‘The experience was magical. I had enjoyed collaborative work before, but this was something different,” says Daniel Kahneman of the beginnings of the years-long partnership with fellow psychologist Amos Tversky that culminated in a Nobel Prize in economic sciences three decades later.

What Kahneman didn’t dwell on in his account was how different the two men were. One was confident, optimistic, and a night owl; the other was a morning lark, reflective, and constantly looking for flaws. Yet their partnership flourished.

“Our principle was to discuss every disagreement until it had been resolved to mutual satisfaction,” recalls Kahneman, author of the best-selling book, Thinking, Fast and Slow (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013). “Amos and I shared the wonder of together owning a goose that could lay golden eggs—a joint mind that was better than our separate minds.”

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