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Stephen Dubner

Award-winning author, journalist, and media personality

About

Gender: Male
Nationality: United States
Languages: English
Travels from: United States

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Biography Highlights

  • Bestselling & Award-Winning Author, 'Freakonomics' Series
  • Host, 'Freakonomics Radio' Podcast - 8M downloads a month
  • Co-star, Freakonomics Documentary
  • Author of "the most readable economics blog in the universe"

Biography

Stephen J. Dubner is an award-winning author, journalist, and radio and TV personality. He is best-known as co-author of the Freakonomics book series, which have sold more than 7 million copies in over 40 countries. He is also the host of Freakonomics Radio, which gets 8 million monthly downloads and airs on NPR stations and elsewhere. 

Freakonomics, published in 2005, was an instant international bestseller and cultural phenomenon. SuperFreakonomics followed to similar acclaim in 2009, and in 2010 a documentary film version of Freakonomics was chosen as the closing film of the Tribeca Film Festival. Think Like a Freak, published in 2014, immediately took up a long residency atop the international bestseller lists, and was followed by When to Rob a Bank, a collection of posts from the Freakonomics blog, which has been called “the most readable economics blog in the universe.”

Dubner has appeared widely on television, including as a regular contributor to ABC News and as host of the NFL Network’s Football Freakonomics, which was nominated for an Emmy.

His other books include Turbulent Souls (1998); Confessions of a Hero-Worshiper (2003), and the children’s book The Boy With Two Belly Buttons (2007). His journalism has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Time, and elsewhere, and has been anthologized in The Best American Sports Writing, The Best American Crime Writing, and others. 

The eighth and last child of an upstate New York newspaperman, Dubner has been writing for a long time. (His first published work appeared, at age 11, in Highlights magazine.) As an undergraduate at Appalachian State University, he started a rock band that was signed to Arista Records, which landed him in New York City. He ultimately quit playing music to earn an M.F.A. in writing at Columbia University, where he also taught in the English Department. He worked at New York Magazine and The New York Times before launching his book and radio career.

He lives in New York with his wife, the documentary photographer Ellen Binder, and their two children.

Videos

Media, podcast appearances and interviews

Speaking videos

Topics

Each idea presented by Stephen Dubner of Freakonomics illustrates a story or example, providing audiences with illuminating thoughts for profitable thinking. With a trademark blend of captivating storytelling and unconventional analysis, Dubner takes us inside his process and teaches us all to think a bit more productively, more creatively, more rationally—to think, that is, like a Freak.

Information on book buys and signings is available upon request.

Available: In person, Virtually

Tailored to your industry interests, preeminent journalist Stephen Dubner aims to provide insights specific to the marketplace, elucidating his opinion on risks of the future and the best practices for today. By sharing the stories the data is telling, Dubner educates audiences on the latest cases and research relevant to their organization.

Available: In person, Virtually

In this engaging presentation, journalist Stephen Dubner addresses the fact that the old rules of business just don’t apply anymore. It’s a new world, and that demands a new way of thinking. Dubner offers audiences a method for digging beneath the surface of modern business practices to address what good management looks like today.

Available: In person, Virtually

Using humor and first-rate storytelling, Stephen Dubner discusses the sort of topics that are on every businessperson’s mind these days: the ways to create behavior change, the incentives that work and don’t work, and the value of asking unpopular questions.

Available: In person, Virtually
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TESTIMONIALS

Books

Stephen Dubner book

Think Like a Freak: The Authors of Freakonomics Offer to Retrain Your Brain

The New York Times bestselling Freakonomics changed the way we see the world, exposing the hidden side of just about everything. Then came SuperFreakonomics, a documentary film, an award-winning podcast, and more. Now, with Think Like a Freak, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have written their most revolutionary book yet. With their trademark blend of captivating storytelling and unconventional analysis, they take us inside their thought process and teach us all to think a bit more productively, more creatively, more rationally—to think, that is, like a Freak. Levitt and Dubner offer a blueprint for an entirely new way to solve problems, whether your interest lies in minor lifehacks or major global reforms. As always, no topic is off-limits. They range from business to philanthropy to sports to politics, all with the goal of retraining your brain. Along the way, you’ll learn the secrets of a Japanese hot-dog-eating champion, the reason an Australian doctor swallowed a batch of dangerous bacteria, and why Nigerian e-mail scammers make a point of saying they’re from Nigeria.

Read more..

Think Like a Freak: The Authors of Freakonomics Offer to Retrain Your Brain

The New York Times bestselling Freakonomics changed the way we see the world, exposing the hidden side of just about everything. Then came SuperFreakonomics, a documentary film, an award-winning podcast, and more. Now, with Think Like a Freak, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have written their most revolutionary book yet. With their trademark blend of captivating storytelling and unconventional analysis, they take us inside their thought process and teach us all to think a bit more productively, more creatively, more rationally—to think, that is, like a Freak. Levitt and Dubner offer a blueprint for an entirely new way to solve problems, whether your interest lies in minor lifehacks or major global reforms. As always, no topic is off-limits. They range from business to philanthropy to sports to politics, all with the goal of retraining your brain. Along the way, you’ll learn the secrets of a Japanese hot-dog-eating champion, the reason an Australian doctor swallowed a batch of dangerous bacteria, and why Nigerian e-mail scammers make a point of saying they’re from Nigeria.
Stephen Dubner book

When to Rob a Bank...And 131 More Warped Suggestions and Well-Intended Rants

Why don’t flight attendants get tipped? If you were a terrorist, how would you attack? And why does KFC always run out of fried chicken? Over the past decade, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have published more than 8,000 blog posts on Freakonomics.com. Now the very best of this writing has been carefully curated into one volume, the perfect solution for the millions of readers who love all things Freakonomics.

Read more..

When to Rob a Bank...And 131 More Warped Suggestions and Well-Intended Rants

Why don't flight attendants get tipped? If you were a terrorist, how would you attack? And why does KFC always run out of fried chicken? Over the past decade, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have published more than 8,000 blog posts on Freakonomics.com. Now the very best of this writing has been carefully curated into one volume, the perfect solution for the millions of readers who love all things Freakonomics.
Stephen Dubner book

SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance

Freakonomics lived on the New York Times bestseller list for an astonishing two years. Now authors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner return with more iconoclastic insights and observations in SuperFreakonomics—the long awaited follow-up to their New York Times Notable blockbuster. Based on revolutionary research and original studies SuperFreakonomics promises to once again challenge our view of the way the world really works.

Read more..

SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance

Freakonomics lived on the New York Times bestseller list for an astonishing two years. Now authors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner return with more iconoclastic insights and observations in SuperFreakonomics—the long awaited follow-up to their New York Times Notable blockbuster. Based on revolutionary research and original studies SuperFreakonomics promises to once again challenge our view of the way the world really works.
Stephen Dubner book

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? How much do parents really matter? These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He studies the riddles of everyday life—from cheating and crime to parenting and sports—and reaches conclusions that turn conventional wisdom on its head. Freakonomics is a groundbreaking collaboration between Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, an award-winning author and journalist. They set out to explore the inner workings of a crack gang, the truth about real estate agents, the secrets of the Ku Klux Klan, and much more. Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, they show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives—how people get what they want or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing.

Read more..

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? How much do parents really matter? These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He studies the riddles of everyday life—from cheating and crime to parenting and sports—and reaches conclusions that turn conventional wisdom on its head. Freakonomics is a groundbreaking collaboration between Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, an award-winning author and journalist. They set out to explore the inner workings of a crack gang, the truth about real estate agents, the secrets of the Ku Klux Klan, and much more. Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, they show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives—how people get what they want or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing.

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