Daniel Kahneman is a winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics. His 2011 book Thinking, Fast and Slow is a seminal work in behavioral economics. Olivier Sibony is Professor of Strategy at HEC Paris and the author of You’re About to Make a Terrible Mistake! He worked for 25 years at McKinsey and Company including roles as Senior Partner and a Global Strategy Practice Leader. Cass R. Sunstein, co-author with Richard Thaler of Nudge, is currently the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard. He is the founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School.

In their recent book Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgement, Kahneman, Sibony, and Sunstein demonstrate that noise has a substantially larger impact than generally recognized. The authors examine the implications of noise on judgement, the challenges of predictions and the psychology of judgment. Noise, relative to bias, is a separate and distinct source of error in decisions. Many judgements are made regarding values or events which may be unknowable. But noise regarding these judgements is both identifiable and measurable.

For those already familiar with the conclusions of Burton Malkiel in A Random Walk Down Wall Street and the promise of Superforecasting by Philip Tetlock, our discussion of Noise may change the way you view investment forecasts. No knowledge of the book is required to attend. It is recommended that participants randomly select 5 of the 28 chapters to read and discuss before the event.