Exponential Growth Matters

A 13th century Islamic scholar once related a story where an emperor was to reward the inventor of chess with a single grain of wheat doubled for every square of the chess board. Up through the first half of the board, the reward was measured in spoons and cups. By the end, it was a wheat pile the size of Mount Everest… (2 to the 64th power-1 grains to be exact, for those interested in the math). This storyline eventually gave rise to the phrase "second half of the chessboard" in reference to the point where an exponentially growing factor begins to have a significant economic impact on an organization's overall business strategy. Read More…