December 2011
7 posts
2 tags
What are the most common cognitive biases seen in... →
I wrote an answer to this question on Quora. There are few things more interesting to me than the intersection of behavioral economics and startups.
“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses...”
– T.E. Lawrence
3 tags
Hiring The Best and Those Even Better
Reading the biography of Amazon.com’s CEO, Jeff Bezos, I came across this quote on hiring:
“One of [Jeff’s] mottos was that every time we hired someone, he or she would raise the bar for the next hire, so that the overall talent pool was always improving,” said Nicholas Lovejoy, who joined Amazon in 1995 as the fifth employee. Bezos put the philosophy this way: Five years...
“I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful...”
– Steve Jobs
1 tag
Grit is the Secret to Success
Growing up, I always believed anything could be accomplished through “sheer will.” Most childhood challenges for me fortunately related mostly to school work so it was easy to see the linear relationship between time spent and output. As I grew older, I began to wonder if “sheer will” was enough, especially as I entered into more and more competitive academic environments...
Is It Irrational to Give Holiday Gifts? →
Interesting take on gift giving by a behavioral economist:
Behavioral economics has one more lesson for gift givers: If your goal is to maximize a social connection, don’t give a perishable gift like flowers or chocolates. True, people enjoy them, and you don’t want to impose by giving something more permanent. But what are you trying to maximize? Is your goal to avoid imposing on them...
2 tags
Behavioral Economics Study: scarcity imposes huge... →
An interesting new study suggests that the poor have more to think about in terms of trade-offs which costs them financially.