The Market for Talent Is Remarkably Inefficient, and That People Don't Do Their Very Best

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I see people screwing up all the time, not realizing their potential. I think the market for talent is remarkably inefficient and that people don't do their very best. Then you must think people are remarkably productive and effective, because self help books are very cheap. The advice alice sent you that was for free. So if you think of it in terms of marginal value, given the low price, the marginal gains to being more productive personally, well, you must be very close to the frontier regt. That strikes me as counter intuitive. But i think a lot of it is honest. You see this in firms all the time,. whand we ere out in india,...

What might the electrification of factories teach us about how quickly we’ll adapt to remote work? What gives American companies an edge over their competitors on the international stage? What value do management consultants really provide? Stanford professor Nick Bloom’s research studies how management practices, productivity techniques, and uncertainty shape outcomes across companies and countries.

He joined Tyler for a conversation about which areas of science are making progress, the factors that have made research more expensive, why government should invest more in R&D, how lean management transformed manufacturing, how India’s congested legal system inhibits economic development, the effects of technology on Scottish football hooliganism, why firms thrive in China, how weak legal systems incentivize nepotism, why he’s not worried about the effects of remote work on American productivity (in the short-term), the drawbacks of elite graduate programs, how his first “academic love” shapes his work today, the benefits of working with co-authors, why he prefers periodicals and podcasts to reading books, and more.

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Recorded July 13th, 2020 Other ways to connect

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