client interests through coordinated legal action, like wolves hunting in packs. Attorneys combine specialized expertise—re...
Kirkland's
Specialty Retail
Displays seasonal merchandise to attract buyers, like bowerbirds arranging colored objects. Store layouts change with holidays and trends, using visua...
Kite Pharma
Biotechnology
Reprograms patient T-cells to hunt cancer like wolves learning to take down new prey. This cellular apprenticeship transforms immune cells into target...
Kite Realty Group Trust
Retail Real Estate
Anchors shopping ecosystems around grocery stores like keystone species that support diverse tenant populations. These necessity-based habitats create...
Kitopi
Technology
Builds food production colonies like termite mounds, where specialized workers prepare multiple brand cuisines from centralized facilities. Each kitch...
Kiwibot
Autonomous Vehicles
Deploys sidewalk robots that forage like ants across campus territories, following invisible trails to deliver food. Each bot operates semi-autonomous...
Klabin
Pulp & Paper
Manages forest plantations through cycles of growth and harvest like ecological succession, converting timber into packaging materials. Their integrat...
Klarna
Financial Technology
Klarna's 2024 return to profitability ($21 million net income after $244 million 2023 loss) demonstrates hormetic stress response: near-death experien...
Kleiner Perkins
Venture Capital
This venture capital firm's cleantech disaster is a masterclass in niche mismatch—and why the firm survived anyway. In the 2000s, John Doerr declared...
Klépierre
Real Estate
Builds retail ecosystems like coral reefs, where anchor tenants create the skeletal structure that attracts smaller specialist shops. Each shopping ce...
Kmart
Retail
Kmart's 2002 bankruptcy ended the discount retailer's decades-long decline from market leadership to irrelevance. The company that pioneered discount...
Kmart Corporation (2002)
Retail
Kmart's 2002 bankruptcy was the largest retail bankruptcy in U.S. history at the time - $17 billion in liabilities. The discount retailer had lost the...
Knight Capital Group
Financial Services
Knight Capital Group was a major American financial services firm and market maker that experienced a catastrophic software failure on August 1, 2012....
Knight-Swift Transportation
Transportation & Logistics
Operates North America's largest trucking fleet through swarm intelligence, coordinating thousands of trucks like ant colonies manage foraging trails....
Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings
Trucking
Orchestrates truck fleets like ant colonies coordinate foragers, with each driver acting as an independent agent while the collective optimizes routin...
Knorr-Bremse
Industrial
Engineers braking systems as nervous system reflexes for trains and trucks, where sensors detect danger and trigger automatic responses faster than co...
Knowles Corporation
Electronic Components
Miniaturizes acoustic technologies like bats compress echolocation into skull-sized organs. Their micro-speakers and filters process sound frequencies...
Kobe Steel, Ltd.
Steel & Materials
Diversifies across steel, aluminum, copper and machinery like an organism adapting to multiple ecological niches. Their specialty alloys combine eleme...
Kodiak Robotics
Autonomous Vehicles
Programs autonomous trucks to navigate highways like caribou traverse tundra, using sensor fusion to perceive environments in all weather conditions....
Koei Tecmo
Gaming
Simulates historical warfare and strategic competition through game mechanics that mirror evolutionary game theory. Their Dynasty Warriors and strateg...
Kohl's
Department Stores
Operates as a retail generalist, offering diverse product categories like omnivorous species exploit multiple food sources. Their strategy combines ex...
Kojima Productions
Gaming
Crafts narrative games as complex ecosystems where player choices ripple through storylines like predator-prey relationships shape food webs. Each gam...
Komatsu Ltd.
Industrial Machinery
Manufactures construction equipment that moves earth like termite mounds restructure landscapes. Their excavators and bulldozers extend human capabili...
Konami Holdings Corporation
Gaming & Entertainment
Evolved from arcade games through console generations like species adapting to changing environments. Their franchises - Metal Gear, Castlevania, Sile...
Kone Oyj
Industrial Equipment
Kone's $12.4 billion elevator and escalator business solves gravitational constraints that would otherwise limit urban density - functioning as archit...
Konfio
Fintech
Provides small business loans in Mexico through rapid assessment algorithms that evaluate creditworthiness like predators assess prey vulnerability. T...
Kongsberg Gruppen
Aerospace & Defense
Norway's state owns 50.001% of a technology conglomerate that tripled revenue to NOK 41.8 billion since 2016 by building defense and maritime systems...
Kontoor Brands
Apparel
Manages denim brands Wrangler and Lee through heritage cultivation similar to how oak trees grow from ancestral root systems. Each brand maintains its...
Koppers Holdings
Chemicals
Koppers Holdings is an integrated global provider of treated wood products, wood treatment chemicals, and carbon compounds. The company serves the rai...
Korea Investment Holdings
Financial Services
Operates financial services across securities, asset management, and banking like an organism distributing metabolic functions across specialized orga...
Korean Air Lines Co., Ltd.
Aviation
Connects global destinations through hub-and-spoke networks that mirror how neurons route signals through synaptic junctions. Their Incheon hub concen...
Korn Ferry
Executive Search
Matches executives to organizations like pollinators identify compatible flowers, reading subtle signals of cultural fit and leadership potential. The...
Kornit Digital
Industrial Machinery
Prints textiles on-demand through digital inkjet systems that apply dye like chromatophores change octopus skin. Their technology eliminates tradition...
Kotak Mahindra Bank
Banking
Kotak Mahindra Bank exemplifies adaptive radiation from a specialist ancestor. Founded in 1985 as Kotak Mahindra Finance, a bill-discounting and inves...
Kozmo.com
E-commerce - Delivery
Kozmo.com's 2001 shutdown after burning through $280 million demonstrated that on-demand delivery economics don't work without minimum orders, surge p...
KPMG
Professional Services
Operates like mycelial networks beneath forest floors - 143 nodes sharing expertise through invisible threads. Each office digests local regulations w...
Kraft Heinz
Packaged Foods
Kraft Heinz generated $25.8 billion revenue in 2024, down 3% with organic sales declining 2.1% as consumers shifted away from processed foods toward f...
Kraft Heinz (Writedowns)
Food & Beverage
Kraft Heinz's $15.4 billion writedown in 2019 demonstrates how zero-based budgeting can destroy brands. 3G Capital's aggressive cost-cutting saved mon...
Krafton
Gaming
Built PUBG as a battle royale ecosystem where 100 players compete in shrinking territories until one survives. This gameplay mechanic mirrors resource...
Kraken
Cryptocurrency
Operates cryptocurrency exchange infrastructure with the resilience of its namesake cephalopod. Their platform handles billions in daily trading volum...
Kratos Defense & Security Solutions
Defense
Manufactures unmanned aerial systems and missile defense technologies that extend human combat capabilities like tools extended early human hunting ra...
Krispy Kreme
Restaurants
Manufactures doughnuts through automated production lines that achieve yeast fermentation at industrial scale. Their "Hot Now" signal exploits scent m...
Krones
Industrial
Builds beverage bottling systems that fill thousands of containers per hour through synchronized mechanical choreography. Their production lines orche...
Kronos Worldwide
Specialty Chemicals
Produces titanium dioxide pigment that scatters light like butterfly wing scales create structural color. This white pigment achieves opacity through...
Krystal
Restaurant
Krystal's January 2020 bankruptcy collapsed the Southern slider chain after 88 years. The company had been through multiple private equity owners, eac...
Krystal Biotech
Biotechnology
Delivers gene therapies through engineered viruses that insert corrective DNA like retroviruses integrate into host genomes. Their HSV-1 based treatme...
KT Corporation
Telecommunications
Functions as South Korea's nervous system - fiber optics like axons firing 5G signals at millisecond speeds. Smart cities respond to traffic, energy,...
Kuaishou Technology
Short Video & Live Streaming
Built short-video platform algorithms that surface content like neural networks filter sensory input for relevance. Their recommendation engine learns...
Kubota Corporation
Industrial Machinery
Manufactures agricultural equipment that extends human farming capabilities like tool use extended early human foraging efficiency. Their tractors, ha...
Kuehne + Nagel
Transportation & Logistics
Kuehne+Nagel achieved global number-one position in air and sea logistics by solving coordination problems that parallel migratory bird navigation: in...
Kueski
Fintech
Provides instant consumer loans in Mexico through algorithmic risk assessment that evaluates creditworthiness like predators gauge prey vulnerability....
KUKA
Robotics
Robotic arms that move like octopus tentacles - each joint sensing position, torque, and resistance in microseconds. Six-axis manipulators adapt to ca...
Kulicke & Soffa Industries
Semiconductor Equipment
Builds semiconductor assembly equipment that bonds microscopic wires to chips with precision matching spider silk attachment points. Their wire bonder...
Kulicke and Soffa Industries
Semiconductor Equipment
Engineers automated bonding systems for semiconductor packaging that connect chips to substrates with spider-like precision. Their equipment places mi...
Kumba Iron Ore
Mining & Resources
Extracts iron ore from South African deposits through open-pit mining that removes overburden like leaf-cutter ants excavate soil to reach food source...
Kumon
EdTech - Tutoring
Teaches mathematics through incremental difficulty progression that mirrors how organisms master skills through graduated practice. Students advance t...
Kuwait Finance House
Banking
Provides Islamic banking through partnership structures that align lender and borrower incentives like mutualistic relationships align organism benefi...
Kweichow Moutai
Beverages
Kweichow Moutai is China's largest and most prestigious liquor producer, specializing in baijiu, considered a luxury status symbol and one of the most...
Kylie Cosmetics
Beauty & Personal Care
Launched beauty products through social media influence that spreads like viral cascades through networks. Kylie Jenner's direct-to-consumer model exp...
Kyndryl
IT Services
IT infrastructure services company spun off from IBM in 2021 with $19B in revenue. The spinoff was part of IBM's strategic decomposition to focus on h...