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
wisdom smart mean
The fact that cognitive diversity matters does not mean that if you assemble a group of diverse but thoroughly uninformed people, their collective wisdom will be smarter than an expert's. But if you can assemble a diverse group of people who possess varying degrees of knowledge and insight, you're better off entrusting it with major decisions rather than leaving them in the hands of one or two people, no matter how smart those people are.
important groupthink dissent
The important thing about groupthink is that it works not so much by censoring dissent as by making dissent seem somehow improbable.
smart mistake crowds
Sometimes even a smart crowd will make a mistake.
order sometimes
Sometimes you have to destroy your business in order to save it.
opportunity internet series
The history of the Internet is, in part, a series of opportunities missed...
causes crime intricacy
Moviegoers love the intricacies of a crime all the more when it's for a good cause.
people company
Companies, like people, don't much like to change.
writing thinking comforting
I typically don't adopt the ascetic approach. In part, that's because I do use the Net for research even as I'm writing (to check facts, or so on). But I think it's also because I find the possibility of distraction comforting.
victim mythology company
Companies often become victims of their own mythologies.
fun real possibility
Capitalism, after all, is no fun when real failure becomes a possibility.
people doe pressure
There does seem to be some evidence that as people get older, they procrastinate less, perhaps because they feel the pressure of time more.
science numbers people
Unfortunately, there is something of a flaw in this idealized picture of the way the scientific community discovers truth. And the flaw is that most scientific work never gets noticed. Study after study has shown that most scientific papers are read by almost no one, while a small number of papers are read by many people.
independent perspective people
The smartest groups, then, are made up of people with diverse perspectives who are able to stay independent of each other.
diversity decision judgement
In part because individual judgement is not accurate enough or consistent enough, cognitive diversity is essential to good decision making.