At the final Knicks game of the regular season, renowned legal scholar Cass Sunstein found himself in a bloody nose seat at Madison Square Garden, staring at the celebrities sitting courtside. Seth Meyers beamed at the Jumbotron and his son stuck his big foam finger in. In the front row, Patrick Wilson leans forward, his eyes slanted, his black T-shirt tight-fitting. Tracy Morgan was there, as was Edie Falco. Nearby, a woman in an orange peacoat and a silver aviator raised a jazz hand to the camera. “That's my friend, Connie Britton!” Sunstein said, looking around sheepishly.
Sunstein, who teaches law, public policy and behavioral economics at Harvard University, was planning to ride the train after the game and was dressed casually by Acela in a blue suit and rock sports. He sat with his suitcase awkwardly on his lap and his wheels up. He looked down at Britton and said, “I'm a little embarrassed to say I'm her friend.''
His new book, How to Become Famous, examines the forces that create extraordinary success, including reputation cascades, network effects, and power law distributions. Luck is essential. Early champions can help. Postmortem attention can have amazing effects. “You need a minimum level of talent,” he acknowledged, but said talent alone is not enough. “There are so many amazing people out there who have the ability to be spectacularly successful and famous. And they just never had the chance.” It reads like an intervention, and it also reads like a repudiation of the self-actualization manual that reveals some of the qualities of this company, Connie, Seth, Tracy, and their family, which is sure to be found in airport bookstores. Edie's, and Patrick's around the world, to prescribe a recipe for success.
Sunstein rolled his eyes. “The idea that there are several people who could have been as successful as Seth Meyers and Seth Meyers is the best, my guess is that Seth Meyers would be the first to say no,” he said. .
In the classification of the Knicks' VIP section, which cultivates a generous sense of celebrity (regulars include Jerry Seinfeld, Ben Stiller, Spike Lee, Chris Rock and Chloë Sevigny), people like Sunstein sit in the middle. He is an intellectual who is like a talisman to protect himself from risks. -Bringed in as a plus one by funders and media executives. He is a brand thinker. He taught at the University of Chicago for 27 years and became known for his extensive published work. He co-authored “Nudge,” the first of his several big-idea bestsellers, and shared a faculty lounge with Barack Obama. After marrying his second wife, Samantha Power, he began working at the White House.
“I've always wanted to do something useful, but not of low quality,” he said, spinning the wheels of his suitcase. In 2009, he withstood a brutal Senate confirmation process to win the honor as head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. (Power later became ambassador to the United Nations.) After he moved to Washington, D.C., another academic came calling with some wisdom. Sunstein recalled, “During my student life, someone came into my room and asked me to explain an economic problem, a difficult problem, and I did it.” And they said, “Thank you,” and left my office. In government, someone asks me to explain a difficult economic problem, and I explain it, and they look at me and say, “You're an asshole.” But Sunstein was excited about bureaucracy and endured its frustrations. “If I was involved in something that no one blamed on me, that would have been great,” he said.
As a version of Frank Sinatra's “New York, New York” played, Sunstein reflected on being a Swiftie. “Taylor Swift's success is partly a cascade of information, where people listen to what they know other people are listening to. It's also a cascade of people who say they love Swift, because they kind of have to.”
He recalled his own plight as a fan. Once, he was invited to a party where his personal idol, John McEnroe, was a guest. “I said, 'It's really nice to meet you.' I play a little sport called squash.” Sunstein said his response was, “'We used to look down on squash players. 'It was.' How stupid! ''On another occasion, he found himself approaching Muhammad Ali in a Chicago hotel and telling him how, as a nine-year-old, he had watched Ali's 1964 championship match in his sleep. “This has to be the most boring thing I've ever heard from a fan,” Sunstein said.
The jumbotron featured more specimens from the VIP section. There was also actor Anya Taylor-Joy, who was spotted by an A-list agent as she walked her dog outside Harrods (lucky me). A favorite of Luis Guzman, directors Paul Thomas Anderson and Steven Soderbergh (early champions). Rapper Laura Brook has become a hot topic on TikTok. “I don't know any of them,” Sunstein said. He thought about how celebrities tolerate all the attention. “You have to be confused by what happens, or have the ability to find a hole,” he says. “I'm a big fan of Burrow.” ♦
