Wisdom in fragments

To make those markets work well, they have to make the market thick, they have to attract enough participants to get good transaction levels. They have to deal with the problem of congestion that can be symptomatic of thick markets. You have to also make the market safe enough for people to transact in!

Nobel Prize-winning economist specializing in market design theory

I use the word repugnance to describe transactions that some people would like to engage in, that other people would not like them to; it's often hard to pin-down what harm the transaction does to anyone else.

Nobel Prize-winning economist specializing in market design theory

You only get to really redesign markets root and branch when they are failing so dramatically that everyone acknowledges it. Markets are a little like language. It's hard to change the spelling of certain words in the English language, even though those spellings are dysfunctional.

Nobel Prize-winning economist specializing in market design theory

Markets are human artefacts; however we often treat them as natural phenomenon in the same way we might treat a language. Markets are emergent phenomenon too, but individual market-places have proprietors and groups of users and therefore markets are more amenable to change. When something isn't working, we can change the rules!

Nobel Prize-winning economist specializing in market design theory

The countries where people are happiest are ones which are much more domestically oriented and not seeking world-power.

Economist known for the Easterlin Paradox on income and happiness

Research has shown that when you compare the effect of a 1% change in unemployment rate and 1% change in the inflation rate; a 1% increase in unemployment has a bigger impact on people's happiness than a 1% increase in inflation.

Economist known for the Easterlin Paradox on income and happiness

Happiness is a measure that reflects the success with which people achieve their personal objectives of living levels, happy and healthy families and satisfying work.

Economist known for the Easterlin Paradox on income and happiness

GDP and GNP shouldn't be scrapped, they're of value, but they don't even give us an indication of economic well-being let alone individual well-being

Economist known for the Easterlin Paradox on income and happiness

Invention has to be about the dream, there's an ingredient which you can't put in a business plan- it's intangible- but I saw it, it was there.

Steve Jobs forced me to figure out what was important to me, and who I was. He demanded that everybody in the room had to be at the top of their game, the best in their field.

For the people I documented, money was secondary… They knew absolutely they would make money, but changing the world and doing cool stuff was the primary goal; that was their mission.

They all had a wilful denial of reality… against all evidence to the contrary they had to believe they would succeed.. that's ultimately what entrepreneurs do.

Guess what, it turns out that you can't make big-breakthroughs without crazy optimism and idealism! With the exception of Elon Musk, that attitude is largely missing right now.

Stress doesn't come from what's going on in your life. It comes from your thoughts about what's going on in your life.

Don't make the mistake of confusing net worth and self-worth.

On one hand, competitive high-pressure jobs lead executives into many situations that can induce worry and fear (anxiety), hopelessness and despair (depression), and urgency (stress). On the other hand, some people are drawn to high pressure jobs by their adventurous personalities, their ability to tolerate risk, and their motivation for achievement.