James Surowiecki has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2000 and writes the magazine’s Financial Page. He moved to The New Yorker from Slate, where he wrote the Moneybox column. He has also been a contributing editor at Fortune, a staff writer at Talk, and the business columnist for New York magazine. He has contributed to The Wall Street Journal, Wired, the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, and Lingua Franca, and has written on subjects ranging from Silicon Valley to college basketball. His bestselling book, The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies, and Nations came out in 2004. Surowiecki lives in Brooklyn, New York. His visit is sponsored by Air New Zealand.
Read a review of James Surowiecki's book The Wisdom of Crowds in The New York Times
Read James Surowiecki's blog for The New Yorker
Read an interview with James Surowiecki about his book The Wisdom of Crowds
BOOK
The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies, and Nations
In this fascinating book, New Yorker business columnist James Surowiecki explores a deceptively simple idea: Large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant–better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future. With boundless erudition and in delightfully clear prose, Surowiecki ranges across fields as diverse as popular culture, psychology, ant biology, behavioral economics, artificial intelligence, military history, and politics to show how this simple idea offers important lessons for how we live our lives, select our leaders, run our companies, and think about our world.
“As entertaining and thought-provoking as The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.... The Wisdom of Crowds ranges far and wide.” –The Boston Globe
“Provocative....Musters ample proof that the payoff from heeding collective intelligence is greater than many of us imagine.” –BusinessWeek
“There’s no danger of dumbing down for the masses who read this singular book.” –Entertainment Weekly
“Convincingly argues that under the right circumstances, it’s the crowd that’s wiser than even society’s smartest individuals. New Yorker business columnist Surowiecki enlivens his argument with dozens of illuminating anecdotes and case studies from business, social psychology, sports and everyday life.” –Entertainment Weekly
"Dazzling . . . one of those books that will turn your world upside down. It's an adventure story, a manifesto, and the most brilliant book on business, society, and everyday life that I've read in years." –Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point
“As readers of Surowiecki’s writings in The New Yorker will know, he has a rare gift for combining rigorous thought with entertaining example. [The Wisdom of Crowds] is packed with amusing ideas that leave the reader feeling better-educated.” –Financial Times (London)
James Surowiecki on his book The Wisdom of Crowds
The moment when social media became an equal player in the world of news-gathering
James Surowiecki pinpoints the moment when social media became an equal player in the world of news-gathering: the 2005 tsunami, when YouTube video, blogs, IMs and txts carried the news -- and preserved moving personal stories from the tragedy.