Exaptation
A trait evolved for one purpose gets repurposed for another.
Stephen Jay Gould's term for evolutionary innovation. Feathers originally evolved for warmth, then got repurposed for flight. The mammalian middle ear bones repurposed jaw bones. Most evolutionary innovation isn't new from scratch; it's existing parts repurposed.
The principle applies powerfully to businesses, products, and careers. Amazon's customer infrastructure became AWS. Slack started as an internal tool for a failed gaming startup. Most successful pivots are exaptations: an asset built for one purpose becomes more valuable for a different purpose.
For operators, the lens matters when looking for new opportunities. What you've already built may be more valuable for a different use case than the original one. The question "what could this become?" often produces better answers than "what should I build next?"
Examples in the wild
AWS started as Amazon's internal infrastructure. By 2020 it was generating $40B+ in revenue, more than Amazon's retail business in some quarters. Pure exaptation.
Some of the best investment returns come from recognising exaptation potential before the company does. The asset valued at X under its current use is worth 10X under a different one.
Career exaptation is real. Skills built for one industry often pay better in an adjacent one where they're rare. Worth surveying your assets periodically for new uses.
Exaptation is one of the mental models we apply through real cases inside the Pareto MBA — a part-time program for professionals who want to think clearly about business.