Seth Stephens-Davidowitz

“Seth Stephens-Davidowitz is a smart, witty writer with an extraordinary ability to make charts and statistics engrossing.”— Katy Milkman, Bestselling author of How to Change

Why are big decisions so hard to make? Seth Stephens-Davidowitz says it’s because we trust our gut, which draws on our own limited experience and often leads us astray. But there’s a better way to make decisions. Drawing on sets of thousands or even millions of data points, Seth reveals the science-based answers to some of life’s biggest questions, including who you should marry, where you should live, and what job you should work. A former data scientist at Google and the New York Times bestselling author of Everybody Lies, Don’t Trust Your Gut, and Who Makes the NBA?, Seth is the perfect guide to the unprecedented opportunities for insight and self-improvement that data offers us.

In his book Don’t Trust Your Gut: Using Data to Get What You Really Want in Life, Seth reveals just how wrong we really are when it comes to improving our own lives. With fascinating stories and the latest big data research, he redefines how to tackle our most consequential choices, and leads us to make smarter decisions about how to improve our lives with “an intoxicating blend of analysis, humor, and humanity” (Daniel H. Pink). #1 New York Times bestselling author Adam Grant says, “Seth Stephens-Davidowitz is an expert on data-driven thinking, and this engaging book is full of surprising, useful insights for using the information at your fingertips to make better decisions.”

His debut book Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are argues that much of what we thought from traditional, offline data sources has been dead wrong—and that data from our Google search can reveal who we truly are and what we really want. A breakout success, Everybody Lies was named an Economist Best Book of the Year, a PBS NewsHour Book of the Year, an Entrepreneur Top Business Book, and an Amazon Best Book of the Year in Business and Leadership. It’s also a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller. The Economist describes it as “a whirlwind tour of the modern human psyche using search data as its guide,” while renowned psychologist Steven Pinker, who wrote the book’s foreword, argues that Seth’s work points to “a new path for social science in the 21st century.”

Seth is a contributing op-ed writer for The New York Times and a former visiting lecturer at The Wharton School, where he developed a course about his research. A direct, succinct, and frequently humorous writer and innovation speaker, Seth has presented his original research scientific manuscripts, public journals, and engaging lectures all over the world. He holds a PhD in economics from Harvard and a BA in Philosophy from Stanford, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa.