

Growing Like Bamboo - chrisacky
http://leostartsup.com/2012/10/growing-like-bamboo/

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ChuckMcM
_"Then, towards the end of the 5th year, the bamboo shoots up and grows over
30 meters tall. The plant is in fact the fastest growing plant on earth and
can grow around 1m within 24 hours during that period."_

Which is why the USDA regulated it as a 'harmful species' in 7 CFR part 319
[1] :-) There are places in California where its gotten a bit out of control.

The appearance of 'overnight success' was the topic of Gladwell's flawed but
interesting book "Outliers." And the model of building a lot of invisible
infrastructure followed by sudden growth which depends on that infrastructure
is common. Its sad that in some work environments the effort to build the
infrastructure is ignored/lost. There is always a very real danger that folks
get moved off a project before the basics are in place to show 'success.' That
limits the horizon for a lot of people on the size problem they are willing to
work on. Which is really too bad since there are some awesome challenges that
take a bunch of work ahead of time before they show any results (like web
search).

[1] www.fas.usda.gov/info/fr/1998/032098license.pdf

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quesera
> Which is why the USDA regulated it as a 'harmful species' in 7 CFR part 319
> [1] :-)

There are hundreds of species of bamboo. Not all grow so fast, and more
importantly, not all propagate via underground rhizomes. Those that do are
invasive (in the US), but can be controlled with proper planting and
cultivation techniques.

Bamboo is an impressive and versatile plant, for great good.

> There are places in California where its gotten a bit out of control.

I love this sentence because, removed from context, it is a universal truth.
:-)

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dredmorbius
Bamboo is fast growing, but depending on how you measure growth, other
contenders include giant kelp (similar linear growth at ~60 cm/day - without
the long dormant period), the krubi (horizontal growth), and corn (mass gain).

<http://scienceray.com/biology/botany/fastest-growing-plants/>

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stephengillie
_At first, for_ 5 years _, after you have sown the seed you see nothing, other
than a tiny shoot, poking its head up from the ground._

"Growing like Bamboo" will become the new buzzword. Companies will start
saying "Tomorrow we launch, and we better be growing like bamboo." People will
get even more depressed that their app or SAAS isn't having a meteoric launch
while they quickly try to fix bugs.

Everybody will think back to this article and forget that line - that the
bamboo plant took _years_ to prepare and arrange resources before launching.
It can't be done overnight.

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brewski
Supposedly bamboo has also been used as a form of torture:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_torture>

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GertG
I realize the bamboo part is not the point of this post, but can anyone
confirm that this is actually how (some) bamboo grows? The only references to
it I've found all go back on Coelho's novel. As far as I know/knew, bamboo
shoots reach most of their full length in their first year.

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alecdibble
Bamboo is an amazing plant. My parents buy, sell, and grow many types of
exotic bamboos. I have personally witnessed a giant variety grow about 1' in a
24 hour period. It would definitely make for a great stop-motion project.

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Tichy
Would be fun to go on vacation and when you come back, you find your tiny pet
bamboo has grown 30m tall.

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arbuge
So long as you weren't keeping it indoors, that is...

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Tichy
That is what I meant, actually :-) Obviously, fun would be "fun".

