Hal Varian: Google's Personal Economist

Hal Varian is an extremely important figure in economics today, as he holds the position of Chief Economist at one of the most powerful corporations in the world: Google.  Before his current position at Google, Varian had an impressive resume of teaching positions, including prestigious schools around the world such as MIT, Stanford, and Oxford.

One of the main ideas Hal Varian is known for is "combinatorial innovation", or taking multiple ideas or products and combining them into a new, often more efficient product.  For example, the iPhone is nothing more than cell phone technology, GPS, music, etc. technology put into one convenient device.  All of these technologies existed long before the creation of the iPhone but were combined in a creative way to create something new.  Now at Google, Varian will employ his combinatorial innovation philosophy to come up with the next set of awesome gadgets and web services.  What do you think are some products that could be combined in a new way to create a unique and innovative product?

The work Varian does with Google is also a step towards even more targeted marketing than we currently see through internet ads, local TV ads, and ads on our smartphones.  While this may sound like an annoyance considering most people aren't terribly fond of targeted marketing in the first place, the corporations doing the advertising are always looking for the next best way to reach their target audience.  Nowadays, the best way seems to be shifting from TV and radio ads into the almost exclusively online realm.

As his title at Google implies, economics is Varian's area of true expertise; more specifically microeconomics.  He has written numerous papers on microeconomics, econometrics, and on the economics of information technology and the latter is becoming more and more important every day with the continued expansion of the internet and web-based business.  His foresight in the information technology industry and his wealth of economics knowledge has contributed in part to Google becoming one of the largest and most successful corporations in the world today, and it is safe to say that anyone who had a hand in making Google what it is today has had a significant impact on the lives of most people in the internet-faring world.


most of the information herein was gathered from: Hal Varian on how the Web challenges managers