Quotes by James Surowiecki

“Lack of confidence, sometimes alternating with unrealistic dreams of heroic success, often leads to procrastination, and many studies suggest that procrastinators are self-handicappers: rather than...”

“If small groups are included in the decision-making process, then they should be allowed to make decisions. If an organization sets up teams and then uses them for purely advisory purposes, it lose...”

“No decision-making system is going to guarantee corporate success. The strategic decisions that corporations have to make are of mind-numbing complexity. But we know that the more power you give a ...”

“Diversity and independence are important because the best collective decisions are the product of disagreement and contest, not consensus or compromise.”

“Groups are only smart when there is a balance between the information that everyone in the group shares and the information that each of the members of the group holds privately. It's the combinati...”

“Capitalism, after all, is no fun when real failure becomes a possibility.”

“Solyndra's failure isn't a reason for the government to give up on alternative energy, any more than the failure of Pets.com during the Internet bubble means that venture capital should steer clear...”

“The ban on sports betting does exactly what Prohibition did. It makes criminals rich.”

“Nike used to be known as Blue Ribbon Sports. What's now Sara Lee used to be Consolidated Foods. And Exxon was once Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. These were name changes that worked. But for a...”

“Technology is supposed to make our lives easier, allowing us to do things more quickly and efficiently. But too often it seems to make things harder, leaving us with fifty-button remote controls, d...”

“Punk rock has never really had much patience with musical virtuosity. Actually, it'd be more accurate to say that for most of its history, punk has been actively hostile to virtuosity.”

“The paradox of Steve Jobs's career is that he had no interest in listening to consumers - he was famously dismissive of market research - yet nonetheless had an amazing sense of what consumers actu...”

“If you work for Google or Apple, stock options give you a chance to share in the increasing value of the company. In the N.F.L., nothing like this happens; the players, though rich, are just workin...”

“The history of the Internet is, in part, a series of opportunities missed: the major record labels let Apple take over the digital-music business; Blockbuster refused to buy Netflix for a mere fift...”

“On the simplest level, telecommuting makes it harder for people to have the kinds of informal interactions that are crucial to the way knowledge moves through an organization. The role that hallway...”

“Medical tourism can be considered a kind of import: instead of the product coming to the consumer, as it does with cars or sneakers, the consumer is going to the product.”

“Linux is a complex example of the wisdom of crowds. It's a good example in the sense that it shows you can set people to work in a decentralized way - that is, without anyone really directing their...”

“The challenge for capitalism is that the things that breed trust also breed the environment for fraud.”

“Unlike most government programs, Social Security and, in part, Medicare are funded by payroll taxes dedicated specifically to them. Some of the tax revenue pays for current benefits; anything that'...”

“In order to work well, markets need a basic level of trust.”