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Authors: Warren Berger
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Acknowledgments
I’d first like to thank the editor of this book, Bloomsbury’s George Gibson. It seems to be increasingly rare these days (unfortunately) for book editors to really get involved in editing, beyond making a few general suggestions and flagging typos. George warned me at the outset that he is an “activist editor” and it’s true. He went through every line of the manuscript, tightening, clarifying, questioning—and the book is much better for it. Thanks also to my agent Jim Levine, who believed in the “question” idea and offered valuable input as I was shaping the book proposal. Jim also connected me with George, so I’m grateful for that, too.
This book started as a website, AMoreBeautifulQuestion.com, and on that site I asked for volunteers to help me work on the book. To my delight, many people responded and offered their help as members of my research team, including Harvey Richards, Philip Howell, Justin Hamilton, Larry Rubin, Katie Orthwein, Lana Rimboym, Chuck Appleby, Dinesh Balasubramaniam, and Sid Ramnarace. I want to especially thank a handful of people from that group who really went the extra mile in terms of tracking down stories and sharing ideas: Nikhil Goyal, Dave Baldwin, Daisy Azer, Theresa Garcia, Bill Welter, Damon Taylor, and Dan McDougall.
With regard to tracking down “question stories,” I got special help from the outstanding researcher Susan O’Brien.
I want to thank all the people who granted interviews. I’ve been a magazine/newspaper journalist and I’ve been a book author and there is an important difference that manifests itself during the research process: When you’re calling from the New York Times or Wired magazine, people tend to respond because they want the publicity. But when you call and say, “I’m writing a book”—well, then you are dependent on the kindness of strangers. There’s not much in it for the interviewee; they have no idea if the book will ever get written or if anyone will read it once it comes out. So I think they do the interview primarily because they have a genuine interest in the idea you’re pursuing, and they want to be of help.
With that in mind, I’m grateful to all who took the time to talk about questioning, including: Dr. Ken Heilman, Gretchen Rubin, Irene Au, John Bielenberg, Sebastian Thrun, Jack Andraka, Jonathan Fields, Chen Bo Zhong, Doug Rauch, Tiffany Shlain, David Cooperrider, John Seely Brown, Roko Belic, Chris Young, A. J. Jacobs, Stephen Tobolowsky, Water.org’s Gary White, and the Acumen Fund’s Jacqueline Novogratz.
Also Robert Burton, Srikanth Srinivas, Dominic Randolph, Josh Aronson, Stewart Mostofsky, Eric Maisel, Mick Ebeling, Michael Corning, Jon Bond, Steve Bercu, Edward Witten, Colum McCann, and Kelly Carlin.
At the MIT Media Lab, thank you to Tod Machover and Joichi Ito, as well as to the former director Frank Moss. From Harvard University, my thanks go to Tony Wagner, Paul Harris, Paul Bottino, and Clayton Christensen. Representing Yale, the brilliant writer William Deresiewicz was an immense help. Stanford University’s Bob Sutton provided inspiration with his ideas about vuja de.
There were a number of companies that helped greatly, starting with IDEO: thank you Tim Brown, Paul Bennett, and Fred Dust. I am also indebted to David Sherwin at Frog Design, and to the former Frog creative director Luke Williams. Also W. L. Gore’s Debra France, Airbnb’s Joe Gebbia, Steelcase’s Jim Hackett, Patagonia’s Casey Sheahan, Panera’s Ron Shaich, and IBM’s Eric Brown.
Special thanks to the outstanding business consultants and “master questioners” Keith Yamashita, Eric Ries, Dev Patnaik, Tim Ogilvie, Jack Bergstrand, and the Peter Drucker Institute.
I’m grateful to the following people for the significant time spent talking to me for this book: the inspirational Min Basadur, the remarkable Van Phillips, Charles Warren, David Kord Murray, Randy Komisar, Gauri Nanda, Deborah Meier, and
I’d first like to thank the editor of this book, Bloomsbury’s George Gibson. It seems to be increasingly rare these days (unfortunately) for book editors to really get involved in editing, beyond making a few general suggestions and flagging typos. George warned me at the outset that he is an “activist editor” and it’s true. He went through every line of the manuscript, tightening, clarifying, questioning—and the book is much better for it. Thanks also to my agent Jim Levine, who believed in the “question” idea and offered valuable input as I was shaping the book proposal. Jim also connected me with George, so I’m grateful for that, too.
This book started as a website, AMoreBeautifulQuestion.com, and on that site I asked for volunteers to help me work on the book. To my delight, many people responded and offered their help as members of my research team, including Harvey Richards, Philip Howell, Justin Hamilton, Larry Rubin, Katie Orthwein, Lana Rimboym, Chuck Appleby, Dinesh Balasubramaniam, and Sid Ramnarace. I want to especially thank a handful of people from that group who really went the extra mile in terms of tracking down stories and sharing ideas: Nikhil Goyal, Dave Baldwin, Daisy Azer, Theresa Garcia, Bill Welter, Damon Taylor, and Dan McDougall.
With regard to tracking down “question stories,” I got special help from the outstanding researcher Susan O’Brien.
I want to thank all the people who granted interviews. I’ve been a magazine/newspaper journalist and I’ve been a book author and there is an important difference that manifests itself during the research process: When you’re calling from the New York Times or Wired magazine, people tend to respond because they want the publicity. But when you call and say, “I’m writing a book”—well, then you are dependent on the kindness of strangers. There’s not much in it for the interviewee; they have no idea if the book will ever get written or if anyone will read it once it comes out. So I think they do the interview primarily because they have a genuine interest in the idea you’re pursuing, and they want to be of help.
With that in mind, I’m grateful to all who took the time to talk about questioning, including: Dr. Ken Heilman, Gretchen Rubin, Irene Au, John Bielenberg, Sebastian Thrun, Jack Andraka, Jonathan Fields, Chen Bo Zhong, Doug Rauch, Tiffany Shlain, David Cooperrider, John Seely Brown, Roko Belic, Chris Young, A. J. Jacobs, Stephen Tobolowsky, Water.org’s Gary White, and the Acumen Fund’s Jacqueline Novogratz.
Also Robert Burton, Srikanth Srinivas, Dominic Randolph, Josh Aronson, Stewart Mostofsky, Eric Maisel, Mick Ebeling, Michael Corning, Jon Bond, Steve Bercu, Edward Witten, Colum McCann, and Kelly Carlin.
At the MIT Media Lab, thank you to Tod Machover and Joichi Ito, as well as to the former director Frank Moss. From Harvard University, my thanks go to Tony Wagner, Paul Harris, Paul Bottino, and Clayton Christensen. Representing Yale, the brilliant writer William Deresiewicz was an immense help. Stanford University’s Bob Sutton provided inspiration with his ideas about vuja de.
There were a number of companies that helped greatly, starting with IDEO: thank you Tim Brown, Paul Bennett, and Fred Dust. I am also indebted to David Sherwin at Frog Design, and to the former Frog creative director Luke Williams. Also W. L. Gore’s Debra France, Airbnb’s Joe Gebbia, Steelcase’s Jim Hackett, Patagonia’s Casey Sheahan, Panera’s Ron Shaich, and IBM’s Eric Brown.
Special thanks to the outstanding business consultants and “master questioners” Keith Yamashita, Eric Ries, Dev Patnaik, Tim Ogilvie, Jack Bergstrand, and the Peter Drucker Institute.
I’m grateful to the following people for the significant time spent talking to me for this book: the inspirational Min Basadur, the remarkable Van Phillips, Charles Warren, David Kord Murray, Randy Komisar, Gauri Nanda, Deborah Meier, and
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