Current position: Chief Economist, Google

Bio: Recently referred to as “the patron saint of data science,“ Hal Varian started consulting with Google in 2002 and has been involved in auction design, econometric analysis, finance, corporate strategy and public policy. He is also an emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in three departments: business, economics, and information management. Varian co-authored (with Carl Shapiro) a bestselling book and a seminal work on business strategy in the Age of Big Data, Information Rules (1998). Varian got his Ph.D. in economics in 1973 from UC Berkeley.

Quotable quote: “I keep saying the sexy job in the next 10 years will be statisticians.”

Recent papers/presentations/posts/interviews:  Strata 2012; Predicting the Present with Google Trends; Hal Varian on how the Web challenges managers; Why data matters; Google’s chief economist examines the data scientist factor