Trophic Levels & Energy Flow
Business trophic levels: Level 1 (Infrastructure: AWS, Stripe) captures small percentages of massive volume.
You can't all be apex predators. The energy pyramid doesn't support it.
Ecosystems organize into trophic levels - feeding levels that define energy flow. Level 1 (Primary Producers): plants, 450 gigatons carbon. Level 2 (Primary Consumers): herbivores, 10 gigatons. Level 3 (Secondary Consumers): carnivores, 1 gigaton. Level 4 (Tertiary Consumers): apex predators, 0.1 gigatons.
~90% of energy is lost at each trophic level. This explains why food chains rarely exceed 4-5 levels, why apex predators are rare, and why ecosystems are bottom-heavy.
Business Application of Trophic Levels & Energy Flow
Business trophic levels: Level 1 (Infrastructure: AWS, Stripe) captures small percentages of massive volume. Level 2 (Platforms: Shopify) captures 2-5% fees. Level 3 (Applications: Slack, Zoom) captures subscriptions. Level 4 (Aggregators: Google, Meta) captures attention. The 10% rule applies: don't fight your trophic position - design for it.