Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Steven Levitt

Yesterday I went to a talk by Steven Levitt, co-author of Freakonomics and Super Freakonomics. I haven't read the books and I know his science is suspect but still he's an interesting speaker.

He told a few anecdotes about the some of the projects in the books but also some others. Early on he creating an algorithm for gambling at the racetrack and had some luck with it. He got money from some friends and family to fund a bigger stake (like a hedge fund) but didn't do very well. He said he found out "It's more fun to lose your own money and to lose other people's money" and "As long as you wrote a good investor's letter, people didn't mind so much."

He apparently wasn't a great student (even though he went to Harvard and MIT). He noted that some survey found that economists thought to be successful economists, only 2% thought you needed a good working knowledge of the economy but 70% thought you needed a good knowledge of mathematics. He wasn't good at math. The only time his father gave him an encouraging talk, the lesson was, "If you have no talent, pick an area of study that no one else is willing to study and you can be 'the best' at it." His father was an expert on intestinal gas.

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