A well written easy to read book with a few interesting thoughts and anecdotes, but provides little value overall. In my opinion, this book could serve as an fine introduction for individuals who have not studied economic bubbles, blockchain economics or the mentality required in investing. For anyone familiar with these subjects, there are many alternatives I believe are worth reading instead.
This book was published in 2004 and it’s amazing how applicable it is to everything blockchain related today. The book argues for the needs of “free” (decentralized?) prediction markets on different scales: small groups, institutions, industries and the public as a whole. The book also discusses various situations where decentralized groups of individuals managed to come to a consensus under very different circumstances. It’s a bit ironic how Surowiecki makes a lot of arguments in favor of decentralized governments while also explaining how illogical economic bubbles given the speculative state of cryptocurrencies today.
There were some interesting references including Gary Shilling’s work, how several teams coordinated to develop a vaccine to SARS, the 1950s bowling bubble I wasn’t aware about at all, and a few economic tests run in University classes. Alongside the interesting examples, there were many mundane examples that almost put me to sleep, such as how humans coordinate through traffic amongst themselves.
The book is very forward-looking given that it was written before conversations of workplace diversity spread widely, and long before blockchain technology became mainstream. That being said, I do not believe it will stand the test of time because the same topics have been covered numerous times with a lot more interesting detail.