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Meltdown
- Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About It
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
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Publisher's summary
Named a best book of 2018 by the Financial Times.
A groundbreaking take on how complexity causes failure in all kinds of modern systems - from social media to air travel - this practical and entertaining book reveals how we can prevent meltdowns in business and life.
"Endlessly fascinating, brimming with insight, and more fun than a book about failure has any right to be, Meltdown will transform how you think about the systems that govern our lives. This is a wonderful book." (Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better)
A crash on the Washington, DC, metro system. An accidental overdose in a state-of-the-art hospital. An overcooked holiday meal. At first glance, these disasters seem to have little in common. But surprising new research shows that all these events - and the myriad failures that dominate headlines every day - share similar causes. By understanding what lies behind these failures, we can design better systems, make our teams more productive, and transform how we make decisions at work and at home.
Weaving together cutting-edge social science with riveting stories that take us from the front lines of the Volkswagen scandal to backstage at the Oscars, and from deep beneath the Gulf of Mexico to the top of Mount Everest, Chris Clearfield and András Tilcsik explain how the increasing complexity of our systems creates conditions ripe for failure and why our brains and teams can't keep up. They highlight the paradox of progress: Though modern systems have given us new capabilities, they've become vulnerable to surprising meltdowns - and even to corruption and misconduct.
But Meltdown isn't just about failure; it's about solutions - whether you're managing a team or the chaos of your family's morning routine. It reveals why ugly designs make us safer, how a five-minute exercise can prevent billion-dollar catastrophes, why teams with fewer experts are better at managing risk, and why diversity is one of our best safeguards against failure. The result is an eye-opening, empowering, and entirely original book - one that will change the way you see our complex world and your own place in it.
Critic reviews
“Meltdown effectively conveys why addressing systemic failures is both difficult and essential.... Where Meltdown really hits its stride is in taking on the factors that promote groupthink and discourage dissent.” (The Wall Street Journal)
“Analysis of why things go wrong is always more exciting to read than praise for everything working out.... A compellingly written investigation of interesting case studies in calamity.” (Financial Times, Business Books of the Month)
“Thought-provoking.... Clearfield and Tilcsik colorfully explain why your job, like everyone else’s in today’s global economy, is becoming part of bigger networks of co-dependent systems, laden with unforeseeable risks and unimaginable outcomes.... The readers also offer some calming practical advice you can pack as a parachute. Read their pages and maybe, just maybe, you can avoid - or at least minimize - your own forthcoming descent into chaos.” (Forbes)
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Anyone in a leadership position should read this
- By Kimberly on 03-04-18
By: Daniel Coyle
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The Department of Mad Scientists
- Inside DARPA, the Path-Breaking Government Agency You've Never Heard Of
- By: Michael Belfiore
- Narrated by: Michael Belfiore
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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The first-ever inside look at DARPA - the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - the maverick and controversial group whose futuristic work has had amazing civilian and military applications, from the Internet to GPS to driverless cars
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meh
- By Patrick on 12-22-09
By: Michael Belfiore
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The Plateau Effect
- Getting From Stuck to Success
- By: Bob Sullivan, Hugh Thompson
- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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The Plateau Effect is a powerful law of nature that affects everyone. Learn to identify plateaus and break through any stagnancy in your life - from diet and exercise, to work, to relationships. The Plateau Effect shows how athletes, scientists, therapists, companies, and musicians around the world are learning to break through their plateau - to turn off the forces that cause people to “get used to” things - and turn on human potential and happiness in ways that seemed impossible.
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Heath
- By Oliver Nielsen on 07-22-13
By: Bob Sullivan, and others
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Where Wizards Stay Up Late
- The Origins of the Internet
- By: Katie Hafner, Matthew Lyon
- Narrated by: Mark Douglas Nelson
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Twenty-five years ago, it didn't exist. Today, 20 million people worldwide are surfing the Net. Where Wizards Stay Up Late is the exciting story of the pioneers responsible for creating the most talked about, most influential, and most far-reaching communications breakthrough since the invention of the telephone. In the 1960s, when computers where regarded as mere giant calculators, J.C.R. Licklider at MIT saw them as the ultimate communications devices.
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Absolutely fascinating and we'll researched
- By Elsa Braun on 10-01-16
By: Katie Hafner, and others
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No Better Time
- The Brief, Remarkable Life of Danny Lewin, the Genius Who Transformed the Internet
- By: Molly Knight Raskin
- Narrated by: Christine Marshall
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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No Better Time tells of a young, driven mathematical genius who wrote a set of algorithms that would create a faster, better Internet. It's the story of a beautiful friendship between a loud, irreverent student and his soft-spoken MIT professor, of a husband and father who spent years struggling to make ends meet only to become a billionaire almost overnight with the success of Akamai Technologies, the Internet content delivery network he cofounded with his mentor.
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An Overlooked Hero of 9-11
- By Jean on 05-27-16
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Automate This
- How Algorithms Came to Rule Our World
- By: Christopher Steiner
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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It used to be that to diagnose an illness, interpret legal documents, analyze foreign policy, or write a newspaper article you needed a human being with specific skills - and maybe an advanced degree or two. These days, high-level tasks are increasingly being handled by algorithms that can do precise work not only with speed but also with nuance. These "bots" started with human programming and logic, but now their reach extends beyond what their creators ever expected.
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good start, book runs out of sustenace
- By RealTruth on 02-15-13
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The Up Side of Down
- Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success
- By: Megan McArdle
- Narrated by: Mia Barron
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Most new products fail. So do most small businesses. And most of us, if we are honest, have experienced a major setback in our personal or professional lives. So what determines who will bounce back and follow up with a home run? If you want to succeed in business and in life, Megan McArdle argues in this hugely thought-provoking book, you have to learn how to harness the power of failure. McArdle has been one of our most popular business bloggers for more than a decade, covering the rise and fall of some the world' s top companies and challenging us to think differently about how we live, learn, and work.
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Good Book
- By Ray on 05-21-14
By: Megan McArdle
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Group Genius
- The Creative Power of Collaboration
- By: Keith Sawyer
- Narrated by: Jonathan Marosz
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In this authoritative and fascinating new audiobook, Keith Sawyer, a psychologist at Washington University, tears down some of the most popular myths about creativity and erects new principles in their place. He reveals that creativity is always collaborative: even when you're alone. Sawyer's audiobook is filled with compelling stories about the inventions that changed our world.
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Worth reading
- By Glenn on 12-29-10
By: Keith Sawyer
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Applied Minds
- How Engineers Think
- By: Guru Madhavan
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 5 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Through narratives and case studies spanning the brilliant history of engineering, Madhavan shows how the concepts of prototyping, efficiency, reliability, standards, optimization, and feedback are put to use in fields as diverse as transportation, retail, health care, and entertainment. Equal parts personal, practical, and profound, Applied Minds charts a path to a future where we apply strategies borrowed from engineering to create useful and inspired solutions to our most pressing challenges.
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excellent edifying book; great narrator too.
- By Phillip on 01-16-22
By: Guru Madhavan
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Rocket Billionaires
- Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the New Space Race
- By: Tim Fernholz
- Narrated by: Erin Moon
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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For the larger-than-life personalities now staking their fortunes on the development of rocket ships, the new race to explore space could be a dead end, a lucrative opportunity - or the key to humanity's salvation. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos take center stage in this fast-paced narrative as they attempt to disrupt the space economy, feed their own egos, and maybe even save the world.
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Interesting book; hard to listen to
- By K. Thai on 04-12-18
By: Tim Fernholz
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The Spirit of Kaizen
- Creating Lasting Excellence One Small Step at a Time
- By: Bob Maurer, Leigh Ann Hirschman
- Narrated by: Bob Maurer
- Length: 4 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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UCLA psychologist and organizational consultant Dr. Robert Maurer provides a simple and proven effective technique for making major changes with minimal disruption. Applying the operational concept of kaizen - small, continual improvements - to common management challenges, managers can drive major improvements with a series of well-planned techniques for boosting quality, innovation, sales, and morale.
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A must for anyone that wants to achieve.
- By Patrick on 01-08-14
By: Bob Maurer, and others
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The Art of Innovation
- Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America's Leading Design Firm
- By: Tom Kelley, Jonathan Littman - contributor, Tom Peters - foreword
- Narrated by: Nick Podehl
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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IDEO, the widely admired, award-winning design and development firm that brought the world the Apple mouse, Polaroid's I-Zone instant camera, the Palm V, and hundreds of other cutting-edge products and services, reveals its secrets for fostering a culture and process of continuous innovation.
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This is an old book!
- By EPR review on 01-05-17
By: Tom Kelley, and others
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Willful Blindness
- Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril
- By: Margaret Heffernan
- Narrated by: Margaret Heffernan
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Margaret Heffernan argues that the biggest threats and dangers we face are the ones we don't see - not because they're secret or invisible, but because we're willfully blind. A distinguished businesswoman and writer, she examines the phenomenon and traces its imprint in our private and working lives, and within governments and organizations, and asks: What makes us prefer ignorance? What are we so afraid of? Why do some people see more than others? And how can we change?
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How Not to Be the Blind Leading the Blind
- By Cynthia on 06-29-13
What listeners say about Meltdown
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- s. z.
- 04-07-18
Translates complex concepts into useful information.
An important book. Ours is it time when system failure can lead to a disaster capable of destroying the planet. We need to understand how things can go so badly wrong in order to have a better chance of avoiding calamities. That said, many of the examples are of the absolutely every day variety, including how do avoid a Thanksgiving feast going off the rails. A great read and an excellent narrator.
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- T. Rose
- 04-03-18
Very useful!
Awesome book. Very engaging anecdotes combined with real academic research. Presents an important problem and concrete solutions.
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- rjnieto
- 11-12-18
good outlook for systems
I loved reading the different scenarios and how the author used them to make their points. #SelfDiscovery #Clever #FeelGood #Inspiring #tagsgiving #sweepstakes
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- Anonymous User
- 05-25-18
Life isn't all burritos and strippers
A good read for those people who are interested in making better decisions, systems or futures.
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- J. Downing
- 06-05-22
Slow start, but the second act redeems, excellent!
The first half honestly felt a little slow but it set the stage for an excellent second act. This was exactly what I wanted, and will be worth a second listen sometime soon.
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- Doug R
- 07-22-20
Enlightening read
An excellent update to normal accidents. Did an effective job of using modern systems and showing how easily they can fail. Wish my ceo would read it
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- John Koch
- 07-16-18
very good book on avoiding system failure and
very good book on avoiding system failure and being proactive if you have coupled systems.
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- Chris
- 08-04-18
Great read!
This book provides core reasons surrounding both common and catastrophic system failures, some of the concepts being ones we seem to forget but make sense. I would recommend this book to everyone.
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2 people found this helpful
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- MLAJA
- 05-09-18
You work within complex systems: Read this book
Overcoming system failure in an increasingly complex world is a daunting topic. Don't hesitate to read this book that lays out how every one of us can contribute to building simple and successful systems to stay ahead of complex system meltdown. Favorite topics within this book include Pre-mortems and how Charles Parrow's Technology Classification Matix can help us.
Don't skip the epilogue. There is an excellent reference to how Yeats' The Second Comming is used inaccurately to describe why world news seems to be getting progressively worse.
One of the most useful and strangely comforting books I have read in the past few years.
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- JASB MN USA
- 11-10-22
thought provoking
good description of the framework through which we can analyze a system's tightness and complexity as well as a solid explanation of and examples for solutions.
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