Christian Rudder

Christian Rudder
Born Little Rock, Arkansas
Nationality American
Occupation entrepreneur, writer, musician

Christian Rudder (born in Little Rock, Arkansas[1]) is an American entrepreneur, writer, and musician.

Education

He attended Harvard University, graduating with a degree in mathematics in 1998.

Career

Rudder was the creative voice of TheSpark.com,[2] which was the viral content arm of SparkNotes during the site's early rise to popularity. Rudder joined the company in October 1999, a few months after its founding. He became TheSpark's creative director in March 2001. Soon after the site's sale to Barnes & Noble, Rudder and other SparkNotes founders (Chris Coyne, Sam Yagan, and Max Krohn) left and began working on OkCupid, a dating site. OkCupid launched in February 2004.

Starting in 2009, Rudder maintained a blog on a subdomain of OkCupid named OkTrends. It mostly featured statistical observations and analysis of members' preferences and connections. The blog went on hiatus between April 2011 and July 2014 while he wrote Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One's Looking), a book based on the same ideas that inspired the blog.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9]

On February 2, 2011, Rudder's hometown newspapers in Little Rock reported that Match.com had purchased OkCupid for $50 million in cash.[10]

Music and film work

He plays in indie band Bishop Allen. He and Justin Rice are the band's two permanent members, and they write the band's songs.[11][12] On stage, Rudder plays guitar and ukulele; on Bishop Allen's recordings he plays most of the instruments save drums and piano.[13]

He appeared in Andrew Bujalski's 2002 film, Funny Ha Ha and with Bishop Allen appeared in Peter Sollett's film, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist.

Books

References

  1. ↑ "Talk of the Town: Brave New World," New Yorker, Aug. 25, 2014, p. 19.
  2. ↑ Silverman, Rachel. "How fat can you get?". Salon.com. Retrieved 22 October 2014.
  3. ↑ TIME
  4. ↑ 'Random House'
  5. ↑ "Online Dating Stats Reveal A 'Dataclysm' Of Telling Trends". NPR. Retrieved 28 October 2014. It's the beginning of, I think, a revolution in how social science and behavioral science are done.
  6. ↑ Ellenberg, Jordan (September 11, 2014). "Book review: ‘Dataclysm,’ a look at human behavior, by Christian Rudder". The Washington Post. Retrieved 28 October 2014. But “people’s history” has two meanings. It’s history of the people but also history by the people; a kind of investigation that’s not restricted to academics and experts. That’s the big question for the new social science of datasets. It’s clear we’re now all part of the study. Can we develop a people’s data science that allows us all to be the scientists, too?
  7. ↑ Paumgarten, Nick (August 25, 2014). "Make Me a Match". The New Yorker. Retrieved 28 October 2014. If the Internet is one giant experiment, are we all just lab rats? “I prefer the analogy of a glass-bottomed boat,” Rudder said. He derived the word “dataclysm” from the Greek word kataklysmos, for the Great Flood.
  8. ↑ Adams, Jane Stewart. "Book Review: ‘Dataclysm’ by Christian Rudder". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 28 October 2014.
  9. ↑ Moskowitz, Clara (Jul 15, 2014). "Book Review: Dataclysm". Scientific American.
  10. ↑ Millar, Lindsey (February 2, 2011). "Little Rock native Christian Rudder sells company to Match.com for $50 million". Retrieved May 1, 2015.
  11. ↑ All Music Guide
  12. ↑ ASCAP database
  13. ↑ [All three album's liner notes]

External links