Simple Rules for Business Strategy
The book Simple Rules by Donald Sull and Kathleen Eisenhardt has a very interesting chapter on strategy, which tries to answer the following question: How do you translate your broad objectives into a …
Explore Farnam Street Articles
Moving the Finish Line: The Goal Gradient Hypothesis
Imagine a sprinter running an Olympic race. He’s competing in the 1600 meter run. The first two laps he runs at a steady but hard pace, trying to keep himself consistently near the head, or at least …
Choosing your Choice Architect(ure)
“Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.” — Samuel Johnson *** In the book Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein they coin the terms ‘Choice …
How To Mentally Overachieve — Charles Darwin’s Reflections On His Own Mind
We’ve written quite a bit about the marvelous British naturalist Charles Darwin, who with his Origin of Species created perhaps the most intense intellectual debate in human history, one which …
Peter Bevelin on Seeking Wisdom, Mental Models, Learning, and a Lot More
Swedish investor Peter Bevelin wrote two excellent books, Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger and All I Want to Know Is Where I’m Going to Die. Both are full of multidisciplinary wisdom with …
Jared Diamond: How to Get Rich
We’re constantly asked for examples of the “multiple mental models” approach in practice. Our standard response includes great books like Garrett Hardin’s Filters Against …
Michael Pollan’s Simple Rules for Eating
What if eating right wasn’t actually all that complicated? What if you read enough to see patterns develop, to realize that when you stripped away all the confusing bits that maybe the skeleton …
At Some Point, You Have to Eat The Broccoli
It’s a wonderful idea to try to find a set of systems and principles that “work better” for big swaths of your life. Better habits, better mental tendencies, better methods of …
Ken Iverson: The Cure for the Common MBA
We’ve written before about the legendary businessman Ken Iverson, the former CEO of Nucor Steel, who took it from a tiny steel operation to a true steel powerhouse in his own lifetime. To recap, …
A Year of Books: 23 Book Recommendations from Mark Zuckerberg
In 2015, Mark Zuckerberg did something slightly unusual for a CEO of a major technology company: He started a book club! In that year, Zuckerberg ended up recommending and discussing 23 books with the …
The Island of Knowledge: Science and the Meaning of Life
“As the Island of Knowledge grows, so do the shores of our ignorance—the boundary between the known and unknown. Learning more about the world doesn’t lead to a point closer to a final …
The Need for Biological Thinking to Solve Complex Problems
“Biological thinking and physics thinking are distinct, and often complementary, approaches to the world, and ones that are appropriate for different kinds of systems.” *** How should we …
The Chessboard Fallacy
“In the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own.” — Adam Smith *** One of our favorite dictums, much referenced here, is an idea by …
What Books Would You Recommend Someone Read to Improve their General Knowledge of the World?
Inspired by a reader’s question to me, I thought I’d ask our followers on Facebook and Twitter for an answer to the question: What books would you recommend someone read to improve their …
What Are You Doing About It? Reaching Deep Fluency with Mental Models
The mental models approach is very intellectually appealing, almost seductive to a certain type of person. (It certainly is for us.) The whole idea is to take the world’s greatest, most useful …
Bias from Disliking/Hating
(This is a follow-up to our post on the Bias from Liking/Loving, which you can find here.) Think of a cat snarling and spitting, lashing with its tail and standing with its back curved. Her pulse is …