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Author Talk: 'Freakonomics' Franchise
Each idea presented by STEVEN LEVITT of Freakonomics illustrates a story or example, providing audiences with illuminating thoughts for profitable thinking. With a trademark blend of captivating storytelling and unconventional analysis, Levitt takes us inside his process and teach us all to think a bit more productively, more creatively, more rationally—to think, that is, like a Freak.
Information on book buys and signings available upon request.
How to Think Like a Freak
Tailored to your industry interest, preeminent economist STEVEN LEVITT aims to provide insights specific to the marketplace, elucidating his opinion on risks of the future and the best practices for today. By sharing the stories the data is telling, Levitt educates audiences on the latest cases and research relevant to their organization.
Freakonomics: Business & Management
In this engaging presentation, economist STEVEN LEVITT addresses the fact that the old rules of business just don’t apply anymore. It’s a new world, and that demands a new way of thinking. Levitt offers audiences a method for digging beneath the surface of modern business practices to address what good management looks like today.
Freakonomics: The Power of Incentive
Using humor and first-rate storytelling, STEVEN LEVITT discusses the sort of topics that are on every businessperson’s mind these days: the ways to create behavior change, the incentives that work and don’t work, and the value of asking unpopular questions.
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Steven Levitt hosts the People I (Mostly) Admire Podcast
People I (Mostly) Admire is hosted by STEVEN LEVITT, the iconoclastic University of Chicago economist and co-author of the Freakonomics book series, who tracks down other high achievers and asks questions that only he would think to ask.
As the winner of Adweek‘s Best Interview Podcast of the Year, People I (Mostly) Admire has welcomed hosts including all-time Jeopardy! champion (and now host) Ken Jennings, YouTube C.E.O. Susan Wojcicki, W.N.B.A. champion Sue Bird, Operation Warp Speed chief Moncef Slaoui, and neuroscientist/actress (also now Jeopardy! host Mayim Bialik. “The perfect guest for me is someone who’s not only wildly intelligent, but also a little bit off the rails,” Levitt says. “Someone who thinks differently and who doesn’t care at all how the world perceives him or her.”
Steven Levitt leads the Freakonomics franchise's data science innovation
STEVEN LEVITT is the bestselling co-author of the Freakonomics series, the business management and leadership phenomenon that has sold 7M+ copies in over 40 countries. At this point, Levitt sees himself as a data scientist just as much as an economist. Levitt's candid humor and reliance on facts educate audiences from any background.
Microsoft said, "The session was fantastic, the line for autographs was crazy long and we’ve gotten rave reviews for the luncheon... we are thrilled."
The Growth Faculty said, "He was a hit! So authentic and has the best stories. He had a completely rapt and engaged audience."
Steven Levitt is a sought-out voice on the new rules of business, receiving rave reviews
STEVEN LEVITT addresses the fact that the old rules of business just don’t apply and therefore the ideas he and co-author Stephen Dubner have presented in Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics make even more sense now than they did a few years ago. It’s a new world, and that demands a new way of thinking. He offers audiences a way of getting beneath the surface of modern business practices. Levitt receives rave reviews at each of his engagements such as:
Steven Levitt challenges the status quo in an unconventional experiment
Author of the bestselling Freakonomics series and economics professor at the University of Chicago, STEVEN LEVITT recently conducted an experiment that had the whole country buzzing. Known for his fresh ideas and unique approach to real-life economics, Levitt has a vocal following on his weekly podcast and Reddit, and tapped into his fan base to answer one question: What happens when people make major life decisions based on random chance? For his experiment, Levitt recruited nearly 20,000 people to make life-changing decisions—like getting married or leaving a job— based on the flip of a coin.
“As a basic rule of thumb, I believe that people are too cautious when it comes to making a change,” said Levitt, who was interviewed about the experiment in dozens of outlets including The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and The Economist. Levitt turned conventional wisdom upside down; his use of curiosity and charisma to connect with audiences proved so powerful that he managed to get “hundreds of people to quit jobs, break up or have kids based on coin flips.”
When mild-mannered economist Steven D. Levitt published a paper linking a rise in abortion to a drop in crime, it set off a firestorm of controversy and had both the conservatives and liberals up in arms. But Levitt has no political agenda and is the last person to be called a moralist. He is a brilliant but uncomplicated man who uses simple questions to reach startling conclusions. The Wall Street Journal has said “If Indiana Jones were an economist, he'd be Steven Levitt,” he has shown other economists just how well their tools can make sense of the real world.
Steven Levitt is a tenured professor in the University of Chicago's economics department (he received tenure after only two years) and was the 2003 recipient of the American Economic Association’s prestigious John Bates Clark Medal, given to the country's best economist under 40.
When Stephen Dubner (co-author of Freakonomics, SuperFreakonomics, Think Like A Freak and When To Rob a Bank) profiled Levitt in The New York Times Magazine, he was beset by questions, queries, riddles and requests—from General Motors and the New York Yankees and U.S. senators but also from prisoners and parents and a man who sold bagels. A former Tour de France champion called him to ask his help in proving that the current Tour is rife with doping; the CIA wanted to know how Levitt might use data to catch terrorists.
Originally published in the U.S. in 2005, Freakonomics instantly became a cultural phenomenon. Hailed by critics and readers alike, it went on to spend more than eight years on The New York Times bestseller list, having sold more than seven million copies around the world, in more than 40 countries. Levitt and Dubner have appeared widely on television and maintain the popular Freakonomics blog, which can be found on The New York Times website. Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt shows how economics is, at root, the study of incentives— that is, how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. Freakonomics showed that the modern world, despite a great deal of complexity and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not unknowable, and—if the right questions are asked—is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking.
A book that was even bolder, funnier, and more surprising than the first, SuperFreakonomics retained that off-kilter sensibility (comparing, for instance, the relative dangers of driving while drunk versus walking while drunk) but also tackled a host of issues at the very center of modern society: terrorism, global warming, altruism, and more. Released in October 2010, the illustrated edition of SuperFreakonomics employed photographs, drawings, and graphs that led readers to see the world in a bold, fresh way.
Levitt’s third book with Dubner, Think Like A Freak, was released in May 2014 and also became an instant New York Times bestseller. Their latest book is called When To Rob A Bank and was released in May 2015.
Steven Levitt has an enormous curiosity and is set on course by personal experiences and the incongruities he sees in everyday life. He is an intuitionist. He sifts through a pile of data to find a story that no one else has found and devises ways to measure an effect that veteran economists have declared un-measurable.
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