The Wisdom of Crowds

Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations

By: James Surowiecki

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

In this endlessly fascinating book, New Yorker columnist James Surowiecki explores a deceptively simple idea that has profound implications: large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant. Groups are better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future.

This seemingly counterintuitive notion has endless and major ramifications for how businesses operate, how knowledge is advanced, how economies are (or should be) organized, and how we live our daily lives. With seemingly boundless erudition and in delightfully clear prose, Surowiecki ranges across fields as diverse as popular culture, psychology, economic behaviorism, artificial intelligence, military history, and political theory to show just how this principle operates in the real world.

Despite the sophistication of his arguments, Surowiecki presents them in a wonderfully entertaining manner. The examples he uses are all down-to-earth, surprising, and fun to ponder. Why is the line in which you're standing always the longest? Why is it that you can buy a screw anywhere in the world and it will fit a bolt bought ten-thousand miles away? Why is network television so awful? If you had to meet someone in Paris on a specific day but had no way of contacting them, when and where would you meet? Why are there traffic jams? What's the best way to win money on a game show? Why, when you walk into a convenience store at 2:00 A.M. to buy a quart of orange juice, is it there waiting for you? What do Hollywood mafia movies have to teach us about why corporations exist?

The Wisdom of Crowds is a brilliant but accessible biography of an idea, one with important lessons for how we live our lives, select our leaders, conduct our business, and think about our world.

©2004 James Surowiecki (P)2004 Books on Tape

Critic reviews

"Surowiecki's style is pleasantly informal, a tactical disguise for what might otherwise be rather dense material. He offers a great introduction to applied behavioral economics and game theory." (Publishers Weekly)

An Excellent Read !!!

Surowiecki has created a very insightful book that explores group mentality in sociological, psychological and economic areas. The anecdotal examples are interpreted in a thought-provoking, eye- opening manner that was a definite pleasure. Maybe not a "crowd pleaser" but one of the few books I'd listen to again. The narration was also very good and did not bore, even with some of the heavier subject matter. All in all - an excellent read.

Very solid, but tedious at times.

The writing is clear, the reading is good, the logic is unassailable, and some of the examples are very interesting. However, I felt that the book spent excessive time explaining
some conclusions that seemed very intuitive to me. I found the listening a bit tedious at times, perhaps because I have spent the last twelve years working for a large corporation that has implemented a significant number of the book's recommendations for fostering and exploiting the wisdom of crowds.

Very worthwhile listen!

This audiobook delivers what it promises and then some. James S. starts out with a provocative premise about WISE crowds (honestly, don't we think that most crowds are uninformed, crazy, act like sheep, etc...) and delivers detailed, deep examples of how, darn it, crowds ARE smart given some broad and sensible conditions. But this audiobook touches on much more than crowd psychology: economics, statistics, business, politics, science, history, sports. The range is impressive and endlessly fascinating. Good narration, extremely interesting, I have returned to parts of this audiobook more than once!

Good read, great Ideas

Enjoyed it from front to back. Theory and anecdote blend well to introduce important and powerful ideas. Made me think. Doesn't get much better than that.

suffers from error in heuristic thinking

If you have been afraid to read this book for fear of running into ideas that fall prey to the sharpshooter heuristic, your fears are founded. However, despite some bad arguments, this book was far more balanced that I imagined it would be. In truth, it should be titled The Wisdom and Stupidity of Crowds: Parsing out What Makes Groupthink More or Less Effective." It had a lot of interesting little tidbits of knowledge that were new for me. Because of this, I would recommend this book to anyone who is capable of sifting out anecdotal stories and focusing on the parts that were far more informative and fact-based.

Intriguing

A crowd requires diversity of opinion, independence of thought, and a particular kind of decentralization in order to dependably perform better than most experts. Success might mean finding a definitive answer, coordinating effectively (like traffic), or getting distrustful people to cooperate to their mutual benefit (like markets). Any of these goals can be botched by trusting an ill-suited crowd, or they can be profoundly successful by trusting a suitable crowd. Well-suited crowds consistently out-perform experts.

That's this book in a paragraph. Their examples and research are strong and persuasive demonstrations of their claims, and I enjoyed the listen.

Good theories, too long

The books core theories and ideas where interesting, however it could easily have been halved in length. The examples are intresting in there own right, but I thought they got off the topic at times. Overall a good insight into crowds and crowd think, but you could listen to the first 1/2 hour and have most of the ideas in the book.
Also the sample track is not the same voice as the whole book, just the introduction.

Excellent Book

Fantastic and fascinating book. Recommended for anyone who likes counterintuitive analysis.

Could have been better

This book started off great. But eventually, his examples got too random. I kept checking my mp3 player to make sure it wasn't on random. On the plus side, this book does an excellent job of explaining when groupthink is a good thing, rather than just painting everything with a broad brush.

Good information poorly presented and poorly organized

This was hard to listen to as it lacked structure even though it contains valuable information. My interest or bias was towards modern crowdsourcing and the narrative seemed to fixate and focus on the negative aspects of crowd behavior without teaching or showing you how to discern when that is an issue. It reads too much like the typical business management books executives might pick up at an airport bookstore. It did cite a few interesting references but never captured my attention or interest and allow me to enjoy what should be a far more useful and engaging subject. I feel sorry for anyone required to read this. Me, I am a dedicated crowdsourcing nut... -s.