“People who are bred, selected, and compensated to find complicated solutions do not have an incentive to implement simplified ones.”

—  Nassim Nicholas Taleb , book Skin in the Game

Source: Skin in the Game (2018), p. 162

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Jan. 21, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "People who are bred, selected, and compensated to find complicated solutions do not have an incentive to implement simp…" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb?
Nassim Nicholas Taleb photo
Nassim Nicholas Taleb 196
Lebanese-American essayist, scholar, statistician, former t… 1960

Related quotes

Frank Stella photo

“There's always been a trend toward simpler painting and it was bound to happen one way or another. Whenever painting gets complicated, like Abstract Expressionism, or surrealism, there's going to be someone who's not painting complicated paintings, someone who's trying to simplify…”

Frank Stella (1936) American artist

Source: Quotes, 1960 - 1970, The Pratt lecture (1960), p. 117

Cecelia Ahern photo

“The more you try to simplify things the more you complicate them. You create rules, build walls, push people away, lie to yourself and ignore true feelings. That is not simplifying things.”

Cecelia Ahern book If You Could See Me Now

Source: If You Could See Me Now

Benoît Mandelbrot photo

“Contrary to popular opinion, mathematics is about simplifying life, not complicating it.”

Benoît Mandelbrot (1924–2010) Polish-born, French and American mathematician

Source: The (Mis)Behavior of Markets (2004, 2008), Ch. 7, p. 125
Context: Contrary to popular opinion, mathematics is about simplifying life, not complicating it. A child learns a bag of candies can be shared fairly by counting them out: That is numeracy. She abstracts that notion to dividing a candy bar into equal pieces: arithmetic. Then, she learns how to calculate how much cocoa and sugar she will need to make enough chocolate for fifteen friends: algebra.

“There comes a time when one must stop suggesting and evaluating new solutions, and get on with the job of analyzing and implementing one pretty good solution.”

Robert E. Machol (1917–1998) American systems engineer

Cited in: " Joke, Anecdotes, etc http://www.moshe-online.com/worms/jokes/jokes.html" by Moshe Sniedovich, 2013
Principles of Operations Research (1975)

Bertrand Russell photo

“The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1920s, Sceptical Essays (1928), Ch. 8: Eastern and Western Ideals of Happiness

Mai Văn Phấn photo

“The poetic creation is nearly like the amazement state of a child who, in the first time, sees the strange phenomena of nature and finds out the human mysteries and complications… The poet is a selected person (temporarily called as a God-selected person), who is “granted a favour”in the spirit of Jesus Christ, or meets a “good fortune” in Buddhism.”

Mai Văn Phấn (1955) Vietnamese poet

Sáng tạo, tinh thần cho điểm đến - Nhà thơ Ko Hyeong Ryeol thực hiện PV http://maivanphan.vn/MaiVanPhan/32/398/781/1102/Tra-loi-phong-van/Sang-tao--tinh-than-cho-diem-den---Nha-tho-Ko-Hyeong-Ryeol-thuc-hien-PV.aspx

Elon Musk photo

“I think it is a mistake to hire huge numbers of people to get a complicated job done. Numbers will never compensate for talent in getting the right answer (two people who don't know something are no better than one), will tend to slow down progress, and will make the task incredibly expensive.”

Elon Musk (1971) South African-born American entrepreneur

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

Colin Powell photo

“Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers who can cut through the argument debate and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.”

Colin Powell (1937) Former U.S. Secretary of State and retired four-star general
Jimmy Wales photo

“Simply having rules does not change the things that people want to do. You have to change incentives.”

Jimmy Wales (1966) Wikipedia co-founder and American Internet entrepreneur

Interview with Reason magazine (June 2007) http://reason.com/news/show/119689.html

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Source: 1960s, Strength to Love (1963), Ch. 1 : A tough mind and a tender heart
Context: The tough mind is sharp and penetrating, breaking through the crust of legends and myths and sifting the true from the false. The tough-minded individual is astute and discerning. He has a strong austere quality that makes for firmness of purpose and solidness of commitment.
Who doubts that this toughness is one of man's greatest needs? Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.

Related topics