Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense

by Rory Sutherland

talent. It wouldn’t matter much if only Goldman Sachs, say, or a few elite institutions used this criterion, but when everyone else copies the same approach, it is ludicrous. Since almost half of graduates should by definition fall below this hurdle, it will either result in thousands of people spending three years at university for no benefit or to grade inflation in universities, with degree classes becoming meaningless.fn2 This is another example of people not using reason to make better decisions, but simply for the appearance of being reasonable. As any game theorist knows, there is a virtue to making slightly random decisions that do not conform to established rules. In a competitive setting such as recruitment, an unconventional rule for spotting talent that nobody else uses may be far better than a ‘better’ rule which is in common use, because it will allow you to find talent that is undervalued by everyone else. One of the other problems with a logically consistent system for hiring people is that ambitious middle-class people can exploit it by ‘gaming the system’. Violin lessons – check, work placement at uncle’s bank – check, charity work with the disadvantaged – check,fn3 high GPA – check. By contrast, if you hire that brilliant backgammon player, you do know one thing. He’s genuinely talented at something – and it’s unlikely that his parents have spent a fortune on private backgammon lessons. Real excellence can come in odd packaging. Nassim Nicholas Taleb app...