Daniel Kahneman
54 statements across 11 episodes · 18 bullish · 7 bearish · 5 people on the record · first statement Apr 28, 2015 by Michael Mauboussin · said 111 times in 37 episodes since 2015 · across every show →
On the record as a speaker too: Daniel Kahneman's record, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.
Mentions by year
brought up most by Shane Parrish (42), Michael Mauboussin (11), Josh Wolfe (11), Philip Tetlock (8), Chris Voss (5), Todd Simkin (4), Morgan Housel (4), Julia Galef (3)
tap a year for its mentions
2026 5 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode
2025 13 mentions in 4 episodes 3 per episode
2024 7 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode
2023 1 mention in 1 episode
2022 16 mentions in 5 episodes 3 per episode
2021 25 mentions in 5 episodes 5 per episode
2020 3 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode
2019 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
2018 20 mentions in 5 episodes 4 per episode
2017 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
2016 3 mentions in 1 episode
2015 14 mentions in 3 episodes 5 per episode
Everything said about Daniel Kahneman, oldest first
Apr 28, 2015
Mauboussin: Decision-makers must start with base rates before intuition
“You should always start with the base rate, sort of the statistical approach, and then layer in your intuition. So he called it disciplined intuition. And, ah, otherwise, if you go with your intuition first, you're going to seek out, right, you're going to see…”
Dec 8, 2015 positive
Tetlock: 50 minutes of debiasing training improves forecasting accuracy by 10%
“We got about, for average forecasters who are randomly assigned to an experimental condition in which they get Kahneman style debiasing exercises the improvement is in the vicinity of 10%. And that's a big effect when you consider that, you know, we're talking…”
Jan 23, 2018
Mauboussin: Base rates rule luck-driven domains; inside views rule skill domains
“And the basic heuristic on this is that if there's a lot of luck, A lot of randomness. You should rely exclusively or almost exclusively on the base rate. If there's a lot of skill, you should rely almost exclusively on the inside view, right? On, on your own …”
Jan 23, 2018
Mauboussin: Kahneman Noise Study Found 40% to 60% Decision Variance
“And they first went to their managers and they said, Hey, you know how much variance do you expect in these outcomes? Right? Again, playing the same way, same software and so forth. And the manager said, you know, a priority, you know, five to 10% variance. So…”
Oct 15, 2019 negative
Oct 15, 2019 positive
Kahneman: Change behavior by weakening restraining forces rather than pushing harder
“And what we tend to do when we want to move people from A to B is we push them. We add to the driving forces. And Kurt Lewin's insight was that this is not what you should do. You should actually work on the restraining forces and try to make them weaker.”
Oct 15, 2019
Kahneman: Effective decision journals record core pros, cons, and considered alternatives
“You would want to say, what were the main arguments, pro and con? What were the alternatives that were considered? You know, it doesn't have to be very detailed. But it should be enough so that you can come later and debrief yourself.”
Oct 15, 2019
Oct 15, 2019 positive
Kahneman: Delaying intuition until evaluating separate dimensions produces better decisions
“That when you are making decisions, you should think of options as if they were candidates. So you should break, break it up into dimensions, evaluate each dimension separately, then look at the profile, and the key is, delay your intuition. Don't try to form …”
Oct 15, 2019
Oct 15, 2019
Kahneman: Policy reforms fail because potential losers fight harder than winners
“And it turns out that you can really expect losers, potential losers, to fight a lot harder than potential winners. And that's the reason that reforms so frequently fail, and that when they succeed, they're almost always way more expensive than anticipated, an…”
Oct 15, 2019
Kahneman: People adopt beliefs by trusting others, not through objective reasoning
“We believe in things most of the time, not because we have good reasons to believe them. If you ask me for reasons, I'll explain you. I'll always find a reason, but the reasons are not the causes of our beliefs. We have beliefs because mostly we believe in som…”
Oct 15, 2019 negative
Kahneman: Organizations reject decision-tracking tools that threaten leaders with retrospective embarrassment
“Certainly anything that threatens the leader is not going to be adopted, and leaders may not want something that threatened their subordinates either. People are really very worried about embarrassment.”
Oct 15, 2019
Kahneman: Decision-makers should track decisions despite widespread resistance to retrospective accountability
“I would advise people who make a lot of decisions to keep track. Their decisions and of how they turned out. So that later you can come and evaluate your procedures and see whether there is anything that is in common with those decisions that turned out well a…”
Oct 15, 2019 negative
Kahneman: Anyone optimistic about easily changing human behavior is completely deluded
“I think changing behavior is extremely difficult. There are a few tips and, you know, a few guidelines about how to do that, but anybody who is very optimistic about changing behavior is just deluded. It's hard to change other people's behavior. It's very hard…”
Oct 15, 2019
Kahneman: Happiness is social; life satisfaction stems from conventional success
“Happiness is mostly social. It's, you know, it's being with people you love. Who love you back. That's a lot of what happiness is. Life satisfaction is much more conventional. It's to be successful. And, you know, so it's money, education, prestige, that sort …”
Oct 15, 2019 positive
Oct 15, 2019 bullish
Kahneman: Organizations can improve decision-making, but individual self-correction usually fails
“So in general, you know, more educated people make better judgments, I think, on average, but people decide I'm going to make better judgments. I don't think that's very hopeful. I'm much more hopeful about organizations, because organizations think more slowl…”
Oct 15, 2019 neutral
Oct 15, 2019
Oct 15, 2019
Kahneman: Income above $70,000 raises life satisfaction but not emotional happiness
“The research I did with Angus Deaton at Princeton, famous economist, we showed that in terms of happiness, in terms of emotional tone, positive and negative, Having a lot of money doesn't make you happier, but being poor makes you miserable. So that's above a …”
Oct 15, 2019 positive
Kahneman: Premortems legitimize team dissent and reveal critical decision loopholes
“And the premortem legitimizes that sort of dissent and that sort of doubt. Not only legitimizes it, you know, it rewards it. And so that's a very good idea. I don't, you know, I don't think that it's going to prevent people from making mistakes, big mistakes, …”
Oct 15, 2019 negative
Kahneman: Unstructured evaluation drives people to confirm their quick initial impressions
“Very quickly you form an impression, and then you spend most of your time confirming it, instead of collecting evidence. And so, if accidentally your impression was in the wrong direction, you're going to confirm it, and you don't give yourself a chance to cor…”
Oct 15, 2019 positive
Kahneman: Writing decisions down before meetings prevents rapid group convergence
“When you're going to be discussing a topic, and it's known in advance, and people have been sent some material to think about the topic, that you may want them to write down their decision, the decision they are in favor of, before the discussion starts. That …”
Oct 15, 2019
Kahneman: Agents making decisions on behalf of others skip loss aversion
“But there is an interesting result that if you have an agent making decisions on somebody's behalf, that agent doesn't have loss of urge. So that agent sells and buys at the same price, which is the economically rational thing to do.”
Oct 15, 2019
Oct 15, 2019
Kahneman: Billionaires accumulate money as a subjective proxy for their competence
“You look at all those people, all those billionaires working their heads off, and they're clearly not doing this because they need more money. They're trying to get more money, and they're trying to get more money because that would be an indication that they'…”
Oct 15, 2019 positive
Kahneman: Group decision leaders must actively protect dissenters to enable disagreement
“In, in general, you know, if you are, if you're the head of a group that makes decisions, one of your missions would be to protect the dissenters. Because they're very valuable, and you should make it painless to dissent, or as painless as possible, because it…”
Feb 2, 2021 positive
Oct 18, 2022 positive
Nov 7, 2023
Kahneman: Independent clear thinking is virtually impossible
“Emotions get in the way, and I would say that independent clear thinking Is, to first approximation, impossible. I mean, in the sense that, you know, we believe in things most of the time, not because we have good reasons to believe them. If you ask me for rea…”
Nov 7, 2023 positive
Kahneman: Algorithms improve decisions better than human judgment
“If you really want to improve the quality of decision making, use algorithms. I mean, whenever, wherever you can if you can replace judgments by rules and algorithms, they'll do better. Now, there's big social costs to trusting, allowing algorithms to make dec…”
Nov 7, 2023
Kahneman: Evaluate dimensions separately before trusting intuitive judgments
“That when you are making decisions, you should think of options as if they were candidates. So you should break, break it up into dimensions, evaluate each dimension separately, then look at the profile, and the key is, delay your intuition. Don't try to form …”
Feb 20, 2024 positive
May 28, 2024 positive
Jul 22, 2025 positive
Jul 22, 2025
Kahneman: Incomes above $70,000 boost life satisfaction but not emotional happiness
“The research I did with Angus Deaton at Princeton, famous economist, we showed that in terms of happiness, in terms of emotional tone, positive and negative, Having a lot of money doesn't make you happier, but being poor makes you miserable. So, that's above a…”
Jul 22, 2025
Kahneman: Defeat absurd negotiation anchors by making a scene and refusing them
“So, when I was teaching negotiations, I would say somebody does that to you, comes up with a number that's absurd. I would say, lose your temper. Make a scene. Say, I will not start the conversation from that number. It's an absurd number. I don't want to. Let…”
Jul 22, 2025
Kahneman: Delay intuitive judgment until evaluating options across separate independent dimensions
“That when you are making decisions, you should think of options as if they were candidates. So you should break, break it up into dimensions, evaluate each dimension separately, then look at the profile, and the key is, delay your intuition. Don't try to form …”
Jul 22, 2025 positive
Kahneman: Drive behavior change by reducing friction rather than increasing motivation
“Kurt Lewin's insight was that this is not what you should do. You should actually work on the restraining forces and try to make them weaker, and that's a beautiful point, and he showed, he had that image that, you know, I've had since I was an undergraduate, …”
Jul 22, 2025 positive
Kahneman: Organizational judgment is fixable through procedures; individual judgment resists change
“I'm much more hopeful about organizations, because organizations think more slowly, and they have procedures for thinking, and so you can control the procedures. Individual judgment is really hard to fix. Not impossible.”
Jul 22, 2025
Kahneman: People mistakenly attribute situational behavior to internal personality traits
“Behaviors don't necessarily reflect the personality, but behaviors have a lot to do with the situation. And so if people behave in strange ways, look at the situation they're in, and what are the pressures in the situation that make them act as well. So there …”
Jul 22, 2025
Kahneman: Judgment is informal measurement using the mind, creating inherent variability
“We speak of judgment as measurement, but it's measurement where the measuring instrument is your mind, but you do it informally. And because you do it informally, people are going to, are not necessarily going to agree, so wherever we say it's a matter for jud…”
Jul 22, 2025 negative
Kahneman: Unconscious priming studies from 'Thinking, Fast and Slow' failed empirical replication
“Priming, and unconscious priming, and so, just hasn't held up in replication, and I believed it, and I wrote it as if it were true, because, you know, the evidence suggested it, and in fact, I thought that you had to accept it, because that was published evide…”
Jul 22, 2025 positive
Kahneman: Effective decision journals must record arguments and alternatives considered
“You would want to say what were the main arguments, pro and con? What were the alternatives that were considered? No, it doesn't have to be very detailed, but it should be enough so that you can come later and debrief yourself.”
Jul 22, 2025 negative
Kahneman: Organizations systemically reject decision-tracking tools that risk embarrassing their leaders
“Certainly anything that threatens the leader is not going to be adopted, and leaders may not want something that threatened their subordinates either. People are really very worried about embarrassment.”
Jul 22, 2025
Jul 22, 2025
Kahneman: Leaders Must Protect Dissenters and Make Dissent Painless
“In, in general, you know, if you are the head of a group that makes decisions, one of your missions would be to protect the dissenters, because they're very valuable, and You should make it painless to be sent, or as painless as possible, because it's hard to …”
Jul 22, 2025
Kahneman: Independent clear thinking is nearly impossible due to social belief adoption
“I would say that independent, clear thinking is, to a first approximation, impossible. I mean, in the sense that, you know, we believe in things most of the time, not because we have good reasons to believe them. If you ask me for reasons, I'll explain you. I'…”
Jul 22, 2025
Jul 22, 2025
Kahneman: Insurance underwriters varied by 50% on identical cases, despite 10% expectations
“So, we asked the executives the following question. Suppose you take two underwriters at random. By what percentage do they differ? I mean, you look at the difference between the premium, divide that by the average premium. What number do you get? And people e…”
Jul 22, 2025 negative
Kahneman: Anyone highly optimistic about behavior change is deluded
“I think changing behavior is extremely difficult. There are a few tips and, you know, a few guidelines about how to do that, but anybody who is very optimistic about changing behavior is just deluded. It's hard to change other people's behavior. It's very hard…”
Jul 22, 2025
Kahneman: Policy reforms fail because potential losers fight harder than potential winners
“And it turns out that you can really expect losers, potential losers, to fight a lot harder than potential winners. And that's the reason that we form so frequently fair, and that when they succeed, they're almost always way more expensive than anticipated, an…”
Nov 18, 2025 positive
Parrish: Delaying Intuition Across Separate Dimensions Produces Better Decisions
“When I talked to Daniel Kahneman about this, he said, you delay intuition by focusing on the separate problems. Take the separate dimensions and really think about each dimension separately and independently. Don't allow people to give the final judgment. Say,…”