My guest today, Maya Shankar, is a great example of how with the right mix of talent,

confidence, and doggedness, anything is possible.

Welcome to People I Mostly Admire with Steve Levitt.

The only inner 20 is Michael from scratch, the Obama administration's social and behavioral

sciences team.

That's the US government's first systematic attempt to integrate behavioral economics into

its policies. It's a US version of the highly successful British Nudge Unit, which was launched

by Prime Minister David Cameron in 2010, and named after Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein's

hugely impactful book Nudge. She also served as the first behavioral science advisor to the

United Nations, and more recently as a global director of behavioral sciences at Google.

Still only in the early 30s, Maya might be the youngest guest I've had so far on this podcast,

and I'm guessing she will bring a big dose of youthful enthusiasm.

I first became aware of you when you were put in charge of the social and behavioral

sciences team and the Obama administration. How old were you when that team was created with

you as the leader? I think I was either 26 or 27. I had no public policy experience at all.

I was an academic. I was doing a postdoc in cognitive neuroscience at Stanford at the time.

Had you ever had a real job? Never had a real job. Okay, your first job was running an agency in

Washington? Yes, it was. What happened is I pitched the White House on creating a new position

for a behavioral scientist, and then I just made it my mission to create a team because I don't

think I was totally qualified for the game. So you just wrote an email to Whitehouse.gov and said,

my name is Maya, and I would like to be your advisor. And they said, it sounds great, or how did

that work? I still remember this one moment where I was in the basement of an FMRI laboratory.

...