What Makes a Winning Google Making a Difference Then and Now
Statistician?
Data provided the impetus for the birth of statistics
First and foremost, the love of data. What our raw
in the early 20th century. Now, 100 years later, data
data lacks in quality, we make up for in quantity.
has regained its central role in decisionmaking. The
This means that, in addition to a solid training in
size and scale of the data sets may have expanded
both theoretical and applied statistics, coding/pro-
beyond the imagination of our founding fathers,
gramming skills are important. The specific pro-
but the clarity provided by sound statistical models
gramming language is not as important as one’s atti-
is as relevant today as it ever was.
tude toward large problems; one needs to be fearless
Data is one of the main reasons statisticians are
when presented with terabytes of data and millions
drawn to Google; the other is impact. With hundreds
of parameters to be estimated. If this sounds as if it
of millions of users and a vision “to organize all the
could be fun, then that pretty much captures the
world’s information and make it universally acces-
spirit of statistics at Google.
sible and useful,” working for Google is a wonderful
opportunity to make a difference with statistics. ■
,
MAY 2009 AMSTAT NEWS 5
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84