Farnam Street
Mastering the best of what other people have already figured out
Paying attention to what your customers and clients see can be a very effective way to increase your influence and, subsequently, your business. Steve Martin, co-author of Yes! 50 Secrets from the …
The long chains of reasonings, simple and easy, by which geometricians are wont to achieve their most complex proofs, had led me to suppose that all things, the knowledge of which man may achieve, are …
“We want to cling to these incredibly outdated and simplistic measures of ability.” — Malcolm Gladwell *** Hiring is difficult and we tend to fall back on antiquated tools that give us a …
In this brief article Nassim Taleb (of Black Swan fame) touches on information, complexity, the randomness effect, over-confidence, and signal and noise. THE DEGRADATION OF PREDICTABILITY — AND …
No, according to research by Max Bazerman, author of the best book on decision making I’ve ever read: Judgment in Managerial Decision Making. Contrary to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous …
In this excerpt from his annual letter, investing great Seth Klarman describes 20 lessons from the financial crisis which, he says, “were either never learned or else were immediately forgotten by …
An excellent parable by Charlie Munger on how one nation came to financial ruin. In the early 1700s, Europeans discovered in the Pacific Ocean a large, unpopulated island with a temperate climate, …
The tendency to relate contemporary events to earlier events as a guide to understanding is a powerful one. The difficulty, of course, is in being certain that two situations are truly comparable. …
A summary of Samuel Bowles’ lecture series entitled “Machiavelli’s Mistake” at the Santa Fe Institute. 1. Moral Sentiments and Material Interests The classical thinkers from …
Jamie Dimon’s testimony at the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (on what caused the financial crisis): I believe the key underlying causes of the crisis include: the creation and ultimately …
Information without context is falsely empowering and incredibly dangerous. As an adult, have you ever picked up a child’s shape-sorter and tried to put the square item through the round hole? …
“They competed on the basis of raising prices. What other industry do you know that gets away with that?” Charlie Munger talks about how you can bribe the purchaing agent. I have one more …
Whenever coins containing precious metals have been used along with base metal coins of the same denomination, both legally accepted as tender, the bad coins have driven the good coins out of …
The scientific method refers to a process of thought based on integrating previous knowledge, observing, measuring, and logical reasoning. In this short video taken from his lectures, Physicist …
It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, …
Too Big to Fail” is a dilemma that has plagued economists, policy makers and the public at large. In Nassim Taleb’s lastest paper (with co-author Charles S. Tapiero) he takes a look. Abstract …