about this episode

“Alchemy” Author Rory Sutherland on the Darwinian approach to business, analyzing outliers, why eccentric CEOs have a psychological advantage with customers & more!

1:00 Jason intros “Alchemy” author Rory Sutherland
3:45 Architecture is the cheapest way to buy art
6:01 How Rory is dealing with quarantine, why he prefers working from home, and will businesses be more efficient post-COVID?
14:12 What is Rory’s job, why you should strive to create your own job title, treating the free market as Galapagos Island, using the Darwinian approach to business & analyzing outliers
19:47 Why some business successes are due to psychological discoveries: Red Bull, Dyson & Nespresso
27:25 Jason’s theory on why Dyson succeeded, Kano theory on product development, why eccentric CEOs have a psychological advantage with customers, how Uber’s arrival map was the key feature of the product
33:48 Why the actual value of products are typically not the proposed value of products
39:40 How new products hold value as a conversation starter, how context, setting & framing is essential to innovation
43:21 Two ways to create economic value: find something people want and figure out how to make it OR figure out what you can make and make people want it & examples: Lionfish, Fish That Ate The Whale, Royal Potatoes
50:13 Why are Americans resistant to behavioral economics? Is there still a hangover from McCarthyism? How this relates to COVID and wearing masks
1:02:08 Daily news is 95% noise, why political news coverage doesn’t reflect political reality
1:11:40 Why modern politics is dumb since far left and far right are much closer than they’ve ever been, issues with referrals & nepotism
1:21:06 How Rory got his first job in advertising “as a weirdo” and the wildcard since he was hired as part of a group, individual hiring vs. group hiring
1:23:20 TWiST Book Club Questions – Casey: Favorite behavioral study experiment or one that he found the results to be surprising? (ie. Milgram experiment or Stanford Prison Study)
1:32:12 Catherine: What’s Rory’s favorite alchemist moment of his own from work? Has he had to advocate for an illogical idea, and how did he persuade others?
1:41:01 What will we lose by being remote?
1:51:19 Reading their own audiobooks, how cheaper and easier consumption does NOT cannibalize original mediums
2:01:26 How Rory would reinvent the theatre experience, why modern corporations are slow to innovate & experiment
2:11:18 Greatness of re-readable books and rewatchable movies/television