• My Journey to Airbnb: Peter Coles
Listen Share Public school to PhD The story of Airbnb’s Head Economist for Policy and Director of Data Science involves geology, co-teaching with a Nobel Prize winner, and CSI. • (No, not the hit TV franchise.) Peter Coles was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. • He studied math at Princeton, earned his PhD in economics at Stanford, and taught at Harvard Business School before joining eBay and becoming a Data Science leader at Airbnb. • As you’ll see from his story, Peter has a deep interest in how marketplaces work. • By transitioning from academia to the business world, he not only gets to study first-hand data about millions of guests and hosts, but also to influence product and policy decisions. • And he still gets to hang out with academics.
Article Summaries:
- Peter Coles, originally from Milwaukee, earned a Princeton math degree and a PhD in economics from Stanford, where he focused on game theory. After teaching at Harvard Business School, he moved into industry, leading data science at eBay before joining Airbnb. At Airbnb, he serves as Head Economist for Policy and Director of Data Science, applying his academic expertise to analyze millions of host‑guest transactions and shape product and policy decisions. Coles’ career reflects a long‑standing fascination with marketplace dynamics, bridging theoretical research and practical data‑driven strategy in the sharing‑economy sector.
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