In Making Sense of Chaos: A better economics for a better world, J. Doyne Farmer challenges traditional economic models, which rely on simplistic assumptions and fail to provide accurate predictions. Farmer, a complex systems scientist at the University of Oxford and the Santa Fe Institute, argues that with technological advances in data science and computing, we are now able to apply complex systems thinking to build models that more accurately capture reality and enable us to make better...

In Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI, Ethan Mollick explains how to engage with AI as a co-worker, a co-teacher, and a coach. Mollick is a professor of management at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, where he studies and teaches innovation and entrepreneurship. In his new book, he discusses the profound impacts AI will have on business and education, using many examples of AI in action. His book challenges us to utilize AI’s enormous power without...

In The Intelligence of Intuition, Gerd Gigerenzer challenges a commonly held view of intuition—namely, that it is somehow inferior to logical rationality. Gigerenzer is director of the Harding Center for Risk Literacy at the University of Potsdam, director emeritus of the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, and an expert on human decision-making. He argues that intuition is a form of unconscious intelligence shaped experience and...

In Climate Capitalism: Winning the Global Race to Zero Emissions, Akshat Rathi tells the stories of people around the world who are building impactful solutions to tackle climate change. Rathi is a senior reporter for Bloomberg News, focusing on climate and energy. He also hosts the weekly Zero podcast, in which he talks to the people leading the fight for a zero-emissions future. In his new book, Rathi argues that the best way to cut carbon pollution is by harnessing capitalism. Combating...

In Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto, Kohei Saito explores the relationship between capitalism and the climate crisis. He argues, controversially, that to have any chance of achieving true sustainability, we must move to a system which deemphasizes growth, adopts different metrics of progress, expands the commons, and places value on goods and services which are not currently considered as part of the economy, like caregiving and nature. Saito is an associate professor of philosophy at the...

In Higher Ground: How Businesses Can Do the Right Thing in a Turbulent World, Alison Taylor explores how companies can navigate the complexity of modern business ethics. Taylor, a clinical associate professor at NYU Stern, has spent decades advising large multinational companies on risk, corruption, sustainability, and organizational culture. In her new book, she combines her experience with vivid case studies to guide companies toward reaching what she describes as the “higher ground”—a...

In The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder, Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao share insights on friction—the forces that make it harder, slower, more complicated, or even impossible to get things done in organizations. Sutton is an expert on organizational psychology at Stanford University and a best-selling author. His latest book is a culmination of a seven-year research effort on how effective organizations function without driving employees...

In Permacrisis: A Plan to Fix a Fractured World, Mohamed El-Erian and Michael Spence, along with their coauthors, Gordon Brown and Reid Lidow, consider how we’ve arrived at this state of constant instability and insecurity—and suggest concrete ways to break the cycle. Mohamed El-Erian, president of Queens’ College Cambridge University, was previously the chair of President Obama’s Global Development Council, a Deputy Director at the International Monetary Fund, and CEO and co-CIO of...

In The Worlds I See, Dr. Fei-Fei Li provides a personal and deeply insightful depiction of two convergent journeys. One describes her own life and career; Li immigrated to the U.S. from China at age 15, and within a few years had launched into research in computer vision and AI. The other is a history of AI, which has involved many breakthroughs over the past 70 years, culminating in a technology that is now changing life and business. Li is one of the world’s foremost experts on AI and was...

In his new book The Secret of Culture Change: How To Build Authentic Stories That Transform Your Organization, Jay Bryan Barney discusses why changing company culture is sometimes necessary but always challenging—and how the power of stories can help leaders mobilize their employees around a new strategy. Jay Barney, a professor of strategic management and the Pierre Lassonde Chair of Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business, is one of the world’s...

In The Geek Way: The Radical Mindset that Drives Extraordinary Results, Andrew McAfee describes how a new approach to corporate culture based on science, ownership, speed, and openness, is driving value creation in the 21st century. McAfee is an expert on how technological progress changes the world, being named to both the Thinkers50 list of top management thinkers and the Politico 50 group of people transforming American politics. In his new book, he outlines how the giants of Silicon...

In Head & Heart: The Art of Modern Leadership, Dr. Kirstin Ferguson provides a practical guide to balancing the rational and emotional components of leadership. Ferguson is an expert on leadership, an experienced leader in the private and public sectors, and a longtime advocate of gender equity. In her new book, she identifies the key attributes of a “head and heart” leader, providing people with the tools to reflect on and adapt their own approach to each situation. She combines vivid...

In How to Work with (Almost) Anyone, Michael Bungay Stanier outlines how to set up working relationships for the best chance of success—by following a process of thorough preparation, a keystone conversation, and regular maintenance. Bungay Stanier, founder of coaching firm Box of Crayons, is a world-renowned thought leader on coaching and author of the best-selling coaching book, The Coaching Habit. In his most recent book, he focuses on relationship-building, providing readers with...

In his new book, Big Bets: How Large-Scale Change Really Happens, Rajiv Shah, President of the Rockefeller Foundation recounts his experiences and lessons learned over decades of effecting large-scale social change. He shares how addressing humanity’s thorniest challenges requires a big bets mindset – pushing to solve, rather than merely improve, problems; and going for “big enough”, rather than settling for “good enough”. Prior to his current role, Shah was the Administrator of USAID and a...

In his new book,  Mixed Signals: How Incentives Really Work,  Uri Gneezy explains why leaders often create incentives that are misaligned with their organization’s goals. Gneezy, the Epstein/Atkinson Chair in Management Leadership at UC San Diego’s Rady School of Management, is one of the world’s leading experts in behavioral economics, and his insights have become a staple in courses around the world. He teaches managers how to be incentive-smart—how to avoid mixed signals and design...

In his new book, The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and The Twenty-First Century’s Greatest Dilemma, Mustafa Suleyman discusses the new technologies that will transform society—chief among them AI and synthetic biology. Suleyman is a renowned thought leader on this topic, having co-founded Inflection AI and DeepMind, and having served as VP of AI product management and AI policy at Google. Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, Suleyman discusses the threats and...

In her forthcoming book, Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well, Amy Edmondson offers a new framework to think about, discuss, and practice failure wisely, using human fallibility as a tool for making ourselves and our organizations smarter. Amy Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School and the author of seven books, including The Fearless Organization, which has been translated into more than 15 languages. She was ranked number...

In The Perennials: The Megatrends Creating a Postgenerational Society, Mauro Guillén argues that the traditional, sequential model of life—childhood, education, career, and retirement—is being rendered obsolete. Guillén, a professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, is one of the world’s foremost experts on global megatrends. In his most recent book, he focuses on the combination of rapid technological progress, increasing life as well as health spans, and...

In his new book Power and Progress, Simon Johnson, along with his co-author Daron Acemoglu, challenges the techno-optimistic narrative that technological progress will automatically lead to shared prosperity. Johnson, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, takes us through a millennium of technological progress to show how the gains from advancements such as the agricultural and early industrial revolutions tended to benefit a narrow segment of interests. While technology can...

In his new book, LOOK: How to Pay Attention in a Distracted World, Christian Madsbjerg explores the importance of observational skills. Drawing on various fields—science, philosophy, and the arts—as well as his personal experiences, Madsbjerg offers tools and insights to help us better pay attention and extract insights. Madsbjerg was co-founder and senior partner of consulting firm, ReD Associates and was previously a professor of applied humanities at the New School for Social Research in...

In his latest book, Magic Words: What to Say to Get Your Way, Jonah Berger breaks down the science of language. The right words can influence actions and happiness, and reveal insights about those who say or write them. Berger, an associate professor of marketing at the Wharton School, is an expert on change, social influence, and word-of-mouth communication. Together with Martin Reeves, Chairman of BCG Henderson Institute, Berger discusses how we can use the language of agency and identity...

In her new book The Case for Good Jobs, Zeynep Ton explains why creating good jobs, particularly for frontline workers, will help companies thrive. Ton, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and president and co-founder of the Good Jobs Institute, has long been an advocate of investing in employees. Traditional bad jobs systems—characterized by low pay, high turnover, and poor operational execution—harm customer satisfaction and undermine a company’s ability to differentiate,...

In this special episode of the Thinkers & Ideas podcast, we invited Sir Partha Dasgupta and Simon Levin – co-authors of the forthcoming report "Economic Factors Underlying Biodiversity Loss" – and Georg Kell to discuss a topic often overlooked in sustainability discussions: biodiversity. They discuss gaps in our current thinking, a potential path forward, how to measure our progress along it – and the role corporations must play in all this. Sir Partha Dasgupta is the Frank Ramsey...

Bent Flyvbjerg has a sobering statistic to share: 99.5% of major projects fail to deliver their targeted results on time and on budget. His new book How Big Things Get Done, coauthored with Dan Gardner, explores this phenomenon—from infrastructure projects to major sporting events to corporate transformations. Flyvbjerg, the first BT Professor of Major Programme Management at Oxford’s Saïd Business School and VKR Professor of Major Program Management at the IT University of Copenhagen, is the...