Erik Brynjolfsson

Affiliated Faculty • DEL Advisory Group • Leadership
Technology is not destiny. We shape our destiny. Just as the earlier generation of managers needed to redesign their factories, we’re going to need to reinvent our organization and even our whole economic system.
Areas of Research

Director, Stanford Digital Economy Lab | Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Professor and Senior Fellow, Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI)

Contact
erikb@stanford.edu
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Erik Brynjolfsson is one of the world’s leading experts on the economics of technology and artificial intelligence. He is the Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Professor and Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI), and Director of the Stanford Digital Economy Lab. He also is the Ralph Landau Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), Professor by Courtesy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Stanford Department of Economics, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).

One of the most-cited authors on the economics of information, Brynjolfsson was among the first researchers to measure productivity contributions of IT and the complementary role of organizational capital and other intangibles.

Brynjolfsson leads Stanford’s work on Transformative AI—systems poised to rapidly reshape productivity, labor markets, and prosperity. He is developing the research agenda, tools, and policy frameworks to help ensure this shift benefits society, bringing together economists, technologists, and social scientists to rethink economics for the AI age.

Brynjolfsson has authored nine books including the bestsellers The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies, and Machine, Platform, Crowd: Harnessing Our Digital Future, and published more than 100 academic articles and five patents. He holds Bachelors and Masters degrees from Harvard University in applied mathematics and decision sciences and a PhD from MIT in managerial economics. Brynjolfsson’s work has shaped public policy, business strategy, and academic thinking around the world.

Erik Brynjolfsson, Professor, Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI), and Co-Founder, Workhelix, speaks with Wendy Bounds, SVP, Head of Content, The WSJ Leadership Institute at WSJ Tech Council in Palo Alto, CA, on February 11, 2026. Nikki Ritcher for WSJ.
Photo credit: Nikki Ritcher