Loved this book!

The authors take us on an easy-to-understand grand tour of the science of computer algorithms — stopping, sorting, caching, predicting, game theory, and much more — and then do a marvelous job of explaining The application of these algorithms to the most mundane problems of everyday human experience — parking, dating, remembering, playing poker, etc. A tour de force! I enjoyed it greatly, and recommended it to several friends.

40 people found this helpful

How do you prioritize when everything is top priority? I have an answer now.

Have you ever had the inevitable interview question about how you prioritize so many different things when everything needs to be done right now? I am a “non traditional” med student with a background in business and real estate. I’ve been on my fair share of interviews and am currently rotating through clinical interviews. I have heard at least some version of this exact question in every interview I’ve had in both medicine and the business world. My most recent interviewer said they had never heard someone put so much thought into an answer after I decided to answer given the theorems described in the chapter on prioritizing. 😂 I have gained a much better understanding of many different theorems used from computer algorithms to economics and how they can be used to optimize my own decisions. It was an enlightening read.

115 people found this helpful

diamonds among the brickwork

I persevered to the end and I'm glad that I did. This is definitely a book for people who understand computers and math, which is not my strong suit. However, what i could understand was very interesting and gave me many points to think about regarding human interactions.

66 people found this helpful

tone-deaf

Listener, I wanted to like this book, or at least find it useful. Within two chapters, I resigned. First a word on misogyny. It’s one thing to place a classic mathematical riddle within context, but another to perpetuate the sexist cliches. In the discussion of the secretary puzzle, there is no reason in this century to solely and exclusively refer to the secretaries as female. Enough. Next, let us discuss banalities, or rather, using a puzzle, especially designed to narrow and simplify a complex issue with the aim to bully another profession. Of course we are discussing the parking puzzle. At the onset, I hoped for some insight, some new way of considering an ongoing challenge to public and private sector planners. Land planning is complex and hyper-local. Instead of an acknowledgement in that direction, or some acumen towards developing new solutions, the authors took a sanctimonious jab at municipal planners, quipping that those professionals need to remember that it’s more complicated than the narrow parameters of the puzzle. No Kidding. Finally, a note on when not to introduce humor. I hope that we can agree that even if we think that oligarchy is not our favorite governmental style or business practice, that a person is still a human. The story of the oligarch may be an irresistible cautionary tale for quitting-while-ahead, but joking that the apparent suicide victim may have instead been murdered is a pretty distasteful way to initiate sense of humor. I chose not to complete this book.

29 people found this helpful

HEARTLESS

I have 10 hours left of this book left to listen too, and so far, this book comes across completely heartless and off-putting. It is everything that is WRONG with corporate America and today's business world. I knew, just by the title that it was going to be a book about making decisions based on math and logic, but the author COMPLETELY takes all the "human" out of the decision making process, at least so far in the beginning of the book. I'm sorry, but if you go with the author's summation of a 37% decision making threshold in the decision making process of whom you employ just about anyone will usually make the right decision. Hell, even if you intuitively choose the person and didn't know about this percentage at the start the hiring manager will do just a well in their decision making process... I can pretty much guarantee it. It is simply insane that this book has so many high reviews... and the narration is borrowing as hell! The dude sounds like he is sleeping at the wheel. Dry and boring, monotone, much like a bad computer voice... ugh. How are these reviews so high?????? AND, it's not complicated at all. It's simple math. It's simple deductive logic based reasoning! And I went to Art School. This book is frustrating.

23 people found this helpful

Not Just Computer Science

This fascinating and entertaining book discusses several famous decision problems that I would not necessarily call computer science problems: “The Secretary Problem” (optimal stopping), “The Multi-Armed Bandit Problem”, “Bayes’s Lottery/Laplace’s Sunrise Problem”, "The Prisoner's Dilemma". and “The Traveling Salesman Problem". It also discusses merge-sort, caching, and the Least-Recently-Used (LRU) principle, which do seem more like computer science. This may sound dry, but it isn't! The authors sprinkle in anecdotes, short biographical sketches, and quotations that keep things fresh and interesting. I also own the Kindle edition, which has some useful figures, tables, and notes, but this works fine as an audiobook. Any equations are relegated to the notes. One of the authors, Brian Christian, reads it well.

83 people found this helpful

Beware non-techies

I have a hard time grasping computer science, statistics and the like. So, I did not follow the narrator's explanations very well. But I did like hearing the results of his stories. I listened to the whole book even though I probably only understood 20% of it. The narrator had a nice voice and that made it easy for me to keep listening.

152 people found this helpful

I will Re-Read this one!

What made the experience of listening to Algorithms to Live By the most enjoyable?

I Don't normally write reviews on books and movies - but this one I started promoting to fellow workers before I was 1/2 way through it. It was a really interesting way to look at everyday life tasks and the methods used for best results based in mathematical and computer Algorithm theorems (but explaining in everyday non-mathematical ways). I will have to read again myself.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I think taking the book in small portions (a chapter at a time - listening to it a couple times even if you miss following a portion). Allow the material to soak in and measure it against your everyday activities to best decide which of the Algorithms to best apply to your (or I found in some cases explained what I was already doing).

Any additional comments?

On a Side note if you are like me and deal with computers / numbers / and other such detail oriented thinking you probably are aware of some or many of the algorithms mentioned, but it was interesting to see them applied to everyday activities.

122 people found this helpful

Great listen, just don't expect tips!

Spoiler: the conclusion of many chapters is that your intuition is better than any current algorithm. Therefore, I wouldn't buy this book for tips. If you're smart, your intuition is already better, and if you're stupid, you're not going to understand the concepts anyway. However, I enjoyed the book as a fascinating exploration into how the mind works optimally, and liked putting words to the things I’m already just doing.

129 people found this helpful

Accessible and engaging

I have an engineering background, but little formal computer science training. The text felt approachable for a general audience and the authors weave in some good stories. I was familiar with the topics on probability, randomness and optimization, yet found valuable new insights. Recommended to anyone with an interest in computing, algorithms and decision making.

99 people found this helpful