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Causal Bandits Podcast
Causal Bandits Podcast with Alex Molak is here to help you learn about causality, causal AI and causal machine learning through the genius of others.
The podcast focuses on causality from a number of different perspectives, finding common grounds between academia and industry, philosophy, theory and practice, and between different schools of thought, and traditions.
Your host, Alex Molak is an a machine learning engineer, best-selling author, and an educator who decided to travel the world to record conversations with the most interesting minds in causality to share them with you.
Enjoy and stay causal!
Keywords: Causal AI, Causal Machine Learning, Causality, Causal Inference, Causal Discovery, Machine Learning, AI, Artificial Intelligence
Causal Bandits Podcast
Causality, Experimentation, and Marketplaces | Lawrence De Geest S2E10
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Causality, Experimentation, and Marketplaces
Meet Lawrence de Geest (Zoox, ex-Lyft, ex-NBA), a former soccer player and an ex-NBA data scientist, who fell in love with marketplaces, despite the fact he hated math.
In the episode we ponder how to deal with causality when our interventions change the dynamics of the environment we intervene upon, what to do with SUTVA violations, and how to design efficient quasi-experiments.
- Why simple A/B tests fail at marketplaces
- How reversing synthetic controls logic can help us design better experiments
- Why Lawrence thinks that average treatment effect is just a snapshot of here and now
- How Magellan used data science to prove that Portugal was harvesting spices on Spanish territory
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Video version available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/acCy16L33tU
Recorded in 2026 in San Francisco, USA.
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About The Guest
Lawrence De Geest is an economist and data scientist at Zoox. He was previously a data scientist at Lyft and the NBA, and before joining industry, an Assistant Professor at Suffolk University, with visiting appointments at Boston College and the University of San Francisco. His main research interests are marketplaces, collective action and experimentation. Outside of work he loves biking, surfing, and playing with his dog.
Connect with Lawrence:
- Lawrence on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lawrence-de-geest-21a206a/
- Lawrence's web page: https://lrdegeest.github.io/
About The Host
Aleksander (Alex) Molak is an independent machine learning researcher, educator, entrepreneur and a best-selling author in the area of causality (https://amzn.to/3QhsRz4 ).
Connect with Alex:
- Alex on the Internet: https://bit.ly/aleksander-molak
Causal Bandits Podcast
Causal AI || Causal Machine Learning || Causal Inference & Discovery
Web: https://causalbanditspodcast.com
Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleksandermolak/
Join Causal Python Weekly: https://causalpython.io
The Causal Book: https://amzn.to/3QhsRz4