Speaker Profile

David Epstein is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Range and The Sports Gene, and of Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better—coming out in May. He has been a senior writer at Sports Illustrated—where he reported some of the magazine’s most high-profile stories, like the revelation that Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez had used steroids—and an investigative reporter at ProPublica, where his work spanned drug cartels to poor medical practices. His two TED Talks on human performance have been viewed more than 12 million times. Prior to becoming a writer, David was training to be a scientist, during which time he lived on a ship in the Pacific Ocean, and in a tent in the Arctic. He has master’s degrees in environmental science and journalism, and was twice All-East in Division I as an 800-meter runner. He first attended this conference in 2014 for a debate with Malcolm Gladwell—the first time they met. This led to them becoming running buddies and now they argue on their own time.