Michael Webster

“When I started my first job at the Boston weekly newspaper, I thought I’d be a journalist for the rest of my life. Back in 2000, newspapers were still extremely lucrative; they were rolling in advertising revenue. The online world was such a minor consideration that our newsroom made do with only one internet-connected computer. I had signed on to the industry at the exact moment it started its inexorable collapse, but I couldn’t see it at the time. When it comes to identifying the precise tipping point of future trends, I doubt any of us can.”
― Dorie Clark, Entrepreneurial You: Monetize Your Expertise, Create Multiple Income Streams, and Thrive

“If the option of taking the course pass-fail (without a letter grade) is available to all students, it is usually observed that there are some who will elect pass-fail no matter how many others do, some who will elect letter grades no matter how many elect pass-fail, and an intermediate group who will elect pass-fail if enough do but will choose letter grades if pass-fail is uncommon. Notice that the first and second groups’ behavior is independent of how the third group chooses, but not vice versa; the people whose behavior is uninfluenced nevertheless influence others.”
― Thomas C. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior

“The tipping model is a special case—a broad class of special cases—of critical-mass phenomena. Its characteristics are usually that people have very different cross-over points; that the behavior involves place of residence or work or recreation or, in general, being someplace rather than doing something; that the critical numbers relate to two or more distinct groups, and each group may be separately tipping out or tipping”
― Thomas C. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior

“Because people vary and because averages matter, there may be no sustainable critical mass; and the unravelling behavior, or initial failure to get the activity going at all, has much the appearance of a critical mass that is almost but not quite achieved. This is therefore a kindred but separate family of models.”
― Thomas C. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior