The Medici influence was about getting the information to spread throughout the network quickly. And so it turns out that these people are well connected in terms of having friends who then can spread information and those friends can spread information. They look sort of like the center of a tree in some way, right? It's spreading out via branches. When you actually look at the networks, you can almost eyeball. Oh, yeah, those are going to be the diffusion central people. You can actually spot them. In some cases, you might find that those people tend to be the same. So it could be that Cosimo was a really good diffuser, but they can be very different.
A key part of complexity science is understanding the behaviour of networks. Networks are groups of interacting agents, and they're all around us; our friendship groups, our colleagues, and even interactions online are all examples of networks. But what role does influence and power play in these networks?
In today's episode, we're joined by Matthew Jackson, William D. Eberle Professor of Economics at Stanford University, and External Faculty of the Santa Fe Institute. Matthew is going to break down the key factors of a network, with an example from all the way back in the 1400s, featuring the Medici family. He'll explain how Cosimo de’ Medici used his network to wield power, and what about his network made it so successful.
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