PayPal

PayPal's story is about strategic focus under pressure. During the 2000 dot-com crash, the company demonstrated what biologists call 'shivering thermogenesis' - cutting everything except core metabolism to survive. PayPal abandoned auctions, PDA beaming, and every other product, focusing 200 employees on person-to-person payments only. While competitors froze, PayPal emerged dominant.

But success created a different problem. After eBay acquired PayPal in 2002, the payment processor grew faster than its parent - 25% annually versus eBay's 8% - creating strategic tension. PayPal wanted to process payments everywhere: Amazon, retail stores, mobile apps. eBay wanted PayPal exclusive to its marketplace. By 2014, PayPal had become too large to remain subordinate.

The 2015 spinoff unlocked massive value. Market cap grew from $46.6 billion to $85.6 billion by 2024. Revenue expanded from $9.2 billion to $31.8 billion. The lesson: organisms outgrow their ecosystems. When a subsidiary's growth trajectory diverges from its parent's, separation isn't failure - it's evolution. The real failure is forcing a fast-growing organism to match the metabolic rate of a slower host.