What you won’t learn from books about data and decision-making

A reading list that almost teaches you about decision intelligence

Cassie Kozyrkov
4 min readAug 15, 2023

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My community has been asking me for a reading list of my favorite books about decision-making, data science, and decision intelligence, so here are the fruits of my attempt to compile some recommendations for you.

Photo by the author.

I’d love to suggest one great book for everyone to start with, but unfortunately, the perfect book hasn’t been written yet. Here’s the next best thing…

Category: “hi, i’m a stack of textbooks”

Best feature: Highest nutritional density.
Missing piece: Designed to put you to sleep unless you’re super-motivated.
Examples: Introduction to Statistical Learning, ML Engineering Book, Handbook of Experimental Economics, Decision Analysis

Category: “humans are silly”

Best feature: Amusing reminders that we aren’t flawless decision-makers.
Missing piece: We get it. People are silly. But how do we improve?? (????!)
Examples: How We Know What Isn’t So, Thinking Fast and Slow, Predictably Irrational

Category: “human brains are…

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Cassie Kozyrkov
Cassie Kozyrkov

Written by Cassie Kozyrkov

Chief Decision Scientist, Google. ❤️ Stats, ML/AI, data, puns, art, theatre, decision science. All views are my own. twitter.com/quaesita