Scale: The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life
A physicist's exploration of why size matters - from cities to companies to organisms
"Companies are more like organisms than cities. They're not open-ended. They have a finite lifespan."
— Geoffrey West
My Review
West's work demonstrates that scaling laws aren't metaphors - they're mathematical constraints that govern biological and organizational systems. His research on why companies die while cities persist is foundational to understanding organizational sustainability. This book makes the quantitative case for biological thinking.
Why It Matters
West's work demonstrates that scaling laws aren't metaphors - they're mathematical constraints that govern biological and organizational systems. His research on why companies die while cities persist is foundational to understanding organizational sustainability.
Key Ideas
- Metabolic rate scales with body mass to the 3/4 power across all organisms
- Cities exhibit superlinear scaling - doubling size increases output by 115%
- Companies scale sublinearly and eventually die, unlike cities
- The same mathematical laws govern phenomena across vastly different scales
How It Connects to This Framework
Book 7 (Scale & Complexity) draws heavily on West's scaling laws. Concepts like Kleiber's Law, metabolic scaling, and the mathematics of growth are directly informed by this work.
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Want to go deeper?
The full Biology of Business book explores these concepts in depth with practical frameworks.