149. Stanford’s President Knows He Can’t Make Everyone Happy

Jonathan Levin is an academic economist who now runs one of the most influential universities in the world. He tells Steve how he saved Comcast a billion dollars, why he turned down Steve’s unusual pitch to come to the University of Chicago, and why being a nice guy makes him a better college president.

• SOURCE:
  • Jonathan Levin, president of Stanford University.

• RESOURCES:
  • "IncomeSegregation and Intergenerational Mobility Across Colleges in the United States," by Raj Chetty, John N Friedman, Emmanuel Saez, Nicholas Turner, and Danny Yagan (The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2020).
  • "JonathanLevin: The Most Recent John Bates Clark Medal Winner," by Steve Levitt (Freakonomics Blog, 2011).
  • "Winning Play in Spectrum Auctions," by Jeremy Bulow, Jonathan Levin, and Paul Milgrom (NBER Working Paper, 2009).
  • "Informationand Competition in U.S. Forest Service Timber Auctions," by Susan Athey and Jonathan Levin (Journal of Political Economy, 2001).

• EXTRAS:
  • Vintage Pokémon card pack Instagram video, by Tyler Thrasher (2025).
  • "Higher Education Is Broken. Can It Be Fixed?" by People I (Mostly) Admire (2023).
  • "How Much Are the Right Friends Worth?" by People I (Mostly) Admire (2022).