Daily Office: Thursday
¶ Matins: Malcolm Gladwell drops another one of his buzz-bombs on conventional wisdom in this week’s New Yorker. In “The Sure Thing,” he argues that successful entrepreneurs are extremely risk-averse; like predators, they don’t waste their time and energy unless they feel certain about prevailing. (They do A LOT of homework.)
One of Mr Gladwell’s subjects is John Paulson, the hedge fund manager who make a killing betting against the sub-prime boom; the meatiest part of the essay, for us, anyway, is the light that Mr Paulson’s success casts on current thinking about compensation for investment bankers.
¶ Lauds: What was the Philharmonic spokesperson thinking when refusing to name Burt Hara, the guest clarinetist (and apparent auditioner for the principal’s chair), when the Times asked who it was who had played Rachmaninoff so beautifully?
¶ Prime: Farming in Detroit? According to David Whitford, at Fortune, the population of Detroit (once the nation’s fourth-largest city) is expected to drop to 700,000. What to do with all that empty space? (via The Infrastructurist)
¶ Tierce: Anyone who read John Cassidy’s excellent New Yorker piece about the Chicago School of economists will have been struck by Eugene Fama’s somewhat demented-sounding pronouncements (“I don’t even know what a bubble means.”) Jonah Lehrer ponders his stubbornness at The Frontal Cortex, and proceeds to critique the very usefulness of “the School of X.”
¶ Sext: The fantastic Sam Sifton makes us dream about lunch at the Breslin Bar. Can it possibly be as good as his writing about it? (NYT)
¶ Nones: That entrepreneurial opera, Google in China, has come to the end of the first act. Hats off to Miguel Helft, at the Times, for putting it nicely and simply. (NYT)
Only those who are ignorant of Chinese history can imagine that any outsider is going to “help” in any significant way. They’ll be imitated and driven out, just as Google has been.
¶ Vespers: At Survival of the Book, Brian notes the passing of B Dalton — ubiquitous, but not very good.
¶ Compline: We’re of one mind with Jeffrey Pfeffer on the topic of Tiger Woods’s future. He ought to get back in the game, pronto. We also agree that Mr Woods doesn’t owe anyone any explanations. We feel quite fervent about that, in fact: we’d rather not know what goes on his, or anyone else’s, bedroom. (The Corner Office)