Rory Sutherland

Sometimes the opposite of a good idea is, as Niels Bohr said, another good idea. But the converse is also true. The opposite of a bad idea can easily be an even worse idea. Something like this seems to have happened with the expansion of British higher education. When I left university in 1988, if

I loved the Ford Mustang Mach-E which I had on loan for four days. It was gorgeous to drive, and slightly saner than the Tesla Model 3 — in that some of the controls involve physical switches and buttons, rather than an on-screen interface. The only annoyance was a persistent whining noise. This came from

Where do you want to go? China or India? I have always found India infinitely more fascinating — for a simple reason. If you ask Sinophiles about China, they always quote statistics; Indophiles tell you stories. It’s fine to know that China has built 24,000 miles of high-speed rail track, or that its GDP is

As a wise colleague once said: ‘Yesterday is a great time to buy a computer, because you have already enjoyed it for a day. Alternatively, buy a computer tomorrow. The computer you buy tomorrow will be both faster and cheaper than the computers available now. On no account, however, should you ever buy a computer

Among the horrors, some aspects of lockdown were bizarrely less gruelling than expected; indeed for some people, the experience was mildly positive. It’s time to ask ourselves why. One possible explanation is ‘jomo’ — the joy of missing out. Much ostensibly voluntary human activity is not really voluntary at all. Like dressing for dinner in

Back in late 2019 I met someone from Zoom who was visiting London. The company, then as now, offered free video-conferencing calls for up to 40 minutes, but charged a fee of around £10 a month to users who wanted longer calls. Towards the end of the conversation, I flippantly asked what I thought was

Dear Sir, I beg to introduce myself to you as a clerk in the Accounts Department of the Port Trust Office at Madras on a salary of only £20 per annum. I am now about 23 years of age. I have had no university education but I have undergone the ordinary school course… I have

I haven’t yet read the report published by the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities. But, looking at the recommendations, I think there is one missing detail. We also need some loose agreement on terminology attuned to the conditions of British English as distinct from American English. Let me explain. I would not dare to

I am writing with a mild pain in one arm, having received my first dose of the Oxford vaccine yesterday evening. Alongside the scientists, I must also applaud whoever had the wit to call this the ‘Oxford vaccine’, rather than simply naming it after a pharmaceutical company. I’ve never been asked to advise on the

I was once asked by a previous editor of the Times how to increase sales of the paper. I was slightly more circumspect, but the thrust of my argument was: ‘Don’t bother with all that news and opinion malarkey — just teach more people how to solve cryptic crosswords.’ My argument was simple. There are

The phrase ‘rich people’s problems’ has its uses. I once overheard a group in a Knightsbridge restaurant sympathising with a companion in tones fit for a bereavement or life-changing injury. ‘Oh, poor you!’ It turned out that their nanny had been ill for two days while they were in Zermatt, and that Farrow & Ball

A few Spectator readers may soon find themselves confined to quarantine hotels, so the magazine thought it timely to find someone familiar with hotel life to share their advice. Since Dominique Strauss-Kahn was somehow unavailable, they settled on me. Now the first question to ask is: how fancy a hotel should you choose? This is

In March last year, the world made an interesting discovery. We found that a high proportion of knowledge-work could be performed remotely. Significantly, this came as a surprise to everyone. It should be a source of mild shame that, for all their talk of innovation, very few companies or institutions had experimented with this possibility

Soon after the pandemic hit, the world’s airlines turned off their pricing algorithms and resumed pricing flights manually. Everything the software had learned from people’s past behaviour was suddenly rendered irrelevant. The software had been created for a world of discretionary travel where demand was elastic. If a plane seemed likely to leave half-empty, the

One of the staples of crime drama is the ‘cold-case squad’. This allows programme-makers to add period detail to the scenes set in the past, while the present-day scenes can show implausibly attractive forensic scientists hunting for clues in a creepy location such as a long-abandoned children’s home (an activity obviously best performed during the

Having grown up in a family business, my earliest exposure to corporate life was often baffling. I remember the first time I presented some work in a client’s office 30 years ago. He suggested some small edits, and asked that they be enacted before he presented the work to his superior, who was called Dave.