This week, we chat with Matt Wallaert, a behavioral psychologist and entrepreneur who was formerly a director at Microsoft Ventures. He is on a mission to create a ’Chief Behavioral Officer’ officer as a standard C-Suite position within corporate America. (At Microsoft he became known as the guy who advocated for and eventually managed to get Klingon built into the Bing Translator). His finance start up Thrive was eventually purchased by LendingTree.
Wallaert believes in “designing for behavior change” among technology start-ups. He has created a number of start-ups that aim to help people who may be unaware of what their value is to employers. Salary or Equity is a comparison engine that allows people to compare different comp structures including a start up offers that might be less dollar heavy but more equity focused. Get Raised uses BLS and other public data to help people figure out what their business value is; the service has helped women gain over $2 billion dollars in raises since it was launched. Churnless is one of his more recent ventures, developing products that “help people lead better lives by serving their authentic needs.”
All of the books discussed can be found here.
You can stream/download the full conversation, including the podcast extras, on iTunes, Soundcloud, Overcast and Bloomberg.
Our earlier podcasts can all be found on iTunes, Soundcloud, Overcast and Bloomberg.
Matt Wallaert’s favorite Non-Fiction books
Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious by Timothy D. Wilson
Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely
The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less by Barry Schwartz
Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Matt Wallaert’s favorite Fiction books
The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore
The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
Blindness by Jose Saramago
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
Stand by Me by Stephen King
The Green Mile by Stephen King
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg
