The Flash was surprised to learn this week that social media giant Facebook employs 25 Ph.D.’s in economics on their data science team, which according to the National Association for Business Economics’ executive director Tom Beers, is about same number of Ph.D.’s employed at a large U.S. bank. The continued rise in popularity of social media platforms has led to an influx in privately available digitized data, which companies like Facebook, Amazon and Netflix can analyze in order to improve the quality and user experience of their products.
While the motivation for a platform like Google to build a top tier team of analysts is clear, what is the incentive for economic doctorates, who have traditionally stayed in academia, to transition to the private sector? The answer to this question and more in this week’s Founder’s Flash!
- The World’s Top Economists Want to Work for Amazon and Facebook (Bloomberg)
- How Snapchat’s Geofilters Can Increase Brand Awareness (Entrepreneur)
- When Classical Musicians Go Digital (NY Times)