Founder connections
- Dee HockRead; described in his own published accountHock describes reading through Complexity in One from Many. His 1994 speech also names the book and connects it with visits to the Santa Fe Institute. The exact edition he read is not established; the registry uses the checked 1993 paperback.Source
Summary
M. Mitchell Waldrop follows scientists who sought to understand how interacting parts produce complex systems. Much of the story centers on the Santa Fe Institute and the people who brought ideas from economics, biology, physics and computing into conversation. Markets, evolution, cooperation and sudden changes provide problems for this emerging field. Rather than offering a management formula, the book shows researchers arguing over models and learning where familiar explanations fall short. Its opening chapter follows economist Brian Arthur as he works against established assumptions in his discipline. The account gives readers a history of scientific ideas as well as an introduction to adaptation, patterns and unexpected collective behavior.
Why read it Our view
Use the accounts of markets, cooperation and interacting systems to question simple cause-and-effect plans. For a network business, identify which local actions could change the behavior of the whole system. The science is a prompt for analysis, not a ready-made company rule.