The Starfish and the Spider organizations: Niklas Zennstrom and Skype; Craig Newmark and Craigslist. They discuss the formation of the Apache software model and how editors work on Wikipedia articles. They then discuss the starfish self-organization of participants in the Burning Man festival. American lawyer Granville Sharp's decision to defend the freedom of a slave named Jonathan Strong leads him to connect with the Quakers and to advocate for the abolition of the slave trade. The authors use Sharp's story to illustrate five foundational principles called the Five Legs: 1) Circles; 2) The Catalyst; 3) Ideology; 4) The Preexisting Network; 5) The Champion. They apply
How the Snake Lost Its Legs many of the, "nuts and bolts of evolution, deeper than just natural selection," are on display in the book, revealing, "precisely what genetic/physiological mechanisms are being selected for." The molecular biologist Arnaud Martin observes that, "As children, we have all wondered about 'the How and the Why' of animal features, and if you are reading this it is in fact quite possible that a similar inquisitiveness still burns within you. The tone of "How the Snake Lost its Legs" finds its roots in the famous "Just So Stories" of Joseph Rudyard Kipling by tickling this curiosity with the formulaic "How