Colin Bryar on Amazon’s memos: “Narratives convey about 10 times as much information. You know, the pixel density is about seven to nine times the pixel density. People read faster than people talk, and you can have multi-causal arguments in a narrative much better than a hierarchical PowerPoint. But we realized we just needed a better way to analyze complex situations and make better decisions.”
Washington Post: “Researchers found that when people’s thoughts were off-task, they generally felt more negative. But if their thoughts were off task and free-moving, it had the opposite effect, making people feel happier. Of course, mind-wandering is problematic when focus is essential, like if you’re driving or performing surgery. But if you let your mind wander when you’re doing mundane tasks that don’t require focus — knitting or shelling peas, for example — it can help you feel content. Science suggests it may also help you come up with creative ideas.”
Devesh Kapur: “The growth of [India’s] middle class was expected to play a transformative role in propelling the economy on the one hand and modernising Indian society and politics on the other. The former would be achieved by its consumption potential that would drive domestic demand and the latter by pressuring the polity to address corruption and transcend identity politics. That this has occurred more in the breach is self-evident. Why has that been the case?…The institutional malaise in the governance of the professions is an important reason not just for the weaknesses of the professions themselves, but in their larger failure to hold the state to account – a failure that is all too manifest today.”
