Math Behind Cities and Corporations



A fascinating TED talk, "The math behind cities and corporations" highlights the indistinguishable similarities between biological structures, and metropolitan cities, and the similar growth patterns that are underlying in both. 

When people move to large cities, they are trading a large increase of earning potential and wealth, to a large risk of city induced diseases, pollution, and overcrowding. But with constant, and continued increase in innovation, life in the big city breaks these typical constraints for its inhabitants. Because of this, the speaker moderates the potential in moving to a big city, and the prospects regarding this transition. His argument, that these "S-shaped curves" which are seen everywhere in biological life, also represent aspects of our current lives, and the life cycle of cities and companies in terms of population growth, and revenue growth respectively. With this argument, the speaker states that to continue to exist, a company(or city) must innovate, as innovation allows for the beginning of a separate S-curve trajectory.

All in all, the speaker's argument highlights the importance of innovation in business and our way of life. And most importantly, the trajectory or life span of a business doesn't have to be finite, under the correct set of conditions.
Ford:

a) The Model T replaced distribution and package payload, in that the model T redefined the use of different aspects of owning an automobile we take for granted today, like convince, usability, and cost-effectiveness. 

b) Ford is selling a package payload that is now a vehicle. 

c) One of the trade-offs being broken with autonomous vehicles is trade-off between performance, and efficiency. Something that has been an inverse for the life time of the combustion engine. 

d)  Ford is trying to break the trade-off between car ownership, and cost. Our current cities rely on the use of an automobile to help function in our every day lives. 

e)10x growth for Ford is going to come from a change in the package payload, from actual automobile , and the quantifier automobile sales , to sales of data . This will expand Ford's business tremendously. 

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