James Surowiecki quotes

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, digital cameras with hundreds of mysterious features and book-length manuals, and cars with dashboard systems worthy of the space shuttle. (James Surowiecki)

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

James Surowiecki

Most corporate name changes are the result of mergers and acquisitions. But these tend to be unimaginative.

James Surowiecki

Art collecting has traditionally been the domain of wealthy individuals in search of rewards beyond the purely financial.

James Surowiecki

We assume that good-looking people are smarter and more effective than they really are, and that homely people are the reverse.

James Surowiecki

Sometimes you have to destroy your business in order to save it.

James Surowiecki

If private-equity firms are as good at remaking companies as they claim, they don't need tax loopholes to make money.

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 risk failure, they prefer to create conditions that make success impossible, a reflex that of course creates a vicious cycle.

James Surowiecki

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

James Surowiecki

For a crowd to be smart, the people in it need to be not only diverse in their perspectives but also, relatively speaking, independent of each other. In other words, you need people to be thinking for themselves, rather than following the lead of those around them.

James Surowiecki

In the business world, bad news is usually good news - for somebody else. (James Surowiecki)

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

James Surowiecki

In conditions of uncertainty, humans, like other animals, herd together for protection.

James Surowiecki

The reason advertising is governed by fear, after all, is that most agencies rely on just a few clients to bring in the lion's share of their revenues.

James Surowiecki

Although oil is a commodity, it's still not a commodity like coffee, which, thank God, we will have with us always. At some point the oil will run out.

James Surowiecki

Wall Street has come a long way from the insider-dominated world that was blown apart by the Great Depression.

James Surowiecki

What the investment community does like is short-term measures designed to boost share prices.

James Surowiecki

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 of tech projects.

James Surowiecki

Academics, who work for long periods in a self-directed fashion, may be especially prone to putting things off: surveys suggest that the vast majority of college students procrastinate, and articles in the literature of procrastination often allude to the author's own problems with finishing the piece.

James Surowiecki

A general principle of good taxation is that similar jobs, and similar kinds of compensation, should be taxed the same way: otherwise, the government is effectively subsidizing some jobs over others.

James Surowiecki

Besides great climates and lovely beaches, California and Greece share a fondness for dysfunctional politics and feckless budgeting. (James Surowiecki)

Companies often become victims of their own mythologies.

James Surowiecki

Political risk is hard to manage because so much comes down to the personal choices of policymakers, whether prime ministers or heads of central banks.

James Surowiecki

The oil market is especially sensitive even to a hint of expansion or contraction in supply.

James Surowiecki

In the auto industry, there's one thing you can always count on: if a new environmental or safety rule is proposed, executives will prophesy disaster.

James Surowiecki

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James Surowiecki

James Surowiecki - Image

Photo: Mark Schierbecker, CC BY-SA 3.0

Occupation: American Journalist
Born: April 30, 1967
Quotes count: 151

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