Burn Multiple

Biological Parallel

Burn Multiple (dollars burned per dollar of revenue growth) measures capital efficiency. In biology, this is metabolic efficiency: calories burned per unit of biomass gained. Hummingbirds have terrible burn multiples—they consume 2x their body weight daily just to maintain metabolism, making growth expensive. Pythons have excellent efficiency: after one large meal, they can grow for months without eating. Cold-blooded organisms generally achieve better burn multiples than warm-blooded ones because they don't waste energy on thermoregulation. Your burn multiple reveals whether you're a hummingbird (beautiful but expensive) or a python (efficient capital converter).