Martin Gurri

The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority

Dana Kraft

I like Gurri’s style, very analytical and unlike most nonfiction books. The thesis by now is pretty obviously proven true. One of the reasons I liked it was that it is a different perspective or at least articulated differently than many of the ideas I liked from Taleb - localism, absurdity of elite snobbery, fragility v antifragility, skin in the game, and many others.

a few quotes I liked:
When proof for and against approaches infinity, a cloud of suspicion about cherry-picking data will hang over every authoritative judgment. P. 24

News is anything sold by the news business. P. 25

Fascination with one cause at the expense of another often reveals more about the analyst than the event. P. 105

At the time, this probably seemed like a way of avoiding early failures. But the project’s managers weren’t avoiding those failures. They were saving them up. P. 343

Reality is about bad choices. P. 372

The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority

Reviews