Welcome to FS
Mastering The Best Of What Other People Have Already Figured Out
Farnam Street (FS) is devoted to helping you develop an understanding of how the world really works, make better decisions, and live a better life. We address such topics as mental models, decision making, learning, reading, and the art of living.
In a world full of noise, Farnam Street is a place where you can step back and think about time-tested ideas while asking yourself questions that lead to meaningful understanding. We cover ideas from science and the humanities that will not only expand your intellectual horizons but also help you connect ideas, think in multidisciplinary ways, and explore meaning.
Headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, and run by Shane Parrish, we have helped millions of people master the best of what other people have already figured out.
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Recent Articles
Winner Takes it All: How Markets Favor the Few at the Expense of the Many
September 24, 2018
Markets tend to favor unequal distributions of market share and profits, with a few leaders emerging in any industry. Winner-take-all markets are hard to disrupt and suppress the entry of new players by locking in market share for leading players. *** In almost any market, crowds of competitors fight for business. But over time, with […]
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Predicting the Future with Bayes’s Theorem
September 18, 2018
In a recent podcast, we talked with professional poker player Annie Duke about thinking in probabilities, something good poker players do all the time. At the poker table or in life, it’s really useful to think in probabilities versus absolutes based on all the information you have available to you. You can improve your decisions […]
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The Decision Matrix: How to Prioritize What Matters
September 04, 2018
The decisions we spend the most time on are rarely the most important ones. Not all decisions need the same process. Sometimes, trying to impose the same process on all decisions leads to difficulty identifying which ones are most important, bogging us down and stressing us out. I remember once struggling at the intelligence agency […]