American - Journalist | April 30, 1967 -
Sometimes you have to destroy your business in order to save it.
James Surowiecki
BusinessYouSometimesOrderDestroy
Intellectual-property rules are clearly necessary to spur innovation: if every invention could be stolen, or every new drug immediately copied, few people would invest in innovation. But too much protection can strangle competition and can limit what economists call 'incremental innovation' - innovations that build, in some way, on others.
InnovationCompetitionPeopleRules
The Xbox 360 is the best game console ever designed. It's fast and powerful - games look as good on the 360 as on high-end PCs that cost six times as much. It's easy to navigate and has lots of useful secondary features - the ability to play digital video, stream MP3s, and so on.
GoodBestGamePowerfulLookPlay
Tough times have always lent themselves to nativist sentiments and closed-door policies. But in the case of highly skilled immigrants, these policies are a recipe for stagnation.
Tough TimesToughImmigrantsAlways
The essence of procrastination lies in not doing what you think you should be doing, a mental contortion that surely accounts for the great psychic toll the habit takes on people. This is the perplexing thing about procrastination: although it seems to involve avoiding unpleasant tasks, indulging in it generally doesn't make people happy.
GreatHabitHappyPeopleThinkYou
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 families.
LifeGoodFutureCommitmentOnly
In the business world, bad news is usually good news - for somebody else.
GoodBusinessWorldBadGood News
We assume that good-looking people are smarter and more effective than they really are, and that homely people are the reverse.
PeopleGood-LookingMoreAssumeThan
In the heart of the Great Depression, millions of American workers did something they'd never done before: they joined a union. Emboldened by the passage of the Wagner Act, which made collective bargaining easier, unions organized industries across the country, remaking the economy.
HeartGreatDepressionAmericanDone
Most corporate name changes are the result of mergers and acquisitions. But these tend to be unimaginative.
NameResultChangesAcquisitions
Wall Street has come a long way from the insider-dominated world that was blown apart by the Great Depression.
GreatDepressionWorldLongWall
In conditions of uncertainty, humans, like other animals, herd together for protection.
TogetherUncertaintyAnimalsHerd
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