On Proteges and Tidal Locking: the dangers of being too close to a star

Proteges get "tidally locked" in an unequal way. Startup co-founders get locked-in as equals.
By George ILIEV

1. Protégés
In my article on mentoring and the V-formation of flying birds, I had a passing definition of the protégé: someone who follows blindly and sycophantly their boss in order to advances in their wake. The minus side of being a protégé is that one gains protection and advancement at the expense of losing their independence.

2. Tidal locking & tidal "licking"
In planetary terms there is a related phenomenon known as tidal locking: when a planet gets too close to the star it is orbiting, it loses its own rotation and gets locked in with the star. An example to this is the Moon, which is locked in with the Earth so that only one side of the Moon always faces the Earth. The Moon plays the role of the Earth's protégé by losing its independent rotation: as a protégé it now rotates always facing its master. In the corporate world or the world of politics, tidal locking can be summarised as "tidal licking". You get the meaning.

3. Startup Co-founders
There is an "honourable" version of tidal locking when the two participants are relatively equal. When two planetary bodies of a similar size are close enough to each other, they can be tidally locked so that both rotate facing each other always with the same side. An example to this are Pluto and its satellite Charon: Charon is locked in with Pluto just as Pluto is locked in with Charon. An analogy in the business world are startup co-founders who get locked in with each other, without losing their identity and independence.

Photo: Full moon (Source: Wikipedia)

Stealth mode among companies and animals: Crickets and spiders learn to lie low

Crickets give up chirping, spiders disguise as bird poo, companies slip under the radar to avoid corporate predators.
By George ILIEV

Two recent science stories exemplify the evolutionary importance of disguise:

1. Crickets vs. Killer flies
Crickets in Hawaii have lost their ability to chirp in order to avoid attracting the attention of killer flies, their North American predator, BBC Science reports. In less than 20 generations, a mutation in their wings (the chirp-producing organ) has spread to more than 90% of the crickets on the island of Kauai. As a result, the crickets are now unable to rub their wings and produce chirping sounds but in return they survive unnoticed by the killer flies.

2. Spiders vs. Wasps
Spiders in Taiwan have learnt to disguise themselves in a decor resembling bird excrement, Discovery News reports. The spiders drag onto their web a pile of desiccated insect bodies, eggs and plant detritus to make themselves resemble bird droppings and thus avoid the attention of predator wasps.

3. Stealth mode in the corporate world
Companies of all sizes use disguise to avoid the attention of powerful competitors. Apple and Google develop new products under code names and in secretive locations, while startups often spend years in "stealth mode" to slip under the radar of large competitors. The most fascinating recent example is Google X: Google's semi-secret facility in California where at least eight new technologies are being developed.

There is only one thing Google hasn't thought of: covering up the facility in bird poo.

The Google Campus in Mountain View, California 

(Photo: Wikipedia)