Seeing stocks, flows, delays and loops rather than isolated events, so that behaviour is explained by structure rather than by blame. Interventions at the wrong leverage point produce policy resistance, where the system pushes back and restores its old behaviour. For investors it reframes an industry as a set of relationships that will keep producing the same outcomes until the structure changes.
253 patterns for building, from the layout of towns down to a window seat.
Recommended by: Naval Ravikant, Patrick Collison, Sam Altman and 1 other
How a mind could arise from parts, traced through Godel, Escher and Bach.
Recommended by: Nat Eliason, Naval Ravikant, Demis Hassabis and 3 others
Meadows wrote this before systems thinking became a popular phrase, and it remains the clearest account of why short-term interventions in complex systems so often backfire. The chapter on leverage points is the conceptual core of what long-term thinking actually requires from decision-makers.
Recommended by: Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Daniel Burka and 3 others
Control and communication in animals and machines run on the same principles.
A computer model of world growth that overshoots its limits and then declines.
Recommended by: Bill Gates
Five disciplines, led by systems thinking, that let an organisation learn.
Recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai, Sahil Lavingia
The founding of the Santa Fe Institute and the people who built complexity science.
Recommended by: Bill Gurley, Jamie Dimon, Michael Mauboussin and 1 other
How the sciences and humanities can be unified by causal links from physics up.
“I was inspired by E. O. Wilson's book Consilience, which came out in 1998 and is a book I'd recommend.” — Michael Mauboussin
Source: MOI Global interview with Michael Mauboussin
Recommended by: Michael Mauboussin, Mohnish Pabrai
The economy as a complex evolving system rather than one in equilibrium.
Recommended by: Ryan Peterson
Honeybee colonies as a decentralised allocation and search system
“As Thomas Seeley writes in his delightful book, The Wisdom of the Hive” — Michael Mauboussin
Source: Capital Ideas Revisited (Legg Mason Capital Management)
Recommended by: Michael Mauboussin
Information theory as a unifying idea across three scientists' work
Recommended by: Charlie Munger, Mohnish Pabrai
The case that disorder is often more efficient than imposed order
“This idea comes from a wonderful book called A Perfect Mess” — Marc Andreessen
Source: The Pmarca Guide to Personal Productivity
Recommended by: Marc Andreessen
Charlie Mungerrecommends 1 book here