How Can We Measure Innovation? A Freakonomics Quorum
…whether new strategic ideas are coming from all levels of the company. Are only executives contributing to new projects, or are they bubbling up from the tech developers, customer service…
…whether new strategic ideas are coming from all levels of the company. Are only executives contributing to new projects, or are they bubbling up from the tech developers, customer service…
How likely is it that this conversation is happening in more than one universe? Should we worry more about Covid or about nuclear war? Is economics a form of “intellectual…
…who helped modernize New York City — and tried to bring the Olympics there — is now C.E.O. of a Google-funded startup that is building, from scratch, the city of…
Thick markets, thin markets, and the triumph of attributes over compatibility.
Thick markets, thin markets, and the triumph of attributes over compatibility.
In this episode of Freakonomics Radio, we explore a way to make 1.1 million schoolkids feel like they have 1.1 million teachers….
…in a savings account. But we do love to play the lottery. So what if you combine the two, creating a new kind of savings account with a lottery payout?…
Most industries have become more productive over time. But not construction! We identify the causes — and possible solutions. (Can you say … “prefab”?)…
Revisiting Steve’s 2021 conversation with the economist and MacArthur “genius” about how to make memories stickier, why change is undervalued, and how to find something new to say on the…
The author of the classic The Selfish Gene is still changing the way we think about evolution….
…here (our N.Y. Times article about him), here (research extras and pix), here (the first round of reader comments), and here, here, here, here, and here for his earlier blog…
Abraham Verghese is a physician and a best-selling author — in that order, he says. He explains the difference between curing and healing, and tells Steve why doctors should spend…
Steve loved Michael Lewis’s latest, The Premonition, but has one critique: Why aren’t there even more villains? Also, why the author of best-sellers Moneyball and The Big Short can barely…
The union that represents N.F.L. players conducted their first-ever survey of workplace conditions, and issued a report card to all 32 teams. What did the survey reveal? Clogged showers, rats…
Photo: Heidi Schumann David Shenk Practice makes genius? That’s the idea behind the research of people like Anders Ericsson. It’s also at the center of a new book, The Genius…
The last two years have radically changed the way we work — producing winners, losers, and a lot of surprises.
As a former top adviser to presidents Clinton and Obama, he believes in the power of the federal government. But as former mayor of Chicago, he says that cities are…
Under his helm, the TED Conference went from a small industry gathering to a global phenomenon. Chris and Steve talk about how to build lasting institutions, how to make generosity…
The U.S. spent the past few decades waiting for China to act like the global citizen it said it wanted to be. The waiting may be over.
Also: Is there a downside to billionaire philanthropy?…
…historical information on weather around the world as is out there, and then cram it into some 5.5 million lines of proprietary computer code (their algorithm) to spit out weather…
Frisco used to be just another sleepy bedroom community outside of Dallas. Now it’s got corporate headquarters, billions of investment dollars, and a bunch of Democrats in a place that…
His childhood dream of playing in the N.B.A. led him to a career as a referee. Marc is one of the league’s top performers after over 20 seasons, but he…
What if the thing we call “talent” is grotesquely overrated? And what if deliberate practice is the secret to excellence? Those are the claims of the research psychologist Anders Ericsson,…
Neil Shubin hunts for fossils in the Arctic and experiments with D.N.A. in the lab, hoping to find out how fish evolved to walk on land. He explains why unlocking…
Gene-editing pioneer Jennifer Doudna worries that humanity might not be ready for the technology she helped develop….
Researchers are trying to figure out who gets bored — and why — and what it means for ourselves and the economy. But maybe there’s an upside to boredom?
…to be any greater whether I download a new version shortly after its most recent predecessor, or if I wait for several new versions before updating. While the gain to…
…story backward. She argues that the government, by funding so much early-stage research, is hugely responsible for big successes in tech, pharma, energy, and more. But the government also does…
They’re heading to the Super Bowl for the second time in five years. But back in 2018, they were coming off a long losing streak — and that’s the year…
