Derek Thompson Quotes

It is an economic fact that predicting the future is most valuable when everybody things you are wrong.

It is an economic fact that predicting the future is most valuable when everybody thinks you are wrong

The mere observation that something is popular, or even that it became so rapidly, is not sufficient to establish that it spread in a manner that resembles a virus. Popularity on the internet is driven by the size of the largest broadcast. Digital blockbusters are not about a million one-to-one moments as much as they are about a few one-to-one-million moments.

This sell something familiar, make it surprising. To sell something surprising, make it familiar.

It begs for a gospel of perseverance through inevitable failure... There is no antidote to the chaos of creative markets. Only the brute doggedness to endure it.

Quality, it seems, is a necessary, but insufficient attribute for success.

When something becomes hard to think about, people transfer the discomfort of the thought, to the object of their thinking.

People gravitate toward products that are bold, but instantly comprehensible: Most Advanced Yet Acceptable--MAYA.

This long-tail distribution of returns is why it's important to be bold. Big winners pay for so many experiments.