Andreas Weigend

Dr. Andreas Weigend studies the ongoing revolution in social data and its impact on customers, business, and society. He teaches at Stanford University and directs the Social Data Lab. Andreas was the chief scientist of Amazon.com where he focused on building the customer-centric and measurement-focused culture that has been central to Amazon's success.

Andreas works with innovative startups and global companies alike, helping them understand and leverage the irreversible changes in how consumers express themselves, make purchasing and lifestyle decisions, and relate to each other. His goal is to guide his clients through the evolving landscape of consumer behavior and unprecedented data to identify new business opportunities.

Through corporate seminars, brainstorming sessions, master class, and individual mentoring, he works with clients to define relevant metrics, design experiments, build predictive models, and invent incentives that inspire users to participate and share data which results in new products and business models. His clients include Alibaba, Allstate Insurance, American Express, Lufthansa, MasterCard, Nokia, Otto Group, Priceline, SAP, Symantec, Thomson Reuters, and the World Economic Forum.

Andreas speaks at top conferences around the globe. In November 2011, he shared his vision on the future of data, mobile and social technologies with General Assembly of the United Nations. Andreas is known to challenge the minds of his audience, in order to help them understand the Social Data Revolution.

Andreas is currently an advisor or board member of ApeBusiness, eCommera, FirstRetail, Peerius, Mu-Sigma, RocketFuel, Savored, Shopilly, and Skout.com, as well as a limited partner at Founders Fund. Startups he co-founded or advised include Moodlogic (music crowdsourcing, acquired by All Media Guide, now Rovi), Cleverset (recommendation technology, acquired by ATG, now Oracle), Agoda.com (travel and hotel reservations, acquired by Priceline), Xiaonei (China’s largest Facebook clone, acquired by Ren Ren), and Nugg.ad (behavioral targeting, acquired by Deutsche Post).

Andreas studied electrical engineering, physics and philosophy in Germany and Cambridge (UK), and received his Ph.D. in physics from Stanford University. His career as a data scientist combined with his deep industry and startup experience allows him to successfully bridge the gap between academia and industry. He lives in San Francisco, Shanghai and on weigend.com.