Just like their Quant brethren over on Wall Street, the Wants depend on algorithms and massive computing power to churn data for economic gain – but instead of gaming the market, their gaming you to click on ads.
"At social networking companies, Wants may sit among the computer scientists and engineers, but theirs is the central mission: to poke around in data, hunt for trends, and figure out formulas that will put the right ad in front of the right person. Wants gauge the personality types of customers, measure their desire for certain products, and discern what will motivate people to act on ads. “The most coveted employee in Silicon Valley today is not a software engineer. It is a mathematician,” says Kelman, the Redfin CEO. “The mathematicians are trying to tickle your fancy long enough to see one more ad.”"
Vance profiles one Quant-turned-Want in particular, Jeff Hammerbacher, the first Facebook employee charged with making sense of the social site’s vast troves of personal data. Perhaps the industry’s first Want apostate, Hammerbacher jumped ship in 2008 after sensing he was part of a new tech bubble.
Unlike other inflated markets, which usually leave infrastructure hardware and software in their wake, Hammerbacher feared this bubble would just leave a legacy of wasted minds.
"“The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads,” he says. “That sucks.”"
Luckily, Hammerbacher’s career trajectory belies his concern. The data guru has founded a new venture that aims to give companies even greater processing power. But instead of using data to figure out how to get people to spend more time on Farmville, it’ll help researchers, say, decode cancer genes and work more quickly toward a cure.
(cross-posted from thefilterbubble.com)
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