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75 companies
Microsoft
Software & Cloud Computing
Microsoft's transformation under Satya Nadella represents one of the most successful metabolic pathway shifts in business history. By 2014, the compan...
Marvel Entertainment
Entertainment & Media
Marvel filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December 1996 with $700 million in debt after the comic book market collapsed. Investor Ike Perlmutter provided...
McDonald's
Quick Service Restaurants
McDonald's represents the most successful example of asexual reproduction in business history. When Ray Kroc encountered the McDonald brothers' San Be...
Maersk Line
Shipping & Logistics
The world's largest container shipping company, headquartered in Denmark with 17% global market share and 700+ vessels. Maersk demonstrates fractal lo...
Mercado Libre
E-commerce / Fintech
Mercado Libre ('Free Market'), founded by Marcos Galperin in 1999, became Latin America's e-commerce leader by solving the region's fundamental trust...
Meta/Facebook
Technology/Social Media
Social media and technology company that demonstrates effective decomposition through open-sourcing. When Facebook reduced internal usage of React Nat...
Microsoft Japan
Technology
Japanese subsidiary of Microsoft that conducted a landmark 4-day workweek experiment in August 2019. By closing offices every Friday and implementing...
Mitsubishi Motors
Automotive
Japanese automaker added to the Renault-Nissan Alliance in 2016, transforming the two-party coalition into a three-party structure. The addition was i...
Moderna
Biotechnology / Pharmaceuticals
Moderna spent 10 years and $2.5 billion with zero revenue. No mRNA drug had ever been approved when they started in 2010. The allocation was extreme:...
Mondragon Corporation
Worker Cooperative/Manufacturing
Mondragon is the world's largest worker-owned cooperative - 80,000+ worker-owners, €11.2 billion annual revenue, founded in Spain's Basque Country in...
Movie Gallery
Video Rental
Movie Gallery is mentioned as one of Blockbuster's traditional competitors. Blockbuster's selective membrane served them well defending against tradit...
Macquarie Group
Financial Services
Macquarie Group's $61 billion market cap demonstrates opportunistic resource allocation across infrastructure, commodities, asset management, and capi...
Mahindra & Mahindra Limited
Automotive & Conglomerate
Mahindra & Mahindra closed FY25 with ₹1.59 trillion revenue (14% YoY growth) and ₹12,929 crore PAT, demonstrating adaptive radiation across adjacent n...
Mailchimp
Marketing Technology
Mailchimp spent 21 years as the textbook ectotherm—profitable from day one, growing without external funding, metabolic rate coupled to market tempera...
MakerDAO
Cryptocurrency / DeFi
In August 2024, MakerDAO rebranded to "Sky," introducing the USDS stablecoin and SKY governance token while keeping original DAI and MKR tokens in cir...
Mallinckrodt
Pharmaceutical
Mallinckrodt's two bankruptcies (2020, 2023) demonstrated how opioid liability could destroy pharmaceutical companies years after the conduct occurred...
Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals
Pharmaceutical
Mallinckrodt's October 2020 bankruptcy was driven by $1.6 billion in opioid litigation settlements. The company manufactured 55% of America's opioid a...
Manhattan Associates
Technology
Manhattan Associates develops, sells, deploys, and maintains software solutions designed to manage supply chains, inventory, and omnichannel operation...
Manning & Napier
Financial Services
Manning & Napier is an independent investment management firm providing investment strategies and solutions for institutional and private wealth clien...
Maple
Food Delivery
Maple, David Chang's premium meal delivery startup, raised $29M before shutting down in 2017. The company discovered that chef-driven quality couldn't...
Marathon Petroleum Corporation
Energy
America's largest refining system metabolizes 3 million barrels per day of crude oil across 13 refineries, converting hydrocarbons into transportation...
MarketAxess Holdings
Financial Technology
MarketAxess operates an electronic trading platform for fixed-income securities providing market transparency and improved efficiency in the corporate...
Marriott International
Hospitality
Marriott International is the world's largest hotel company with more than 30 brands and 8,000 properties across 139 countries. The company operates a...
Mars
Consumer Goods/Pet Food
Global confectionery and pet food company that acquired P&G's pet food brands (Iams, Eukanuba) for $2.9B in 2014 as part of P&G's portfolio pruning st...
Maruti Suzuki India
Automobiles
43% passenger vehicle market share with 1.71 million units sold in November 2025—Maruti Suzuki dominates Indian automotive ecosystems through phenotyp...
Maserati
Automotive/Luxury
Maserati produced 9,760 units in 2024—a 64% collapse from 27,166 in 2023—making it one of the automotive industry's most catastrophic single-year cont...
Mastercard
Payment Networks / Financial Services
The payment network that learned the most profitable war is one you never finish. Mastercard holds 25-30% of the global payment network market, formi...
Mattress Firm (2018)
Retail - Mattresses
Mattress Firm's 2018 bankruptcy came after aggressive expansion left the company with 3,000+ stores—often multiple stores on the same block competing...
McClatchy
Publishing - Newspapers
McClatchy's 2020 bankruptcy ended 163 years of newspaper publishing, including the Miami Herald and Sacramento Bee. The company had acquired Knight Ri...
McKinsey & Company
Management Consulting
In December 2024, McKinsey agreed to pay $650 million to resolve DOJ investigation into its work advising Purdue Pharma on boosting OxyContin sales—ad...
Medicine Man Technologies
Cannabis
Medicine Man Technologies is a cannabis consulting and products company providing operational and technical consulting services to cannabis cultivator...
Medley Management
Financial Services
Medley Management, a business development company manager, collapsed in 2021 after years of related-party transactions enriched insiders while depleti...
Medtronic
Medical Devices
Medtronic operates medical devices with first-mover advantage in cardiac pacemakers. Network effects from physician training and vertical integration...
Meituan
Technology/Food Delivery
Meituan wrapped 2024 with RMB 337.6 billion revenue ($46.2B), commanding 60-70% of China's food delivery market through swarm intelligence at planetar...
MercadoLibre
Technology/E-commerce
Latin American e-commerce and fintech company founded in 1999 by Marcos Galperin in Argentina. Started as an eBay-style auction marketplace during the...
Mercedes-Benz
Automotive
In February 2024, Mercedes-Benz reversed its 2021 commitment to sell only electric vehicles by decade's end. Revenue fell 4.5% to €145.6 billion, EBIT...
Merchants Bancorp
Financial Services
Merchants Bancorp is a diversified bank holding company offering multi-family housing and healthcare facility financing, mortgage warehouse financing,...
Merck
Pharmaceuticals
Keytruda has reigned as oncology's apex predator for a decade—the PD-1 inhibitor generated $29.48 billion in 2024, an 18% increase from $25.01 billion...
Merck KGaA
Pharmaceuticals
Merck KGaA is a leading science and technology company operating in healthcare, life science, and electronics sectors, combining pharmaceutical innova...
Mercury (Brand)
Automotive
Mercury's 2011 discontinuation ended Ford's intermediate brand after 72 years of increasingly confused positioning. Originally 'the car for young prof...
Mervyn's
Retail - Department Store
Mervyn's 2008 liquidation ended a California department store chain after private equity ownership extracted real estate value while loading the compa...
Meta
Technology / Social Media
Meta exemplifies both the power and peril of thermal regulation at scale. Q3 2025 revenue hit $51.24 billion (up 26% year-over-year), demonstrating th...
Metro AG
Retail
German retail company that purchased 85 of Walmart's German stores for $500M in 2006 when Walmart exited after 9 years of losses.
Metso Corporation
Mining Equipment & Industrial Machinery
Metso's €4.9 billion mining equipment business occupies a specialized niche: providing crushing, grinding, and processing infrastructure that enables...
MF Global
Financial Services
MF Global's 2011 bankruptcy was triggered by bets on European sovereign debt that went wrong, combined with missing $1.6 billion in customer funds. CE...
MG Rover
Automotive
MG Rover's 2005 collapse ended mass British car manufacturing. The company had been sold by BMW for £10 in 2000 to a consortium that extracted cash wh...
MGIC Investment Corporation
Insurance
MGIC Investment Corporation is the holding company for Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corporation, the nation's leading provider of private mortgage insu...
Micron Technology
Semiconductors
Micron's $13.6 billion quarterly revenue in Q1 2026 (up 57% year-over-year) reveals what happens when commodity markets hit genuine scarcity. DRAM pri...
Microsoft Azure
Cloud Computing
Microsoft's cloud computing platform, launched in 2010 as a follower to AWS. Azure demonstrates successful late-entrant strategy, growing to approxima...
Midea Group
Home Appliances
Midea Group is one of the world's largest home appliance manufacturers, producing air conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines, and owning brands...
Midway Airlines (2003)
Aviation
Midway Airlines' 2003 closure was the second death for an airline name that had failed in 1991. The 2001 revival attempted to serve Chicago's Midway A...
Miro
Software
Miro provides collaborative whiteboard platform for distributed teams. Network effects through viral adoption with exponential growth.
Mistral AI
Artificial Intelligence
Mistral AI doubled its valuation from €5.8 billion (June 2024) to €11.7 billion (September 2025) via €1.7 billion Series C led by ASML. Revenue climbe...
Mitsubishi Corporation
Diversified Trading & Investment
Mitsubishi Corporation functions as Japan's largest sogo shosha (general trading house) - a trophic intermediary connecting resource extraction to man...
Modell's Sporting Goods
Retail - Sporting Goods
Modell's March 2020 bankruptcy ended 131 years of family ownership. The Northeast sporting goods chain faced competition from both Dick's Sporting Goo...
Molson Coors Beverage Company
Brewing
When Molson Coors reported $11.6 billion in 2024 revenue—down slightly from the prior year—the 200-year-old brewer faced what biologists call a resour...
Monarch Airlines
Airlines
Monarch Airlines' 2017 collapse stranded 110,000 passengers in the UK's largest peacetime repatriation. The 49-year-old airline couldn't compete with...
monday.com
Software - Collaboration
Monday.com functions as a genetic toolkit enabling organizations to construct custom workflow organisms—the company's Work OS platform reached $1 bill...
Mondelez International
Packaged Foods & Snacks
Mondelez International generated $36.4 billion revenue in 2024, up 1.2% with 4.3% organic growth across brands including Oreo, Cadbury, Milka, and Tob...
MongoDB
Database Software
MongoDB provides document-oriented database platform with flexible schemas. First-mover advantage in NoSQL databases with strong developer network eff...
Monster Beverage
Beverages
Monster Beverage capitalized on energy drink growth through Coca-Cola distribution partnership. Convergent evolution with Red Bull and mutualistic net...
Montgomery Ward
Retail
Montgomery Ward's 2001 liquidation ended a 128-year retail history. The company that pioneered mail-order catalogs and helped settle the American West...
Monzo
Financial Services/Digital Banking
UK digital bank that demonstrated chemical signal alignment during a 2019 PIN security breach. When customer PINs were inadvertently logged in plainte...
Moonpig Group
Retail
Moonpig is the UK's leading online greeting cards and gifting platform. The company allows customers to personalize cards and send gifts with next-day...
Morgan Stanley
Investment Banking
September 21, 2008: Morgan Stanley's stock drops 24% in a single day. Credit default swaps - insurance against the bank's collapse - spike to crisis l...
Motorola Mobility
Consumer Electronics
Motorola Mobility's 2012 acquisition by Google for $12.5 billion, then 2014 sale to Lenovo for $2.9 billion, demonstrated how quickly phone market val...
MoviePass
Entertainment Subscription
MoviePass's 2019 collapse demonstrated that subsidized unit economics can create rapid growth that accelerates death rather than preventing it. The co...
Mowi ASA
Food & Beverage
Controlling 20-29% of global Atlantic salmon harvest means engineering aquatic ecosystems at industrial scale. Mowi produced 502,000 tons of salmon in...
Mt. Gox
Cryptocurrency
Mt. Gox's 2014 collapse after losing 850,000 Bitcoin demonstrates how single points of failure can destroy entire market ecosystems. The exchange hand...
MTN Group
Telecommunications
MTN Group crossed 300 million subscribers in Q3 2025—a milestone that understates the biological transformation underway. The company isn't just selli...
Muddy Waters Research
Financial Research
Investment research firm founded by Carson Block that exposed Luckin Coffee's fraud through intensive verification methods including surveillance foot...
MUJI USA
Retail
MUJI USA's July 2020 bankruptcy collapsed the American arm of Japan's minimalist retailer. The company had expanded to 19 U.S. stores targeting urban...
Munchery
Food Delivery
Munchery's 2019 sudden shutdown—employees learned via text—demonstrates how food delivery faces death spirals. The prepared meal delivery company had...
Munich Re
Reinsurance
For the fourth consecutive year, this €60.8 billion reinsurance organism exceeded profit targets, posting €5.7 billion in 2024 net income (above the €...
Myspace
Social Media
Myspace's decline from $580 million (2005) to $35 million sale (2011) exemplifies how network effects can reverse. In 2006, Myspace was the world's mo...