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Super Crunchers by Ian Ayres
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Super Crunchers

Why Thinking-by-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart

$20.00

Get for $14.99 with membership
Narrator Michael Kramer
Length 7 hours 33 minutes
Language English
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Why would a casino try to stop a gambler from losing? How can a mathematical formula find your future spouse? Would you know if statistical analysis blackballed you from a job you wanted?

Economist Ian Ayres has spent the better part of his career examining the power in numbers. Decisions used to be made by traditional experts based on experience, intuition, and trial and error. Nowadays, cutting-edge organizations are crunching ever-larger databases to find answers. Todayā€™s super crunchers are providing greater insights into human behavior than ever beforeā€“and predicting the future with staggeringly accurate results.

In this lively and groundbreaking audiobook, Ayres takes us behind the scenes into the bold new world of todayā€™s super crunchers. The author sweeps over a dazzling array of topics with strange-but-true facts, wry wit, and a raconteurā€™s talent for the fascinating anecdote. Entertaining, enlightening, and absolutely essential, Super Crunchers is an audiobook that no businessperson, consumer, or studentā€“statistically, thatā€™s everyone!ā€“should make another decision without first listening to. Thinking-by-numbers is the new way to be smart.

Ian AyresĀ is an economist and lawyer who is the William K. Townsend Professor at Yale Law School and a professor at Yaleā€™s School of Management. He is a columnist forĀ ForbesĀ magazine and a regular contributor to theĀ New York TimesĀ Freakanomics blog. He served for seven years as the editor of theĀ Journal of Law,Ā Economics,Ā andĀ Organization, and in 2006 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has written ten books, includingĀ Super Crunchers,Ā which was aĀ New York TimesĀ business bestseller and named one the Best Economics and Business Books of the Year by TheĀ Economist. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut.

Michael Kramer is an actor, director, and narrator. He has recorded more than 100 audiobooks, as well as titles for the Library of Congress Talking Books program. Among the recognition he has garnered for his narration are AudioFile magazineā€™s Earphones Award and the Torgi Award. Mr. Kramer lives in Washington, DC, where he is active in the areaā€™s theater scene, and has appeared in productions at the Shakespeare Theatre, the Kennedy Center, and Theater J.

Ian AyresĀ is an economist and lawyer who is the William K. Townsend Professor at Yale Law School and a professor at Yaleā€™s School of Management. He is a columnist forĀ ForbesĀ magazine and a regular contributor to theĀ New York TimesĀ Freakanomics blog. He served for seven years as the editor of theĀ Journal of Law,Ā Economics,Ā andĀ Organization, and in 2006 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has written ten books, includingĀ Super Crunchers,Ā which was aĀ New York TimesĀ business bestseller and named one the Best Economics and Business Books of the Year by TheĀ Economist. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut.

Michael Kramer is an actor, director, and narrator. He has recorded more than 100 audiobooks, as well as titles for the Library of Congress Talking Books program. Among the recognition he has garnered for his narration are AudioFile magazineā€™s Earphones Award and the Torgi Award. Mr. Kramer lives in Washington, DC, where he is active in the areaā€™s theater scene, and has appeared in productions at the Shakespeare Theatre, the Kennedy Center, and Theater J.

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Reviews

"In the past, one could get by on intuition and experience. Times have changed. Today, the name of the game is data. Ian Ayres shows us how and why in this groundbreaking book Super Crunchers. Not only is it fun to read, it just may change the way you think."—Steven D. Levitt, author of Freakonomics

"Data-mining and statistical analysis have suddenly become cool.... Dissecting marketing, politics, and even sports, stuff this complex and important shouldn't be this much fun to read."—Wired

"[Ayres's] thesis is provocative: Complex statistical models could be used to market products more intelligently, craft better movies, and solve health-care problems—if only we could get past our statistics phobia."—Portfolio

"When statistics conflict with expert opinion, bet on statistics....Businesses, consumers, and governments are waking up to the power of analyzing enormous tracts of information."—Discover

"Super Crunchers shows that data-driven decisionmaking is not just revolutionizing baseball and business; it's changing the way that education policy, health care reimbursements, even tax regulations are crafted.  Super Crunching is truly reinventing government.  Politicians love to tout policy proposals, but they rarely come back and tell you which ones succeeded and which ones failed.  Data-driven policy making forces government to ask the bottom line question of 'What works.'  That's an approach we can all support."—John Podesta, President of the Center for American Progress

"A lively and yet rigorously careful account of the use of quantitative methods for analysis and decision-making.... Both social scientists and businessmen can profit from this book, while enjoying themselves in the process."—Dr. Kenneth Arrow, Nobel Prize winning economist, and Professor Emeritus at Stanford University

“Ayres’ point is that human beings put far too much faith in their intuition and would often be better off listening to the numbers.... The best stories in the book are about Ayres and other economists he knows, whether they are studying wine, the Supreme Court or jobless benefits.... Ayres himself is one of the [statistical] detectives. He has done fascinating research.”—The New York Times Book Review

"Ian Ayres [is] a law-and-economics guru."—Chronicle of Higher Education

“Lively and enjoyable.... Ayres skillfully demonstrates the importance that statistical literacy can play in our lives, especially now that technology permits it to occur on a scale never before imagined.... Edifying and entertaining."—Publishers Weekly

"Super Crunchers presents a convincing and disturbing vision of a future in which everyday decision-making is increasingly automated, and the role of human judgment restricted to providing input to formulae."—The Economist

"Insightful and delightful!" —Forbes
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