Exploring good personal decisions in the Decision Age
Good Personal Decisions:
How We Make Them and Who Gets to Decide
A forthcoming book by Philip Kahn on how decision-making is shaped by the environments that make them possible—and who ultimately controls those environments.
About Philip KAHN
Research, entrepreneurship, and decision-making
Philip Kahn, AI research scientist and entrepreneur, spent decades studying decision-making in complex real-world systems.
His book Good Personal Decisions explores how our choices are shaped by the environments that make them possible—and who ultimately controls those environments.
PUBLICATION EXPECTED 2027
“The book’s description of a Decision Environment is really fantastic, and it’s probably the number one perspective that I took away from this book.”
Michael Thornton
Key themes
A practical lens on how decisions really happen
A clear framework for thinking about personal choices in a world where incentives, interfaces, and institutions increasingly shape what’s possible.
The environments behind choices
How defaults, constraints, and social systems influence what we see as “options.”
Who gets to decide?
How power and governance determine which choices are available—and for whom.
Better decisions, realistically
Tools for improving outcomes without pretending we decide in a vacuum.
The Decision Age
What changes when AI and digital systems mediate more of everyday life.