Oct 11, 2017
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz is a quantitative data
scientist and the author of Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data,
and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are. In
this discussion, Seth explains how philosophy and economics led him
to data science and his passion for uncovering human traits through
internet behavior. Seth says his work is what we can learn about
people from data searches and other online behavior, because
everyone leaves something on the internet. He concludes that
we should theorize less, and let the data speak more.
Key Takeaways
[3:26] Seth studied philosophy, economics, and data science. He
explains how they connect. His work at Google involved advertising
effectiveness and search behavior modeling. The book Everyone
Lies examines what we learn about people from their internet
behavior.
[4:41] Seth writes and studies as his curiosity leads him.
Success is one topic he explores. He downloaded Wikipedia to study
Baby Boomers. Geography matters, because he found famous people
were mostly from cities, college towns.
[9:58] Seth hopes people learn from his work the value and use
of big data, and to make better data-based decisions. He also hopes
more young people will enter this field of study, as there is much
more to learn about human behavior.
[12:03] Seth considers Christian Rudder, author of
Dataclysm, to be on the right path with big data.
Undergraduate students are more likely to favor analyzing Facebook
data over running an experiment with 20 subjects in a group.
[15:32] Seth contrasts his findings on success with the book
Grit. He cites statistics of height and likelihood of
becoming an NBA player. Malcolm Gladwell, in Tipping
Point, says once a threshold is met other factors matter. Seth
rebuts the threshold theory. A player over 7' tall has a
one-in-five chance of playing in the NBA. Every inch doubles the
chance. A 6'8" player has double the chance of a 6'7" player.
[19:00] The book Everybody Lies uncovers more racism
than people are willing to admit and other attitudes people express
in their Google questions that they would not ask another
person.
[19:21] One of the biggest revolutions in business is A/B
testing. Facebook does more experiments in a day than the FDA does
in a year. Seth points out that making general rules from A/B
testing is fallacious. Seth is considering writing a book on A/B
testing. He A/B tests his life. Try different things and pay
attention to what does work, and what doesn’t work.
[29:38] Facebook ‘Likes’ correlate to IQ. Higher IQ people like
Mozart and curly fries. Seth sees how employers can find more about
prospects through big data.
Twitter: @SethS_D
Website: http://sethsd.com
Quotable Quotes
“I actually think I’m a compulsively honest person, to a
fault.”
“It’s not really necessarily who you are; it’s where you’re
born, or when you’re born.”
“A lot of the book is also just about how conventional wisdom is
so frequently wrong.”
Industry, bloggers, and undergraduates are exploring big data
better than academics.
Facebook does more experiments in a day than the FDA does in a
year.
Google is a modern confessional.
Theorize less, and let the data speak more.
Bio
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz has used data from the
internet — particularly Google searches — to get new insights into
the human psyche. A book summarizing his research,
Everybody Lies, was published in May 2017 by
HarperCollins.
Seth has used Google searches to measure racism, self-induced
abortion, depression, child abuse, hateful mobs, the science of
humor, sexual preference, anxiety, son preference, and sexual
insecurity, among many other topics.
He worked for one-and-a-half years as a data scientist at Google
and is currently a contributing op-ed writer for the New York
Times. He is designing and teaching a course about his research at
The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he will
be a visiting lecturer.
Seth received his BA in philosophy, Phi Beta Kappa, from
Stanford, and his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard.
In high school, he wrote obituaries for the local newspaper, the
Bergen Record, and was a juggler in theatrical shows. He now lives
in Brooklyn and is a passionate fan of the Mets, Knicks, Jets,
Stanford football, and Leonard Cohen.
Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can
Tell Us About Who We Really Are, by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
Books mentioned in this episode
Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can
Tell Us About Who We Really Are, by Seth
Stephens-Davidowitz
Thinking Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman
Dataclysm: Love, Sex, Race, and Identity--What Our Online Lives
Tell Us about Our Offline Selves,
by Christian Rudder
Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, by Angela
Duckworth
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big
Difference, by Malcolm Gladwell
Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a
Time, by Jeffrey Pfeffer