Episode · EconTalk · 2023-11-20
Books mentioned on Andrew McAfee on the Geek Way
What's different about companies that accomplish amazing things? Perhaps surprisingly, says Andrew McAfee of MIT, it has nothing to do with being agile or with better technology.
Russ Roberts discussed The Geek Way by Andrew McAfee and Social by Matthew D. Lieberman. Andrew McAfee recommended The Knowledge Machine by Michael Strevens, and discussed No Rules Rules: Netflix and the culture of reinvention by Reed Hastings and others.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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The Geek Way
Discussed“Our topic for today is his latest book, The Geek Way, the radical mindset that drives extraordinary results.”
Where to get it
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Social
Social by Matthew D.
Discussed“I came across a great book called Social, written by Matthew Lieberman, and he makes the point that what mammals in general, cuz most mammals are social, and we humans in particular, we hijack the mammalian pain system for social purposes.”
Where to get it
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No Rules Rules: Netflix and the culture of reinvention
No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention by Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer details the radical management philosophy and unconventional corporate culture behind Netflix.
Discussed“And Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer talk about this in the book No Rules Rules about Netflix where Hastings very candidly tells a few different stories about when he was dead flat wrong and the he eventually built a company that would learn to push back against his bad ideas which is rare and really important.”
Where to get it
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The Knowledge Machine
The Knowledge Machine by Michael Strevens is a philosophical exploration of how modern science operates and why its unique methodology has been so profoundly successful.
Recommended“I came across this amazing book called The Knowledge Machine which which nailed what science actually is for me.”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (5) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
“He was last here in October of 2019 talking about his book More from Less.”
“And then, as you see in the book, I finally found a body of research that really solidified and made super concrete and pragmatic this notion of culture and and gave me a better way to look at the topic.”
“So I think about the Geek Way. As far as I can tell it's the first applied book of cultural evolution.”
“One of the most interesting stories I learned when I was researching The Geek Way was the fact that early in its history, Amazon was a classic top-heavy, top-down direction from the top bureaucracy to the point that if you had an idea for an innovation, you submitted it to the Amazon innovation bureaucracy and they vetted it and then”
“The book is The Geek Way and hey, thanks for being part of EconTalk.”