Spotlight: Don’t Just Look for Moat, Look for Antifragility

A strong moat is about being resilient to competition. But antifragility is beyond resilience. Using the example of Berkshire’s insurance operations, we explore the characteristics of an antifragile business.

Wind extinguishes a candle and energizes a fire. Likewise with randomness, uncertainty, chaos: you want to use them, not hide from them. You want to be the fire and wish for the wind. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

If you threaten a lizard, it may sometimes run away leaving its tail behind. As a kid it was the most fascinating thing I ever witnessed while conducting my own zoology experiments. It’s common in many lizard species to shed a part of their tails and this trick is employed by these reptiles to allow them to escape when captured by the tail by a predator. The detached tail writhes and wiggles, creating a deceptive sense of continued struggle, distracting the predator’s attention from the fleeing prey animal. That’s a fascinating self-preservation mechanism that evolution has given to lizards. And what’s more fascinating is that these lizards can grow that tail back in a matter of few weeks. What a robust way to deal with loss! If that sounds cool, then you must also know about Hydra. It is a serpent-like creature from Greek mythology. Hydra grows two new heads every time you cut one off. In Indian mythology, there is a similar character called Raktabija. A demon (asura) who has the magic boon that every drop of blood shed from his body give rise to another Raktabija (literally the blood borne).

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