Don’t Guess, Experiment

Financial Times, April 19, 2009

Steven Levitt has an unusual admission to make for someone who has just finished teaching a class at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

“I don’t know that much about business,” says the economics professor whose 2005 book, Freakonomics, made him an unexpected household name.

“Four years ago, I especially didn’t know much about business,” Prof Levitt says, “but, when Freakonomics came out, somebody decided to call it a business book – which it wasn’t meant to be – and, when you write a best-selling business book, you automatically become a business expert. That makes businesses want to talk to you – so, over the past four years, my colleagues and I have spent a lot of time talking to businesses.”