Caloric Restriction
Companies face identical trade-offs: burn fast (grow aggressively, VC-backed hypergrowth) or burn slow (grow sustainably, bootstrap profitability).
The worm lives 42 days instead of 21 by eating 60% of normal calories. It trades fertility (produces 50 offspring instead of 300) for longevity (lives twice as long). Companies face identical trade-offs.
Caloric restriction is the reduction of calorie intake without malnutrition - nutrients balanced, just fewer total calories. A C. elegans nematode worm lives 21 days when fed normally but lives 42 days (exactly double) when fed 60% of normal calories. This works across species separated by 1+ billion years of evolution: yeast live 30% longer, fruit flies 50% longer, mice 30-40% longer, and rhesus monkeys show 30% increased median survival.
The mechanism involves three pathways: autophagy (cellular cleanup activated when nutrients are scarce), sirtuins (NAD+-dependent enzymes that repair DNA and increase stress resistance), and mTOR suppression (switching from growth mode to maintenance mode). The counter-intuitive insight: less food = longer life. Not starvation (which kills quickly), but controlled restriction (which extends life dramatically).
Metabolic rate determines aging rate. Metabolism produces reactive oxygen species (ROS - superoxide, hydrogen peroxide, hydroxyl radical) that damage DNA, proteins, and lipids. Fewer calories → slower metabolism → less ROS → less damage → longer lifespan. The hummingbird burns 1 cal/g/day and lives 3-5 years. The tortoise burns 0.0001 cal/g/day and lives 150+ years.
Business Application of Caloric Restriction
Companies face identical trade-offs: burn fast (grow aggressively, VC-backed hypergrowth) or burn slow (grow sustainably, bootstrap profitability). The sweet spot is 20-30% restriction below maximum capacity - enough stress to trigger beneficial adaptation (autophagy, efficiency gains), not enough to cause collapse. Basecamp thrives 20+ years with 75% fewer employees than peers; Patagonia builds $1.5B over 50 years with deliberate growth restriction.