Tim Harford Meets Harvard Prof. Cass Sunstein | How To Academy
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Thu, 5 December 2024

7:30 pm - 8:45 pm GMT

Tim Harford Meets Harvard Prof. Cass Sunstein

The Secret Science of Success

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The bestselling author of Nudge reveals why some people become world-renowned celebrity geniuses – while other potential Einsteins and Taylor Swifts never do.

Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler’s Nudge was that rarest of marvels: a book that genuinely changed the world. Inspiring political action from Cameron’s Downing Street to Obama’s White House, the ‘nudge’ has become famous as one of the most powerful tools any government has to persuade its citizens to make the right choices for their health, wealth and prosperity.

Now Cass returns to How To Academy to reveal a new answer to a question that obsesses everyone from ‘influencers’ to politicians, business leaders, and creative people of all stripes: What makes someone who becomes famous, famous? Why do some people become phenomenally successful, while other no less talented individuals sink without a trace?

Using modern data analysis techniques and reams of research and data from his new book How to Become Famous, Cass will reveal to the Financial Times‘ Tim Harford why William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Muhammed Ali and Bob Dylan have achieved enduring fame while other sensationally talented people never make it. Spoiler alert: It turns out most of what we think we know about fame and fortune is wrong.

Does dying young – joining the 27 Club – really help make a rockstar an eternal legend?

How powerful and important are social networks – whether IRL or online?

How much do luck and being in the right place at the right time matter?

Is talent ever enough – and what can you do to optimise your chances of fame and fortune?

Discover the answers on a fun and at times profound journey that will forever change your perspective on the latest celebrity’s “fifteen minutes,” the nature of memory, success and failure in business, and our enduring fascination with fame.

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Cass Sunstein

Lawyer and Harvard Professor

Cass R. Sunstein is the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard Law School, where he is the founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy. He is by far the most cited law professor in the United States. From 2009 to 2012 he served in the Obama administration as Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. He has testified before congressional committees, appeared on national television and radio shows, been involved in constitution-making and law reform activities in a number of nations, and written and cowritten many articles and books including of the hugely influential Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness, and Wiser: Getting Beyond Groupthink to Make Groups Smarter.

Tim Harford

Economist, journalist and broadcaster

Tim Harford OBE is an economist, journalist and broadcaster. He is author of The Next Fifty Things That Made the Modern Economy, Messy, and the million-selling The Undercover Economist. Tim is a senior columnist at the Financial Times, and the presenter of Radio 4’s More or Less, Fifty Things That Made the Modern Economy, and Cautionary Tales. He is an associate member of Nuffield College, Oxford and an honorary fellow of the Royal Statistical Society.

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