EP006 - Michael Luca - The Power of Experiments: Decision-Making in a Data-Driven World

Michael Luca is an Associate Professor at Harvard Business School and co-author of the book The Power of Experiments: Decision-Making in a Data-Driven World. In this episode we learn how eBay saved $50M by stopping paid advertising, how Airbnb overlooked second and third order effects of experimentation and why Uber changed their experimentation strategy.

Michael's research, teaching, and advisory work focuses on the design of online platforms, and on the ways in which data can inform managerial and policy decisions. His research has been published in academic journals including the Journal of Economic Perspectives, Management Science and the American Economic Journal. 

He has also written about behavioural economics and online platforms for media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Wired, and Slate. 

At Harvard, Professor Luca developed and teaches an MBA course on using experiments to guide managerial decisions, called From Data to Decisions: Leveraging Experiments for Effective Strategy, Marketing, and Entrepreneurship. He has also taught and developed materials for executive education and MBA courses on platform design, behavioural economics, and business analytics.  

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