James Surowiecki
James Surowiecki
James Michael Surowieckiis an American journalist. He is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where he writes a regular column on business and finance called "The Financial Page"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
CountryUnited States of America
country developing-countries red
Developing countries often have hypertrophied bureaucracies, requiring businesses to deal with enormous amounts of red tape.
marketing insightful economy
Downsizing itself is an inevitable part of any creatively destructive economy.
writing thinking hard-times
I tend to have a hard time working on pieces long before they're due. That's why I think the fact that I write a column is really good for me - the column has to be done, and there's no getting around it.
republic corporations way
The typical American corporation is a shareholders' republic the same way that China is a peoples' republic.
responsibility thinking government
Of course, plenty of people don't think that guaranteeing affordable health insurance is a core responsibility of government.
jobs procrastination self
Procrastination also can be a way of self-handicapping: if you don't do a great job, you can always say to yourself, "If I'd only started sooner, I'd have been able to produce something excellent."
president economy states
Of course, presidents are always blamed or rewarded for the state of the economy.
wall blow tough
On Wall Street, fraudulent schemes tend to thrive during economic booms, and to blow up when times turn tough.
writing thinking perfect
I started in business journalism from the outside, so when I started writing about markets and business, I was struck by the fact that markets seemed to work well even though people are often irrational, lack good information and are not perfect in the way they think about decisions.
believe procrastination thinking
There are lots of people who believe there may be at least some genetic component to procrastination, and even if there isn't, it seems to be the case that procrastination habits are often set relatively early in life (that's certainly the case with me). But I also think that there's lots of evidence that external tools can help quite a bit in getting people to stop procrastinating.
mean people decision
If someone really wants my company's business, why shouldn't he be able to do everything he can - including paying me off - to get that business? Because bribery encourages people to make decisions based on the wrong criteria, which means in the business world that it distorts the efficient allocation of resources.
simple ideas want
If we want our regulators to do better, we have to embrace a simple idea: regulation isn't an obstacle to thriving free markets; it's a vital part of them.
moving technology giants
If you thought the advent of the Internet, the spread of cheap and efficient information technology, and the growing fragmentation of the consumer market were all going to help smaller companies thrive at the expense of the slow-moving giants of the Fortune 500, apparently you were wrong.
crazy real schedules
In a world where companies increasingly know about their business in real time, it makes no sense that public reporting mostly follows the old quarterly schedule. Companies sit on vital information until reporting day, at which point the market goes crazy.