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Technology · History · Organizations
The Update Nobody Installs
In the 1960s, automobile safety researchers faced a paradox. Seat belts had been proven to save lives. Automakers were beginning to install them as
Technology · Design · History
The Statistic That Changed Shape
Data does not only inform judgment. The way data is shaped determines which judgments feel obvious, which feel impossible, and which never
Technology · History · Organizations
The Decision You Refused to Make
In the summer of 1863, General George McClellan sat outside Richmond with 100,000 soldiers and declined to attack. His intelligence — wildly inaccurate, it
Technology · History · Organizations
The Cost of the Workaround
In 1858, the city of Chicago had a sewage problem. The city had been built at lake level, so there was nowhere for waste to drain. Typhoid and cholera were
Technology · History · Organizations
The Cost of Keeping Your Options Open
Julius Caesar, crossing the Rubicon in 49 BC, committed one of history's most famous acts of non-reversibility. The Rubicon was the boundary between the
Systems · Psychology · History
Why Warning Systems Train Us to Ignore Them
At 4:00 AM on March 28, 1979, the operators at Three Mile Island Unit 2 faced a control room in full alarm. More than a hundred warning lights were active
AI · Technology · History
The Context Problem Nobody Talks About
In 1950, American forces landed at Inchon, South Korea, in one of the most successful amphibious operations in military history. The landing worked partly
AI · Technology · History
The Committee That Ate the Strategy
In the late 19th century, the American sociologist Amitai Etzioni observed a paradox in organizational decision-making: the more people involved in a
Technology · History · Systems
The Checklist That Saved the B-17
On October 30, 1935, a Boeing Model 299 prototype bomber lifted off from Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio. It was the most advanced aircraft the United States
Technology · History · Organizations
The Calendar That Runs the Organization
There is an exercise in behavioral economics called the revealed preference test. The idea, developed by economist Paul Samuelson, is that you cannot know
Technology · History · Organizations
The Attention Budget
William James, the philosopher and psychologist who founded American psychology, wrote in 1890: "The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering
Technology · History · Organizations
The Art of the Good-Enough System
The Shakers believed that God could see every surface of a piece of furniture — including the hidden ones. So they finished the undersides of their chairs
Design · History · Systems
The Architecture of Decisions
Between 1929 and 1968, Robert Moses shaped the physical infrastructure of New York City more than any elected official. He built highways, parks, bridges
AI · Technology · History
The Analogy That Breaks a Problem Open
In the early 1980s, a biologist named George Rathbun was studying a small, endangered antelope called the golden-rumped elephant shrew. The animal lived in
AI · Technology · History
The AI That Learned from the Wrong Examples
During World War II, the US Army Air Forces asked Abraham Wald, a statistician at Columbia University's Statistical Research Group, to help them figure out
AI · Technology · History
The AI Adoption Problem
In the 1840s, Ignaz Semmelweis discovered that handwashing before delivering babies could reduce maternal mortality dramatically. In the Viennese maternity
Technology · History · Organizations
Technical Debt Is a People Problem
In the basement of a hospital in Vienna, there is a filing system that has been in continuous operation since 1953. The filing system was designed for
AI · Technology · History
Teaching AI to Say No
In medicine, there is a concept called scope of practice. A paramedic can administer certain medications, perform certain procedures, make certain
Organizations · History · Systems
How Organizations Forget
In January 1967, a fire in the Apollo 1 command module killed three astronauts during a ground test. The subsequent investigation was one of the most
Technology · Systems · History
How Networks Fail Quietly
At 14:14 on August 14, 2003, a software bug in the alarm and logging system of FirstEnergy Corporation, an electric utility based in Akron, Ohio, caused
History · Psychology · AI & Intelligence
How Anomalies Get Dismissed
On the morning of July 12, 1984, a gastroenterologist named Barry Marshall arrived at his laboratory at the Fremantle Hospital in Western Australia and
Systems · History · Organizations
Goodhart's Trap
In 1975, Charles Goodhart, a British economist serving as an adviser to the Bank of England, wrote a paper about monetary policy. In it, he made an
AI · Technology · History
Building the Organization That Runs Overnight
On May 24, 1844, Samuel Morse sent the first long-distance telegraph message from Washington to Baltimore: "What hath God wrought."
Technology · History · Organizations
Automation That Doesn't Know When to Stop
In the winter of 1854, a British soldier named William Russell wrote dispatches from the Crimean War that shocked readers at home. The British Army was
History · Organizations · Design
The Difference Between a Rule and a Principle
In December 1944, Allied forces in Belgium faced a situation that no military manual had anticipated. German troops, dressed in American uniforms and
History · Technology · Organizations
The Infrastructure of Trust
In 1958, the Italian-American political scientist Edward Banfield spent a year studying a small town in southern Italy called Montegrano. He was trying to
Philosophy · AI · History
Second-Order Questions
In August 1854, a physician named John Snow walked through the Soho district of London with a map and a theory. Cholera was killing people in the
Systems · History · Psychology
What Silence Means in a System
In the early hours of April 26, 1986, operators at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant were conducting a safety test. The test required gradually reducing
Technology · History · Organizations
The Specification That Became the Product
In 1490, a Portuguese cartographer named Pedro Reinel drew a map of the African coastline that would influence navigators for the next fifty years. The map
Organizations · History · Leadership
The Meeting That Should Have Been a Decision
On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into orbit. Four days later, the United States Department of Defense convened an emergency meeting to
Systems · History · Organizations
How Systems Learn to Ignore Their Alarms
In the early hours of March 28, 1979, operators at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant faced a confusing control panel. Hundreds of alarms were going off
Technology · History · Systems
The Dashboard That Lied
In 1931, the London Underground released a new map of the tube system. It was immediately controversial among transit engineers: the map was geographically