The past decade has seen a huge rise in the employment of Ph.D. economists in tech companies to tackle problems ranging from advertising and pricing to workforce staffing and workplace policies. Today Amazon employs more Ph.D. economists than the Federal Reserve! So why is Amazon hiring all these economists? What skills do modern economists bring to the table, and how can they benefit a business? Alex will give a broad overview of what economists are doing at Amazon, with particular emphasis on the work done in Amazon's People, eXperience, and Technology organization (where he works), a group with the mission to be the world's most scientific HR organization in the world.