Farnam Street
Mastering the best of what other people have already figured out
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 …
Elon Musk shares a valuable insight on evaluating job applicants: asking them to explain their thinking at multiple levels helps him determine if they worked on the problem themselves or they’re …
David Foster Wallace remains both loved and hated. His wisdom shows itself in argumentative writing, ambition, and perfectionism, and perhaps one of the best, most profound, commencement addresses …
In December 2004, Bryan A. Garner, who had already struck up a friendship with David Foster Wallace, started interviewing state and federal judges as well as a few key writers. With over a hundred …
“If your fidelity to perfectionism is too high, you never do anything.” — David Foster Wallace *** Conversations with David Foster Wallace is an essential look into the thinking of one of the great …
Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980), for those unfamiliar with him, rocketed from an unknown academic to rockstar with the publication of Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man in 1964. The core of the …
Karl Pillemer is the author of 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans. I posted some of the key lessons from his book last week. As part of my ongoing series of …
Samuel Arbesman is an applied mathematician and network scientist. His recent book, The Half-life of Facts, explores how much of what we think we know has an expiry date. Samuel, who was happy to be …
In this clip from a documentary film shot in Yorkshire in 1973, physicist and philosopher Richard Feynman (1918-1988) talks with Fred Hoyle, an accomplished astronomer from the United Kingdom. Feynman …
Richard Dawkins’s wide-ranging interview with Playboy Magazine. PLAYBOY: So you aren’t taking Pascal up on his wager. He was the 17th century philosopher who argued it’s a smarter bet to believe …