Steel and Kindness: Clash of the Skyscrapers

Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford

Paul Starrett has just won a major building contract. If everything goes according to plan, this will be the tallest building in the world. But will everything go according to plan?

This prestigious new project will have Starrett's biggest workforce yet. Everyone will need to pull together, but labour relations in the United States have been rough. There have been tens of thousands of strikes in recent years, many ending in shootings and arbitrary mass arrests.

Something else is bothering Starrett too: enormous steel-framed buildings normally take three or four years to complete. The deadline on this one? Just thirteen months.

This is the second episode in a four-part series about how to succeed without being a jerk. It's based on David Bodanis' excellent book The Art of Fairness: The Power of Decency in a World Turned Mean.

For a full list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com.

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