Saudi Aramco

The world's largest oil company - valued at $2+ trillion, producing 10+ million barrels daily - proves that in capital-intensive industries, size isn't just an advantage. It's physics.

Saudi Aramco extracts oil at ~$3 per barrel. The industry average is ~$15. This isn't operational excellence or Saudi geology alone - it's the geometry of scale. Larger oil reservoirs have lower surface-area-to-volume ratios, reducing edge effects just like large organisms retain heat more efficiently than small ones. Infrastructure costs - processing facilities, pipelines, export terminals - amortize across massive production volumes, creating unit economics that are impossible at smaller scales. Aramco's size makes it the lowest-cost producer on earth.

But scale attracts predators. In 2012, the Shamoon virus attempted to destroy Aramco's digital infrastructure and halt Saudi oil production - an act of state-sponsored economic warfare. The malware wiped 30,000+ computers in hours. Yet oil production never stopped. Aramco's Security Operations Center detected unusual activity within hours, isolated infected systems within 2 hours, and prevented malware from reaching operational technology controlling extraction. When Shamoon 2 struck in 2017, the immune system was faster: 1-hour detection, <100 systems affected.

The dual lesson: in high-fixed-cost industries, scale creates unassailable economic advantages. But size also makes you a target - and survival requires detection, isolation, and coordinated response that stops threats before they metastasize.