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1-Page Summary of The Undoing Project
Overall Summary
The Undoing Project (2016) is a book about the friendship between two Israeli psychologists, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. The book explores their work in behavioral economics, which has changed how people view human decision-making. It also delves into why people’s judgments are flawed and how algorithms can be used to make better decisions.
This book is about two brilliant men, Kahneman and Tversky. They were incredibly close friends who worked together to create a new field of study called behavioral economics. Their collaboration was often compared to a marriage, but their relationship eventually ended in divorce because they had different opinions on how to run the company that they founded together. Both men felt very strongly about their native countries (Israel) and wanted to do something useful for them. Kahneman was a Holocaust survivor and Tversky fought in the Israeli army as an officer before moving to America with his family when he was young.
Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, two psychologists at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, published a lot of papers focusing on judgment and decision making. They were driven by their primary question: when humans make decisions, what are they actually doing?
Though Kahneman and Tversky had different personalities, they were both united in purpose. They challenged the status quo by questioning conventional wisdom and using new ideas to shape society. Their work is a testament to what can happen when people challenge the status quo, remain receptive to new ideas that could help shape society, and provide deeper insight into the mystery of human experience.
Introduction: “The Problem That Never Goes Away”
In the introduction, Lewis positions his book as a follow-up to Moneyball. In Moneyball, Lewis focused on how data analysis can be used to find valuable players in baseball (the Oakland Athletics’ use of statistics). However, he notes that while data analysis is important for finding good players and coaches, it’s not enough without human intuition. The Undoing Project uses two Israeli psychologists who analyzed decision making processes as its subject matter; these experts seek to discover how people make decisions and why they make them.
Chapter 1: “Man Boobs”
The first chapter focuses on Darryl Morey, the general manager of the Houston Rockets professional basketball team. He is portrayed as an outsider and a hard-working person who wants to change how decisions are made in professional sports. After working for the Boston Celtics and incorporating algorithms into their decision making, Morey was recruited by Alexander to work for his new organization, which he did after being fed up with imprecise decision making.
People who are close to basketball were skeptical about Daryl Morey’s hiring. Yet, he was confident in his own decision making processes and trusted himself much more than anyone else. He may have been a nerd, but he didn’t think of it as being one. His idea of a nerd was someone who knows what they want and know how to get it without doubting themselves too often. For any professional sports team, decisions about which players to draft or trade have serious consequences. Therefore, Daryl Morey decided that the best way for him to make good decisions is by trusting himself rather than others.
Today, Morey still works for the Rockets. Lewis explains his success in this role: Yet Morey’s successes also come with failures, most notably when he passed on Marc Gasol and Jeremy Lin. The algorithm indicated that they would be successful NBA players and were good value picks, but optics prevented them from being drafted by the Rockets. In hindsight, it’s clear that they should have been drafted because both are very successful players who have had great careers so far.
