David Sax Quotes & Sayings

Technology, as it becomes more sophisticated and mature, eventually gets displaced by newer or more effective technology," Raffaelli told me, describing the traditional path of creative destruction. "But there are these odd circumstances where there's an alternative path, where these dead technologies get repositioned for new life. — David Sax

Who among us is so certain of our identity? Who hasn't been asked, 'What's your background?' and hesitated, even for a split second, to answer their inquisitor. Howard Jacobson's 'The Finkler Question' forces us to ask that of ourselves, and that's why it's a must read, no matter what your background. — David Sax

Think of the sushi trend that started in the '80s. It was as much about the Nintendo entertainment system in your living room as it was about the availability of good-quality raw fish. The Japanese food trend rose as the world of Japanese business and culture was becoming a bigger part of American life. — David Sax

North Americans had two distinct ways of looking at food trends brought from other cultures: foreign and ethnic. Foreign was refined, upmarket, and expensive. Ethnic was exotic, downmarket, and cheap. French and Japanese were foreign. Chinese, Mexican, and Indian were ethnic. With ethnic, "people start to complain if a meal costs more than $10, — David Sax

All digital music listeners are equal. Acquisition is painless. Taste is irrelevant. It is pointless to boast about your iTunes collection, or the quality of your playlists on a streaming service. Music became data, one more set of 1's and 0's lurking in your hard drive, invisible to see and impossible to touch. Nothing is less cool than data. — David Sax

At the height of the first great dot-com boom, Craig Kanarick, then in his early 30s, was running Razorfish, a Web design firm he'd co-founded with an old friend, which at its peak had 2,300 employees in nine countries. — David Sax

In 2009, novelty toymaker Maxfield & Oberton released Buckyballs, sets of curiously powerful magnetic marbles that became the most popular cubicle toy since the Rubik's Cube, selling more than 2 million units in 15 countries. — David Sax

These kids all just want e-books." When she studied students in Canada and Israel, McNeish discovered something interesting that linked them all: students overwhelmingly prefer paper not out of any sense of nostalgia or a resistance to new technology, but because paper learning materials simply work better. "It's a lot of work to use these e-learning systems. And a lot easier to just learn from a textbook," McNeish said. "These kids are skilled with technology for entertainment, but they are not so skilled at technology for learning. — David Sax

You see, writing and talking breathlessly about how technology changes everything might seem harmless, but, in practice, it acts as a distraction from more mundane issues - and an excuse for handling those issues badly. — David Sax

Detroit is a great deli city. If only GM could learn from what the delis in Detroit are doing! The best rye bread anywhere - double-baked, crispy, warm rye that they serve their sandwiches with - and great corned beef. It's a passionate deli town. — David Sax

Gluten is just a term for things that are bad for you. Like calories or fat, that's all gluten." - Seth Rogen — David Sax

the elevated anxiety he's observed in this generation of campers is directly related to the constant hovering of their parents, who use digital technology to keep tabs on their children around the clock. They cannot surrender their authority. Many of the phones that Birenbaum has seized from campers over the past few summers were sent on the insistence of parents, who wanted to remain in touch. — David Sax

Though sporting a hideous mustache is in no way comparable to the physical pain and mental suffering men with these diseases endure, Movember still forces participants to challenge their manhood on a daily basis. Growing a moustache for men's cancer isn't as feel-good an activity as running a marathon for a cure. — David Sax

Waiter trainers claim that an investment in education pays off very quickly for restaurants. — David Sax

Food trends have been around as long as people have had the ability to choose between different things to eat, but the modern, interconnected media has made food trends a viral phenomenon. Once upon a time, it was just a few newspapers and a few select gourmet magazines that were writing about food. Today, it's every single publication. — David Sax

A Jewish deli should specialize in, first and foremost, Yiddish foods, the foods of the Eastern European Ashkenazi Jews. So, if it's a place that specializes in pizza or chicken wings or diner food and then does a corned beef sandwich on the side, it's not a Jewish delicatessen. — David Sax

Charity fundraisers are nothing new to me. In the past, I have taken part in ski races for hospitals, walks for breast cancer, and long distance bike rides for geriatric care. — David Sax

Gribenes have been referred to as Jewish popcorn or kosher pork rinds. It's basically chicken skin fried in schmaltz. They're crispy and mixed with fried onions. I'm telling you, when you have it with chopped liver, it's the most incredible thing because you get this crunch and this surge of chicken flavor. — David Sax

Choosing from every book ever published seems like a dream, until you're forced to sift through hundreds of thousands of titles on your Kindle, and all the reviews attached to them, hoping to find something good. — David Sax

Food trends don't just drive the obvious things, like cupcakes or cronuts, but something as elemental as your daily cup of coffee. The way you have that coffee now is probably very different from the way you had it ten years ago, and it'll probably be very different in ten years. That has a huge impact, culturally and economically. — David Sax

Food is entertainment now. People tune into 'Top Chef,' and they're not trying to replicate the recipes. Anthony Bourdain is entertainment. Instagramming your dishes is entertainment. — David Sax

Just as the digital dominance of the recording studio seemed complete, analog had its revenge. Musicians, producers, and engineers searching for the sound of the music that inspired them - roots Americana, blues, and classic rock - began thinking about how the process of recording affected the sound. These artists, including White, Dave Grohl, and Gillian Welch, began experimenting with old tape machines and vintage studio equipment, returning to the analog methods they'd once used. Critics and fans noted that these albums sounded different - more heartfelt, raw, and organic - and the industry began to take notice. — David Sax

In 2008, Milton Sheppard opened the Waiter Training School in the Bronx, N.Y., charging $175 for courses, but the business soon ran out of money. He now operates a clown college in the same space. — David Sax

My family's from Eastern Europe. — David Sax

The MIT professor Sherry Turkle, who has devoted her career to studying and writing about the impact of digital technology on our lives, once wrote that sociable technology always disappoints, because it promises what it cannot deliver. "It promises friendship but can only deliver performance, — David Sax

In the eleventh century obese English king William the Conqueror took to bed and consumed nothing but alcohol to shed pounds, a practice many of his countrymen seem to continue to this day. — David Sax

Nearly every industry in America, from carbon trading to bricklaying, hosts its own back-slapping awards night. — David Sax

Even the best educational computer programs and games, devised with the help of the best educators, contain a tiny fraction of the outcomes of a single child equipped with a crayon and paper. A child's limitless imagination can only do what the computer allows them to, and no more. The best toys, by contrast, are really 10 percent toy and 90 percent child: paint, cardboard, sand. The kid's brain does the heavy lifting, and in the process it learns. — David Sax

Restaurant industry sales in 2011 are estimated to have reached a record high of $604 billion, up 3.6 percent from 2010. Restaurant employment grew 1.9 percent in 2011, with some 230,000 jobs added, the strongest gain in five years. — David Sax

A 2015 research report in the United Kingdom found that the main consumers of vinyl records that year were 18- to 24-year-olds, and research group MusicWatch noted that more than half of vinyl buyers were under 25. Not ageing, retro hipsters. Not crusty old dudes. — David Sax

The early 1990s was a time of great advancements in precooked bacon technology. Pork producers, food labs, and agricultural schools such as Iowa State University began investing substantially in precooked R&D. — David Sax

students who use computers very frequently at school do a lot worse in most learning outcomes, — David Sax

I have been growing this moustache, a budding Burt Reynolds number, for a good cause known as Movember. — David Sax

What makes a good deli is a place that, one, is generally family-owned or owned by individuals that care. Delis that are owned by large corporations tend not to have that same soul. And two, delis that make as much of their food from scratch as possible. — David Sax

Bacon has been a staple of the American diet since the first European settlers, but until recently, it was consumed in a predictable, seasonal pattern. The bulk of sales came from home consumers, diners, and pancake houses, which fried it up along with eggs for breakfast. — David Sax

When I think back on the twenty years I spent in school, what sticks with me isn't any particular subject, learning tool, or classroom. It is the teachers who brought my education to life and drove my interest forward, so that my passion for learning continued, despite the long days, the hard chairs, the difficult problems. These women and men were giants. They were underpaid, and they put up with all sorts of crap, but they made me the person I am today vastly more than the facts they taught. That relationship is what digital education technology cannot ever replicate or replace, and why a great teacher will always provide a more innovative model for the future of education than the most sophisticated device, software, or platform. — David Sax

The Pork Marketing Board worked with advertising and marketing firms to position the pig as a sort of four-legged chicken - a healthy part of any low-fat lifestyle. The Other White Meat campaign launched in 1987 and was so successful at selling lean pork cuts, it actually hurt the rest of the pig. — David Sax

Anytime someone orders a pastrami sandwich on white bread, somewhere a Jew dies. — David Sax

The previous day she had been on a conference call with a younger Urban Outfitters marketing team member (the chain now sells more vinyl and turntables than anyone else in America), who asked Braun what the little lines on the records meant. "I had to tell her those are the songs," she said. — David Sax

Numerous studies have shown that handwriting notes is simply better for engagement, information retention, and mental health than is writing on digital devices. — David Sax

take an edible piece of nature and create a promise out of it, communicate that promise to the public, and then deliver on it with taste. — David Sax

Unlike in Europe, where serving is often a career rather than a backup plan, American table-waiting remains a bootstrap business, and some of the biggest skeptics of waiter training courses and schools are seasoned servers themselves. — David Sax