The Wisdom of Crowds

This book by James Surowiecki came up once on Tim Ferriss in the episodes we index. That mention was a genuine on-air recommendation, not just a passing reference. The people who brought it up: Michael Mauboussin. Every occurrence below links to the episode page and to the exact second it was said on YouTube.

In this fascinating book, New Yorker business columnist James Surowiecki explores a deceptively simple idea: Large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant, better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future. Surowiecki ranges across fields as diverse as popular culture, psychology, ant biology, behavioral economics, artificial intelligence, military history, and politics to show how this simple idea offers important lessons for how we live our lives, select our leaders, run our companies, and think about our world.