Rerun: Ep1 "Making a Business Decision" with Ruth Porat

All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions

This summer break, we'll be taking a pause from uploading new episodes. However, Jules and Jonathan have handpicked some favorite past episodes for new listeners to enjoy and subscribers to revisit!

When the scientific method began to be applied widely hundreds of years ago, innovation bloomed. Today, those same principles inform business leaders who rely on data analysis to set and shape direction.

In this episode of All Else Equal, professors Jonathan Berk and Jules van Binsbergen speak with Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat about how to — and how not to — use data to make decisions.

“It’s too easy to just anchor on a set of numbers,” Porat says. “Most important is to look at the trends over time, then break it down to the sensitivity analysis — what are the key variables that will drive behavior one way or another?

“Coming with just a flat set of data is not constructive because obviously the world in which we live is not static.”

Submit your questions to the show here: https://bit.ly/AllElseEqual

Find All Else Equal on the web: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/business-podcasts/all-else-equal-making-better-decisions

All Else Equal: Making Better Decisions Podcast is a production of Stanford Graduate School of Business and is produced by University FM.

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