David Holtz
Assistant Professor | Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA, UNITED STATES
Expert on the design of online marketplaces and platforms
Areas of Expertise (5)
Online Marketplaces & Platforms
Computational Social Science
Field Experiements
Causal Inference
Data Science
About
David Holtz is an assistant professor in the Management of Organizations (MORS) and Entrepreneurship and Innovation groups at the Haas School of Business. He earned his PhD at the MIT Sloan School of Management, in the Information Technology (IT) group. He also holds an MA in Physics and Astronomy from Johns Hopkins University, and a BA in Physics from Princeton University.
Holtz studies the design of online marketplaces and platforms using large-scale online field experiments and novel digital trace data. His research agenda focuses on online trust and reputation system design, the business and societal impacts of personalized recommendations, and the design and analysis of field experiments in online marketplaces. His work has appeared in a number of journals and conferences, including The Proceedings of the National Academy of Science and the ACM Conference on Economics and Computation, and has been covered by popular news outlets, such as MSNBC, The Washington Post, and the Boston Globe. Before returning to academia, Holtz spent time in the Bay Area working as a data scientist and product manager at a number of technology firms, including Airbnb (where he was one of the founding members of the company's algorithmic pricing team) and TrialPay (acquired by Visa). In carrying out his research agenda, he continues to work closely with many leading firms in the tech sector, including Airbnb, Facebook, Spotify, Microsoft, and Etsy.
Education (4)
MIT Sloan School of Management: PhD, Information Technology 2021
MIT Sloan Sloan School of Management: SM, Management Research 2018
The Johns Hopkins University: MA, Physics and Astronomy 2012
Princeton University: AB, Physics (and certificate in Theater and Dance) 2010
Links (3)
Honors & Awards (3)
INFORMS ISS Nunamaker-Chen Dissertation Award
2021
Best Dissertation Award, Workshop on Information Technologies and Systems
"Essays on the Design of Online Marketplaces and Platforms" 2020
Duwayne J. Peterson, Jr. Doctoral Fellowship, MIT Sloan School of Management
2015 - 2021
Selected External Service & Affiliations (1)
- Digital Fellow, MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy (2021-2022)
Positions Held (2)
At Haas since 2021
July 2021 - present, Assistant Professor, Management of Organizations Group, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley July 2021 - present, Faculty Affiliate, Berkeley Institute for Data Science
Non-Academic Experience
2020, PhD Research Intern, Microsoft Research 2019, PhD Research Intern, Spotify Tech Research 2016 & 2017, PhD Research Intern, Facebook Core Data Science 2014 - 2015, Data Scientist, Airbnb 2013, Data Science Engineer, Yub (acquired by Coupons.com) 2012 - 2013, Product Manager / Data Scientist, TrialPay (acquired by Visa)
Media Appearances (15)
Remote-first work is taking over the rich world
The Economist online
2021-11-17
While it might be only a matter of time before everyone goes fully remote, firms have good reason to hold on to their office buildings, even if they are used less frequently. Asst. Prof. David Holtz and co-authors looked at the communications of 60,000 Microsoft employees and found remote work makes people’s collaboration practices more “static and siloed.” People interact more with their closest contacts, but less with the more marginal members of their networks who can offer them new perspectives and ideas.
Reshaping American cities
The Weeds Podcast online
2021-11-17
Working at home can have significant effects on intra-company communication. Research on Microsoft employees by Asst. Prof. David Holtz found that remote work changed how workers communicate. They communicated the same amount, but they communicated less with those with whom they have weaker ties, and a lot more with those with whom they had strong ties.
Microsoft has found we’re working longer and collaborating less during COVID-19
World Economic Forum online
2021-10-06
A study by Asst. Prof. David Holtz of Microsoft employees who worked remotely found that business groups within the company became “less interconnected” as collaboration networks became more siloed, which meant fewer opportunities for new ideas and information to be shared between colleagues. “There is a competitive advantage to successfully engaging in the practice of ‘knowledge transfer,’ in which experiences from one set of people within an organization are transferred to and used by another set of people within that same organization,” the study said.
How Remote Work Affects Our Communication and Collaboration
Greater Good Magazine online
2021-09-21
The work-from-home mandate created a unique opportunity to identify the effects of company-wide remote work on how information workers communicate and collaborate, said Assist. Prof. David Holtz, describing his recent study of over 61,000 Microsoft workers. He found that company-wide remote work caused workers’ collaboration networks to become less interconnected, while workers spent more time using email and messaging rather than having synchronous conversations in person, by phone, or by video conference.
Did the pandemic make work weeks longer?
The View tv
2021-09-20
Whoopi Goldberg, co-host of “The View,” discussed findings of a paper published by Microsoft researchers and Asst. Prof. David Holtz. She noted that for remote workers, the pandemic is making the work week 10% longer. “Why do some companies think office hours don’t apply when you’re working remotely?” she asked.
Hard Work Isn’t the Point of the Office
The Atlantic online
2021-09-18
The advantage of congregating employees in an office isn’t to make sure they work hard, but to foster the connections. Recent work co-authored by Asst. Prof. David Holtz studied the effect of the first six months of the pandemic on 61,000 Microsoft employees. Remote work caused “collaboration to be more static and siloed,” the research found, noting a sharp decrease in communication across groups that made it harder for “employees to acquire and share new information.”
Microsoft Analyzed Data on Its Newly Remote Workforce
Harvard Business Review online
2021-09-15
A study co-authored by Asst. Prof. David Holtz aimed to understand how company-wide remote work changed how Microsoft workers interacted. In an analysis of communications patterns among 61,000 employees at the tech company, Holtz found that collaboration between different teams decreased, and people's contacts got more insular. The study also found that more employees spent less time in face-to-face meetings and more time speaking to each other via instant messaging and email.
A study of 61,000 Microsoft employees suggests remote work is bad for communication between different teams
Business Insider online
2021-09-14
A study co-authored by Asst. Prof. David Holtz analyzed the habits of 61,000 Microsoft staff before and after they switched over to remote work. It found that fully remote workers communicate less with people outside of their teams, and they are also slower to make new connections.
Happy to work hybrid? Staying home comes with a cost to you and your boss, new study finds
Financial Post online
2021-09-09
Employees working from home are more siloed, communicate less frequently and are less collaborative than they were in the office, a newly published study in the journal Nature Human Behaviour and co-authored by Asst. Prof. David Holtz has found. The study, which analyzed communication patterns among Microsoft Corp.’s more than 61,000 employees before and after the company implemented a work-from-home mandate in response to the pandemic, suggested fully remote workforces may have more difficulty sharing and acquiring new information.
Coronavirus threat rises across U.S.: ‘We just have to assume the monster is everywhere’
The Washington Post online
2020-08-01
A national strategy, whether advanced by the federal government or by the states working in tandem, will more effectively control viral spread than the current patchwork of state and local policies, according to a study from researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology published Thursday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The deadly cost of uncoordinated reopening of our states
The Hill online
2020-05-27
Today, our team in the Social Analytics Lab at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy released a comprehensive study of the cost of uncoordinated responses to COVID-19. Our models combined daily, county-level data on shelter-in-place policies with movement data from over 27 million mobile devices, social network connections among 220 million Facebook users, daily temperature and precipitation data from 62,000 weather stations and county-level census data on population demographics to estimate the geographic and social network spillovers created by regional policies across the United States.
Study: There will be a "devastating cost of failure" if economic re-openings are not coordinated
TechRepublic online
2020-05-27
There is a devastating cost associated with the current chaotic and uncoordinated reopening of states and cities across the US and the globe after the COVID-19 shutdown because "pandemics are interdependent phenomena," a new study shows. "Viruses and people's adherence to the government policies designed to contain them spill over from region to region," according to the study by the Social Analytics Lab at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy.
MIT Study shows 'devastating' cost of states reopening without coordination amid COVID-19
Yahoo! Money online
2020-05-22
As more states continue to reopen, people are questioning how the government will prevent a new spike in COVID-19 cases. Sinan Aral, David Austin Professor of Management at MIT and Author of “The Hype Machine” joins Yahoo Finance’s On The Move to discuss why states need to coordinate reopening amongst each other.
MIT study: ‘Chaotic and uncoordinated’ reopening of states takes ‘devastating toll’
MSNBC online
2020-05-21
A new MIT study shows the cost of the uncoordinated responses to coronavirus. When state and local leaders decide to open up against CDC guidelines, that can have an impact far beyond the borders of their homes.
Lack of coordination in reopenings could lead to more coronavirus spread, spillover between states
The Boston Globe online
2020-05-21
New research released Thursday from MIT found that, during the lockdown, people networking through mobile phones, video conferencing, and social media appeared to influence the travel behaviors and adherence to government restrictions of those in other states, even places far away.
Working Papers (3)
Limiting Bias from Test-Control Interference in Online Marketplace Experiments
David Holtz, Sinan Aral 2020
Reducing Interference Bias in Online Marketplace Pricing Experiments
David Holtz, Ruben Lobel, Inessa Liskovich, Sinan Aral 2020
The Engagement-Diversity Connection: Evidence from a Field Experiment on Spotify
David Holtz, Ben Carterette, Praveen Chandar, Zahra Nazari, Henriette Cramer, Sinan Aral 2020
Selected Research Grants (3)
Research Funding in Business Analytics
Fisher Center for Business Analytics
2021
Summer Institute in Computational Social Science
Russell Sage, & Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
2018 (with Sanaz Mobasseri, Janet Xu, Lily Fesler and Zanele Munyikwa)
Boston University Center for Antiracist Research
Grant for research on technical phone screen interviews
2020 (with Sanaz Mobasseri, Janet Xu, and Zanele Munyikwa)
Selected Papers & Publications (4)
Reciprocity and Unveiling in Two-sided Reputation Systems: Evidence from an Experiment on Airbnb
Marketing Science
Andrey Fradkin, Elena Grewal, David Holtz
October 2021
The Effects of Remote Work on Collaboration Among Information Workers
Nature Human Behaviour
Longqi Yang, David Holtz, Sonia Jaffe, Siddharth Suri, et al.
September 2021
Interdependent Program Evaluation: Geographic and Social Spillovers in COVID-19 Closures and Reopenings in the U.S.
Science Advances
Michael Zhao, David Holtz, Sinan Aral
July 2021
Interdependence and the cost of uncoordinated responses to COVID-19
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
David Holtz, Michael Zhao, Seth G. Benzell, Cathy Y. Cao, M. Amin Rahimian, Jeremy Yang, Jennifer Allen, Avinash Collis, Alex Moehring, Tara Sowrirajan, Dipayan Ghosh, Yunhao Zhang, Paramveer S. Dhillon, Christos Nicolaides, Dean Eckles, Sinan Aral
2020
Social