“ The ban on sports betting does exactly what Prohibition did. It makes criminals rich. James Surowiecki
“ Real politics is messy and morally ambiguous and doesn't make for a compelling thriller. James Surowiecki
“ Besides great climates and lovely beaches, California and Greece share a fondness for dysfunctional politics and feckless budgeting. James Surowiecki
“ As technology improves, on-screen avatars look more and more like real people. When they start looking too real, though, we pull away. These almost-humans aren't quite right; they look creepy, like zo… James Surowiecki
“ The challenge for capitalism is that the things that breed trust also breed the environment for fraud. James Surowiecki
“ Life insurance became popular only when insurance companies stopped emphasizing it as a good investment and sold it instead as a symbolic commitment by fathers to the future well-being of their famili… James Surowiecki
“ Nike used to be known as Blue Ribbon Sports. What's now Sara Lee used to be Consolidated Foods. And Exxon was once Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. These were name changes that worked. But for all… James Surowiecki
“ Speculators get a bad rap. In the popular imagination they're greedy, heedless, and amoral, adept at price manipulations and dirty tricks. In reality, they often play a key role in making markets run… James Surowiecki
“ The history of the Internet is, in part, a series of opportunities missed: the major record labels let Apple take over the digital-music business; Blockbuster refused to buy Netflix for a mere fifty m… James Surowiecki
“ If being the biggest company was a guarantee of success, we'd all be using IBM computers and driving GM cars. James Surowiecki
“ If you work for Google or Apple, stock options give you a chance to share in the increasing value of the company. In the N.F.L., nothing like this happens; the players, though rich, are just working s… James Surowiecki
“ Solyndra's failure isn't a reason for the government to give up on alternative energy, any more than the failure of Pets.com during the Internet bubble means that venture capital should steer clear of… James Surowiecki
“ Technology is supposed to make our lives easier, allowing us to do things more quickly and efficiently. But too often it seems to make things harder, leaving us with fifty-button remote controls, digi… James Surowiecki
“ The paradox of Steve Jobs's career is that he had no interest in listening to consumers - he was famously dismissive of market research - yet nonetheless had an amazing sense of what consumers actuall… James Surowiecki
“ Medical tourism can be considered a kind of import: instead of the product coming to the consumer, as it does with cars or sneakers, the consumer is going to the product. James Surowiecki
“ Linux is a complex example of the wisdom of crowds. It's a good example in the sense that it shows you can set people to work in a decentralized way - that is, without anyone really directing their ef… James Surowiecki
“ In the auto industry, there's one thing you can always count on: if a new environmental or safety rule is proposed, executives will prophesy disaster. James Surowiecki
“ Punk rock has never really had much patience with musical virtuosity. Actually, it'd be more accurate to say that for most of its history, punk has been actively hostile to virtuosity. James Surowiecki
