If people were entirely rational decision-makers, wouldn't we have sub-optimal outcomes? We would all be single dentists. Most people in this room have chosen to do something that's a little bit irrational. The flip side of that irrational exuberance and confidence is overconfidence and confirmation bias.
We all face fork-in-the-road moments in our lives. In his 2005 bestseller “Blink,” Next Big Idea Club curator (and this episode’s guest interviewer) Malcolm Gladwell famously argued that snap judgments can be just as effective as meticulous planning. In this lively conversation, author Steven Johnson (“Farsighted”) disagrees, arguing that big, complex decisions require careful thought and scenario-building.