MarinosTBH
Mohamed Amine Terbah

It's turtles all the way down

November 17, 2025

It's turtles all the way down

Large companies' risk aversion creates a 77% chance they'll lose to startups in any single innovation race, despite near-certain startup success over multiple attempts.

  • When a fast but unreliable competitor (hare) faces a slow but steady one (tortoise), the hare loses 77% of individual races but wins nearly all series of 100 races.
  • Startups act as hares against large company tortoises: any single startup likely fails, but repeated attempts guarantee some will disrupt incumbents and capture massive value.
  • Corporate risk aversion stems from judging projects individually as successes or failures, discouraging bets on volatile ideas with high potential but low expected value.

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