![]() | The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki
Buy new: $10.17 / Used from: $6.70 The basics of why groups of non-experts can make better decisions than the "wise men".
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![]() | Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott
Buy new: $23.36 / Used from: $2.48 Not only about Internet, but good insights on how technology facilitates collaboration across the world.
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![]() | The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More by Chris Anderson
Buy new: $16.47 / Used from: $2.95 In the Internet world, the many products near the ends of the bell curve tail may be as or more important than the few near the top. W/o Internet, they would be essentially lost. On I-Tunes consider the obscure music. It makes no sense to sell Hank Snows Wreck of the old 97 at Wal-Mart. Online it does.
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![]() | The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less by Barry Schwartz
Buy used from: $9.43 Too many colors blind the eye, goes the old Taoist wisdom. Perhaps it is better to seek sometimes an acceptable solution and not the theoretical optimal one.
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![]() | The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell
Buy new: $10.19 / Used from: $2.99 If most of the ideas are not original, they are much easier to digest in this popular form. Don't pay good money to buy his other book, "Blink", however.
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![]() | The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Buy new: $16.20 / Used from: $14.74 We cant predict unexpected events BECAUSE they are unexpected and we never can anticipate all possible events. Better to design systems robust in the face of them. After events, we can't understand we did not anticipate and build specific defenses. Nobody will ever again highjack an airplane with box cutters. It is no longer an unexpected event. But other unexpected events will take place.
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![]() | Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Buy new: $10.88 / Used from: $6.95 If a million men play Russian roulette for five years, some will survive. It is a statistical certainty. But the outcome seems so improbable, that people attribute planning to it. Big (and stupid) risks often produce big payoffs for the lucky few who by chance survive. We are fooled by randomness.
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![]() | Decision Traps: The Ten Barriers to Decision-Making and How to Overcome Them by Edward Russo
Buy used from: $2.91 The ten mistakes we make when making decisions. Making good decisions is often counter intuitive. An excellent guide to improving your outcomes and quick brush with prospect theory (Tversky and Kahneman, but simpler)
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![]() | Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk by Peter L. Bernstein
Buy new: $13.57 / Used from: $5.85 Outlines the history of risk management. The greatest mathematician before 1500, could not pass a HS math course with statistics or any hint of calc. There are physical technologies that make it possible for a man in a car to outrun the fastest runner and there are mental technologies that do the same in terms of thinking.
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![]() | When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management by Roger Lowenstein
Buy new: $10.17 / Used from: $7.00 You find this example in Fooled by Randomness. You can only beat the market so long.
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![]() | A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing, Ninth Edition by Burton G. Malkiel
Buy new: $12.89 / Used from: $10.86 An early book re the wisdom of the market. Tells you why you probably can do well in an index fund.
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![]() | The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization by Peter M. Senge
Buy new: $16.47 / Used from: $7.94 I read this book years ago. An excellent intro to systems thinking. The Beer game in the beginning is very interesting.
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![]() | The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America by Louis Menand
Buy used from: $2.37 Great book about the men who originated pragmatism, Americas gift to philosophy. We can only come closer to the likeness of truth through experimentation and a kind of scientific method.
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