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
smart people groups
Under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably smart - smarter even sometimes than the smartest people in them.
wise smart independent
Groups are only smart when there is a balance between the information that everyone in the group shares and the information that each of the members of the group holds privately. It's the combination of all those pieces of independent information, some of them right, some of the wrong, that keeps the group wise.
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.
smart mistake crowds
Sometimes even a smart crowd will make a mistake.
smart independent people
The problem is that groups are only smart when the people in them are as independent as possible. This is the paradox of the wisdom of crowds.
smart independent thinking
For a crowd to be smart, the people in it need to be not only diverse in their perspectives but also, relatively speaking, independent of each other. In other words, you need people to be thinking for themselves, rather than following the lead of those around them.
smart thinking way
Paradoxically, the best way for a group to be smart is for each person in it to think and act as independently as possible.
companies effect insidious stock
The stock market has an insidious effect on C.E.O.s' moods, because of its impact not just on their companies but on their own bank accounts.
care driver health insurance main providers whatever
Discussions of health care in the U.S. usually focus on insurance companies, but, whatever their problems, they're not the main driver of health-care inflation: providers are.
You can't be rich unless everyone else agrees that you're rich.
capital excellent human
The U.S. is excellent at importing cheap products from the rest of the world. Let's try importing some human capital instead.
business miss outraged
The problem with venality in business is that getting outraged about it makes it easy to miss the systemic problems that venality often disguises.
best crossing good hear politician rarely simply standard wages workers
Workers who come to the U.S. see their wages and their standard of living boosted sharply simply by crossing the border. That's a good thing, and one of the best arguments for immigration reform, even if you'll rarely hear a politician make it.
economic history learning manage might people
You might say that economic history is the history of people learning to manage risk.