In the business world, bad news is usually good news - for somebody else. — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
Companies often become victims of their own mythologies. — James Surowiecki Companies Copy Share Image
If companies tell us more, insider trading will be worth less. — James Surowiecki Company Copy Share Image
The typical American corporation is a shareholders' republic the same way that China is a peoples' republic. — James Surowiecki China Copy Share Image
I think people don't understand compound interest because typically no one ever explains it to them and the level of financial literacy… — James Surowiecki Compound interest Copy Share Image
Meeting external deadlines is much harder than meeting internal ones. On the other hand, internal deadlines sometimes don't feel real, and are… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
A consumer-finance agency is a good thing, but it would do well to teach consumers a simple lesson: if you don't understand… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
Wall Street has come a long way from the insider-dominated world that was blown apart by the Great Depression. — James Surowiecki Customer Copy Share Image
If being the biggest company was a guarantee of success, we'd all be using IBM computers and driving GM cars. — James Surowiecki Business Copy Share Image
If we want our regulators to do better, we have to embrace a simple idea: regulation isn't an obstacle to thriving free… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
Of course, politicians always say they're just describing their opponents' positions, even if they are in fact offering absurd caricatures, if not… — James Surowiecki Absurd Copy Share Image
If someone really wants my company's business, why shouldn't he be able to do everything he can - including paying me off… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
I tend to have a hard time working on pieces long before they're due. That's why I think the fact that I… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
Making loans and fighting poverty are normally two of the least glamorous pursuits around, but put the two together and you have… — James Surowiecki Business Copy Share Image
If you thought the advent of the Internet, the spread of cheap and efficient information technology, and the growing fragmentation of the… — James Surowiecki Advent Copy Share Image
I started in business journalism from the outside, so when I started writing about markets and business, I was struck by the… — James Surowiecki Business Copy Share Image
Critics of consumer capitalism like to think that consumers are manipulated and controlled by those who seek to sell them things, but… — James Surowiecki Capitalism Copy Share Image
To be sure, if you watch CNBC all day long you'll pick up some interesting news about particular companies and the economy… — James Surowiecki Company Copy Share Image
In practice, downsizing is too often about cutting your work force while keeping your business the same, and doing so not by… — James Surowiecki Business Copy Share Image
This intelligence, or what I'll call "the wisdom of crowds," is at work in the world in many different guises. It's the… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
Diversity and independence are important because the best collective decisions are the product of disagreement and contest, not consensus or compromising. An… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
Intellectual-property rules are clearly necessary to spur innovation: if every invention could be stolen, or every new drug immediately copied, few people… — James Surowiecki Competition Copy Share Image
Political risk is hard to manage because so much comes down to the personal choices of policymakers, whether prime ministers or heads… — James Surowiecki Central bank Copy Share Image
On Wall Street, fraudulent schemes tend to thrive during economic booms, and to blow up when times turn tough. — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
Although oil is a commodity, it's still not a commodity like coffee, which, thank God, we will have with us always. At… — James Surowiecki Climate Copy Share Image
In the auto industry, there's one thing you can always count on: if a new environmental or safety rule is proposed, executives… — James Surowiecki Auto industry Copy Share Image
Art collecting has traditionally been the domain of wealthy individuals in search of rewards beyond the purely financial. — James Surowiecki Art Copy Share Image
Pop music thrives on repetition. You know a song's a hit when you've heard it so often that you'll be happy never… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
The smartest groups, then, are made up of people with diverse perspectives who are able to stay independent of each other. — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
One key to successful group decisions is getting people to pay much less attention to what everyone else is saying. — James Surowiecki Attention Copy Share Image
Most corporate name changes are the result of mergers and acquisitions. But these tend to be unimaginative. — James Surowiecki Acquisition Copy Share Image
Developing countries often have hypertrophied bureaucracies, requiring businesses to deal with enormous amounts of red tape. — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
In confusing stock options with ownership, corporations confuse trappings with substance. — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
The reason advertising is governed by fear, after all, is that most agencies rely on just a few clients to bring in… — James Surowiecki Advertising Copy Share Image
You might think of consumption as a fairly passive activity, but buying new products and services is actually pretty risky, at least… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
The problem with venality in business is that getting outraged about it makes it easy to miss the systemic problems that venality… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
You can't fuel real economic growth with indiscriminate credit. You can only fuel it with well-allocated, long-term investment. — James Surowiecki Credit Copy Share Image
The fact that industries wax and wane is a reality of any economic system that wants to remain dynamic and responsive to… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
You might say that economic history is the history of people learning to manage risk. — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
