The venture firm Andreessen Horowitz is a great example of an organization that uses an ecosystem mindset to great effect. Other than those relatively few people in the firm focused squarely on the portfolio companies, everyone else is focused on what is out there, beyond the walls of the organization. Marketers market themselves, directors research deals, the executive talent team doesn’t recruit — that is very much “organism think.” Instead, they build relationships. Managing directors open doors to corporations for portfolio companies in the ecosystem — hundreds per month come through their doors. The entire firm is organized to function as a series of inputs and outputs, permeable membranes with the outside world around it. As Jeff Stump, a partner there, said to me, “If a pin drops in our network we want to know about it.”