Because of memoization, each Fibonacci number is only computed once. The first two Fibonacci numbers require 0 additions to compute because they are hard-coded. Each following Fibonacci number requires an additional addition. Thus computing up to the nth Fibonacci number requires n - 2 additions. Repeated accesses to the same number in the sequence require 0 further additions. Without memorization accessing the nth item in the sequence requires >2 times as many additions as accessing the n - 2 th. Thus number of additions grows exponentially.