Rory Sutherland

Quotes are word for word from the source.

• Value of exploration

  “20% of bees...ignore the waggle dance. Their purpose is to have a high chance of a failed journey, but a small chance of a massive shareable upside.”

  Our noteRory explains why businesses need a portion of their resources dedicated to seemingly inefficient exploration.

• Dangers of scale

  “Most company mergers fail, so let's not be absolutely naive about the benefits of scale.”

  Our noteDiscussing the common mistakes businesses make when pursuing growth through mergers.

• Digital as experimentation

  “The greater value of digital to the wider organisation may be experimentation. It may be discovering things about human behaviour and preferences.”

  Our noteArguing that digital tools should be used for learning rather than just efficiency.

• Efficiency versus resilience

  “There's always a trade off between short-term efficiency through exploiting what you already know, and long-term resilience and success through exploring what you don't yet know or finding out what's changed.”

  Our noteExplaining the tension between optimizing current operations and preparing for the future.

• Subjective value

  “I would argue that there is no objective perception of value whatsoever. Our valuation of something is internally constructed.”

  Our noteExplaining how marketing influences the internal mental processes that determine how we value products.

• Context and marketing

  “Nothing is context-independent and, therefore, nothing can be completely marketing-free.”

  Our noteDiscussing why marketing is an inherent part of how products are perceived.