A defining feature of the Harvard translational research training program Denny and I founded in 1999 (more here) was that our monthly speakers – brilliant medical innovators like Robert Langer, Denise Faustman, Judah Folkman, Jeff Flier – had to begin their talks by telling students about their real career journeys, which invariably were far more meandering and uncertain than the linear narratives generally deployed to introduce distinguished speakers, where one’s life path can seem like a series of deliberate steps leading up to the present moment.

The thing that made you weird as a kid could make you great as an adult.

Job interviews are not really about you. They are about the employer’s needs and how you can fill them.

One-off events usually don’t amount to much. Organize gatherings that meet once a month or once a year.

If you’re traveling in a place you’ve never been before, listen to an album you’ve never heard before. Forever after that music will remind you of that place.

Build identity capital. In your 20s do three fascinating things that job interviewers and dinner companions will want to ask you about for the rest of your life.

Marriage is a 50-year conversation. Marry someone you want to talk with for the rest of your life

Many decisions are reversible, two-way doors. Those decisions can use a light-weight process. Most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70 percent of the information you wish you had. Some decisions are consequential and irreversible or nearly irreversible -- one-way doors -- and these decisions must be made methodically, carefully, slowly, with great deliberation and consultation. If you walk through and don't like what you see on the other side, you can't get back to where you were before. But most decisions aren't like that -- they are changeable, reversible -- they're two-way doors. If you've made a suboptimal two-way door decision, you don't have to live with the consequences for that long. You can reopen the door and go back through.

certain narratives to explain why there was suddenly so much conflict across society. Our first was the open/closed narrative. Society, we argued, is dividing between those who like open trade, open immigration, and open mores, on the one hand, and those who would like to close these things down, on the other. Second, and related, was the diversity narrative. Western nations are transitioning from being white-dominated to being diverse, multiracial societies. Some people welcome these changes whereas others would like to go back to the past.Both these narratives have a lot of truth to them—racism still divides and stains America—but they ignore the role that the creative class has played in increasing inequality and social conflict

better “decision hygiene” such as designating an observer for group decisions, to prevent common biases and noisy judgments. For example, they can ensure that participants in a team reach independent assessments before coming together as a group to aggregate their decisions.

Deloitte, a consultancy, reckons that the internal rate of return on in-house R&D at a dozen big drugs firms fell from 10% a decade ago to 2% in 2019—below their weighted-average cost of capital of 7%. The average cost to bring a drug to market has increased by two-thirds since 2010, to some $2bn. And the forecast for peak sales for each new drug has also fallen by half over that period

2020 has shown that Ioannidis’s claim does not apply to all areas of science. In amazing speed, bio-tech companies were able to make not just one but several successful vaccine’s with high effectiveness. Clearly some sciences are making real progress. On the other hand, other areas of science suggest that Ioannidis’s claims were accurate. For example, the whole literature on single-gene variations as predictors of human behavior has produced mostly false claims. Social psychology has a replication crisis where only 25% of published results could be replicated (OSC, 2015)

Get your fats via healthy midday snacks. Go for or seed-based crackers (we like Flackers) with guacamole or nut butters. For quick bites: olives, olive tapenade, or a handful of nuts. Or pair your hummus with some sliced red pepper, jicama, celery, and sulforaphane-rich cauliflower and broccoli (which can increase insulin sensitivity).

Besides helping you stay regular and feeding the good bugs in your gut microbiome, fiber can also improve glycemic control. Research shows that diets rich in fiber are associated with lower post-meal glucose and insulin levels and lower glucose variability. One small study of people with Type 2 diabetes found that those who ate about 50 grams of fiber every day had lower glucose responses and less variability than those who ate an identical amount of calories but only about 15 grams of fiber every day.  

Don’t ruin your salad. Salads should be the ultimate metabolically friendly choice on the menu, but beware of common mix-ins like dried fruit, crunchy toppings like croutons or fried tortilla strips, and sugar- or honey-filled dressings could send your post-meal glucose soaring. (Same goes for veggie-rich soups with glucose spikers like rice, noodles, and pasta—not to mention the bread and crackers on the side.)

For those awash in anxiety and alienation, who feel that everything is spinning out of control, conspiracy theories are extremely effective emotional tools. For those in low status groups, they provide a sense of superiority: I possess important information most people do not have. For those who feel powerless, they provide agency: I have the power to reject “experts” and expose hidden cabals. As Cass Sunstein of Harvard Law School points out, they provide liberation: If I imagine my foes are completely malevolent, then I can use any tactic I want.

You can’t argue people out of paranoia. If you try to point out factual errors, you only entrench false belief. The only solution is to reduce the distrust and anxiety that is the seedbed of this thinking. That can only be done first by contact, reducing the social chasm between the members of the epistemic regime and those who feel so alienated from it. And second, it can be done by policy, by making life more secure for those without a college degree.

The #1 company-killer is lack of market. Andy puts it this way: When a great team meets a lousy market, market wins. When a lousy team meets a great market, market wins. When a great team meets a great market, something special happens.

And when you have a great market, the team is remarkably easy to upgrade on the fly. This is the story of search keyword advertising, and Internet auctions, and TCP/IP routers. Conversely, in a terrible market, you can have the best product in the world and an absolutely killer team, and it doesn't matter -- you're going to fail.

In a great market -- a market with lots of real potential customers -- the market pulls product out of the startup

productivity gains for our highest value workers has been immense. The typical time-sucks and distractions of in-office work have been eliminated, as have their personal time investments like physically visiting the grocery store or running errands. Mental focus on productive efforts is near constant. Perhaps most importantly, work *travel* is not happening. Valuable collaborations with colleagues, customers, regulators or other partner companies aren’t delayed by the vagaries of the various groups’ availability to meet in person, navigating being in different cities, flights, hotels, etc. Collaboration happens as soon as you have the idea to meet via Zoom. And a lot *more* collaboration happens as a result. It may be lower productivity collaboration than meeting in person around a whiteboard (maybe), but the sheer quantity of it means on net there’s perhaps been a boom in cross-pollination of ideas

The last several years, Mr. Obama says, have made it clear that “the normative glue that holds us together — a lot of those common expectations and values have weakened, have frayed in ways that de Tocqueville anticipated” and that “atomization and loneliness and the loss of community” have made our democracy vulnerable.