Why Big Tech Is Racing to Hire Top Economists

In one line: According to The Washington Post, tech companies are aggressively recruiting prominent economists from academia and government.

Key points

• The Washington Post reports a marked trend of tech firms poaching top-tier economists.
• The ability to run empirical analysis over vast user and transaction data is cited as a leading reason for the hires.
• Demand for economists' judgment appears to be growing around pricing, market design, and policy questions in AI and platform services.

Why it matters

It signals that competitiveness among AI companies is expanding beyond raw model performance toward data interpretation and market and policy design. The center of gravity in the talent race looks to be broadening from engineers to economics and data specialists.

Read more

• Why tech companies are poaching top economists — The Washington Post