Coral

Individual brain coral colonies can live over 500 years, which means some corals alive today began growing before the founding of the United States. This isn't a curiosity - it's a survival strategy. Coral reefs endure cyclical bleaching events driven by El Niño temperature spikes because long-lived colonies survive the stress, recover during favorable years, and produce larvae that recolonize areas where shorter-lived species died. Longevity creates resilience.

But coral's real innovation is partnership economics. Reef-building corals host zooxanthellae - photosynthetic dinoflagellates - living within their tissue. These symbionts provide up to 90% of the coral's energy in clear, shallow tropical waters. In exchange, corals provide nutrients from captured prey, CO₂ from respiration, and a protected environment. Neither partner could build reefs alone; together they create structures that modify ocean hydrodynamics, reduce wave energy, and create calm-water environments that favor more coral growth - positive feedback that compounds over centuries.

The business parallel: the most valuable infrastructure isn't built in quarters or years. It's built through partnerships that create compounding returns across decades. Coral reefs demonstrate network effects where more species create more niches for additional species, each addition making the entire system more valuable.