Everyone assumes bigger is better.

But bigger can make you more likely to die:

More sclerotic.

Harder to coordinate and adapt, since coordination costs rise superlinearly with size.

Trapped by a Lilliputian web.

More leverage.

Leverage allows efficiency… but also more risk.

If the underlying source of leverage changes, you lose not just it but all of the things that are levered out from it… which can be a lot!

Higher metabolic rate.

Just staying alive is more and more expensive.

If conditions change and resources are scarce, it might no longer be viable.

More and more of the energy goes into maintaining than creating.

A thing can grow so large that it extinguishes itself.