Forever Young

In flora, some species live like Peter Pan. Can the business world be the same?

If you’ve ever been a plant-parent, you’ll know that it’s easier than it looks. Research has shown that some select potted plants in your living space can be emotionally uplifting or even air-purifying in some cases. Nowadays, you can even buy very realistic albeit plastic knock-offs that don’t ever wilt or die on you. But they also don’t grow. Some are so real that you cannot tell the difference even on close inspection. What does that say about us!?

I also remember the Day of Triffids. I chose that as one of my book studies in high school because I loved John Wyndham’s other more famous book (The Crysalids). You don’t want killer plants. I happen to kill them despite my best efforts. But I found that having been an on and off plant-parent for the better half a decade that there are serious parallels between plant-parenthood and investing (and product too).

Recently, there’s been a discovery of a molecule that could turn an aging plant young again or keep them young forever. Biology, genetics and evolutionary sciences have a lot of share with us about the life and death of businesses too. They share a desire to flourish, to mutate, to strengthen and have a will to live. But sometimes — and my long gone potted plants will share with you — they perish despite having “good management”, with the right sunlight, enough water, soil and fertilizers.

In “business” so much talk is about the strategies like this: how much “sunlight” to give it, what is the mix of the “soil”, who is the “gardener” that should tend to the plants, how much “water” to give it and at what cadence and when needed, “fertilizers”. Companies like Constellation Software have this locked down and treat it as a science, learning from trial and error, making it a playbook that is both fixed and flexible to the needs of the local ecosystem (i.e. vertical) that it grows in.

But I think what is most often overlooked and one that I think I’ve learned from Munger and Buffett is that — you don’t need to swing when it’s not the right pitch.

Picking the right business or potted plant species for your living space is even more important for its survivability as your “child”. Of course you need to know a bit about the types of plants (i.e. industries, sectors and businesses) that does well in general in any environment. At the same time using inversion, rule out the really tough to grow ones like Cathaleas. And then there are also plants that just grow no matter what you throw at them. I’ve written about this before that resilient plants is one thing but pro-entropic ones make you feel like you are the best plant-parent there is. I have had one such experience.

When we first moved here 6 years ago, we got a Monstera plant. It was very large already when I bought it from this specialty nursery (another lesson here is to get already grown plants and just maintain them). It did really well and if you know a thing about Monsteras they tend to grow fast and big when given the room. Well it did, along with a lot aerial roots too which got unruly.

Then my friend told me that it could withstand a bit of a trim, particularly the aerial roots including cutting off whole aerial roots. It turns out, it didn’t like that and subsequently was never the same. As it withered and was reduced to a few branches left over a few months, I decided to save whatever I could. I cut a small branch and put it in water and had no expectation it’ll ever even survive. Call it a last ditch effort.

Well fast forward to today and it’s still growing. I have two branches now in different media and both seem to keep growing despite me never repotting it, not giving it much “love”, and not putting it in any ideal spots around the home.

The lesson here is, I don’t need to know which gene to modify my plants to keep them forever young. Plant selection is by far the most important thing. The rest of the maintenance is just the cherry on top. I think about this often when I make initial investments decisions of any kind be it for products or businesses.