The Voltage Effect book cover

The Voltage Effect by John A. List Summary

The Voltage Effect
John A. List
3.94 (1345 Reviews)
Economics
Business
Entrepreneurship
Panoramica
Punti Chiave
Autore
Domande Frequenti

Overview of The Voltage Effect

Why do brilliant ideas often fail when scaled up? In "The Voltage Effect," economist John A. List reveals the science behind successful scaling, praised by Freakonomics' Steven Levitt as "a master class in human irrationality" and Angela Duckworth as "the best book on scaling ever."

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Punti chiave

1

The Voltage Paradox: Why Great Ideas Often Fail at Scale

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Why do so many brilliant innovations fizzle when expanding? For every Netflix or iPhone that revolutionizes an industry, countless promising concepts collapse under the weight of growth. This phenomenon-what economist John List calls "the voltage effect"-explains why scaling breaks most ideas, regardless of their initial promise. My journey into scaling science began unexpectedly while studying baseball card markets as an undergraduate. This early fieldwork taught me to see the world as my laboratory-a perspective that would later take me from Chicago preschools to the White House, and eventually to rideshare giants Uber and Lyft. Along the way, I discovered that most ideas lose voltage when scaled, not randomly, but following predictable patterns. Some ideas appear successful in small tests but contain fatal flaws that only emerge at scale. Others work brilliantly in controlled environments but fail when confronting real-world complexity. The most heartbreaking are those that genuinely work but collapse under implementation challenges or runaway costs. The stakes couldn't be higher. From climate change to educational inequality, our most pressing problems require solutions that work at scale. Yet most organizations approach scaling with dangerous naivety, assuming what works small will naturally work large-a fundamental misunderstanding that wastes billions while truly scalable ideas languish unrecognized.

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"Reading used to feel like a chore. Now it’s just part of my lifestyle."

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"Feels effortless compared to reading. I’ve finished 6 books this month already."

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"BeFreed turned my guilty doomscrolling into something that feels productive and inspiring."

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