Farnam Street
Mastering the best of what other people have already figured out
“Combinatory play seems to be the essential feature in productive thought.” *** There is a view, to which we subscribe that a lot of innovation and creativity comes from the combination of worldly …
“What distinguishes the risks I’m interested in from mere bravado is that they are taken in the interest of what one is committed to…” *** Hubert Dreyfus is the preeminent expert on …
Let’s explore the concept of the Complex Adaptive Systems and see how this model might apply in various walks of life. To illustrate what a complex adaptive system is, and just as importantly, what it …
A bit of a preface to this post. Please read the definition of Antifragile first. While the article below is interesting, the reader should read with a critical mind. Complexity ‘solved’ …
The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. — Marcus Aurelius Do you know the section of the book after the last chapter? The one that everyone ignores? …
A voracious reader and best-selling author emailed me shortly after my post Anne Lamott: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. He proceeded to tell me the book was full of terrible advice, the …
The problem with most business books is they present a formula for problems that ultimately have no formula. You’re reading something with no practical value and you’re not really learning …
A brief, no-fluff summary of Robert Cialdini’s Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. Six Principles to Always Get Your Way Cialdini has spent a lifetime researching the psychology of …
Here are some excerpts from Robert Gates’ Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War that look at some of the decision making aspects under Bush and Obama. Obama was the most deliberative president I …
“The indeterminate future is somehow one in which probability and statistics are the dominant modalities for making sense of the world.” *** Decisions, where outcomes (and therefore …
I thought this was interesting. Here is Sam Walton, in his own words, detailing the Wal-Mart Strategy from the earliest days. What was novel at the time is now a somewhat common way for businesses to …
You’ve been here before. It’s Monday morning and you walk into the office only to have your boss call an urgent meeting to “streamline processes.” You haven’t thought …
Idleness is a lost art. That’s the message behind Andrew Smart’s book: Autopilot: The Art and Science of Doing Nothing. “Being idle,” he writes, “is one of the most …
While a lot of people casually use the word, not many people have read: Antifragile, where Nassim Taleb defines it for us. Just as being clear on what constitutes a black swan allows us to better …
Here is an interesting excerpt from an interview with Jennifer Mueller and Shankar Vedantam, author of The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and …
Edge.org asked the likes of Christopher Chabris, Nicholas Epley, Jason Zweig, William Poundstone, Cass Sunstein, Phil Rosenzweig, Richard Thaler & Sendhil Mullainathan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, …