Bamboo

Bamboo plays the longest game in the plant kingdom - and when it finally moves, it moves all at once. Different species flower on fixed 40, 60, or 120-year cycles, with 90-95% of individuals flowering in the same year regardless of where they grow or what conditions they face. This isn't coordination; it's genetic programming so precise that scientists can predict the next mass flowering event decades in advance. When the time comes, the forest explodes with millions of seeds - more than every rat, bird, and beetle can possibly eat.

Then the adults die. Not just some of them - all of them, standing upright with hollow stems as leaves brown and stems slowly collapse. Over six months, they decompose where they stand, returning nutrients accumulated over 60 years to fertilize the seedlings below. The parents don't compete with their children for light, water, or nutrients. They become the substrate for the next generation, converting themselves from structure to resource.

This is the opposite of continuous iteration. Bamboo grows fast - among the fastest plants on Earth, reorienting toward light within days - but it saves reproduction for one synchronized event. The strategy works because timing beats abundance: predators can't adjust their populations in a single season to exploit a feast that comes once per lifetime. The business lesson: some wins require waiting for the right moment, committing everything at once, and accepting that success means the end of your run. Bamboo doesn't try to do both - it grows fast and dies on purpose.