70-20-10 Rule (innovation portfolio)

Biological Parallel

Evolutionary bet-hedging follows the same 70/20/10 split: 70% of genome conserved (core metabolism), 20% variable but proven (heat shock proteins, immune variants), 10% highly experimental (transposable elements, viral DNA). This distribution maximizes expected fitness across uncertain futures—too much conservation and you can't adapt to change; too much experimentation and you lose essential function. The portfolio effect in biodiversity shows that 70/20/10 allocation is the Nash equilibrium where no organism can improve fitness by reallocating mutational resources.