Farnam Street
Mastering the best of what other people have already figured out
Understanding the concept of a half-life will change what you read and how you invest your time. It will explain why our careers are increasingly specialized and offer a look into how we can compete …
How is it that two people delivering the same value to organizational outcomes, in the same role at the same pay, can have a massively different value to the organization itself? *** Here’s a …
When we try to make a single change within a complex system, we often end up causing unintended consequences. These can be positive or negative. If we don’t anticipate unintended consequences, we …
The best advice I’ve ever gotten about thinking came from a private-company CEO who has a thirty-year track record that’s up there with Warren Buffett’s. One day he said to me, …
The Basics In a classic American folktale, a stubborn railroad worker decides to prove his skill by competing with a drilling machine. John Henry, enraged to hear that machines might take his job, …
We all get lucky. Once in a while we do something really stupid that could have resulted in death, but didn’t. Just the other day, I saw someone who was texting walk out into oncoming traffic, …
[K]nowledge is indeed highly subjective, but we can quantify it with a bet. The amount we wager shows how much we believe in something. Sharon Bertsch McGrayne The quality of your life will, to a …
What techniques do people use in the most extreme situations to make decisions? What can we learn from them to help us make more rational and quick decisions? If these techniques work in the most …
You can train your brain to think like CEOs, professional poker players, investors, and others who make tricky decisions in an uncertain world by weighing probabilities. All decisions involve …
Complexity bias is a logical fallacy that leads us to give undue credence to complex concepts. Faced with two competing hypotheses, we are likely to choose the most complex one. That’s usually the …
Here’s an interesting passage from Anne Lamott, found in Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, that requires some consideration. You get your intuition back when you make space …
Most public companies issue an annual letter to shareholders. These letters present an opportunity for the people entrusted to run the company on behalf of the shareholders to communicate with the …
“History is written by the winners” is the popular view. But your winner may not be my winner. A lot depends on the narrative you are trying to build. History is rewritten all the time. Sometimes it …
You don’t have to look hard to find quotes expounding the need for more empathy in society. As with Barack Obama’s quote above, we are encouraged to actively build empathy with others — …
Consider two contrasting daily schedules. Novelist Haruki Murakami starts writing at 4am and writes for about 5-6 hours straight. Then he runs or swims, and reads or listens to music before a 9pm …
It started with a simple question: What book (or books) have you given away to people the most and why? The email was sent to an interesting subset of people I’ve interacted with over the past year — …