James J. Manzi (; born 1963) is an American technology entrepreneur. He was the

founder Founder or Founders may refer to: Places *Founders Park, a stadium in South Carolina, formerly known as Carolina Stadium * Founders Park, a waterside park in Islamorada, Florida Arts, entertainment, and media * Founders (''Star Trek''), the ali ...

and

chairman The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the grou ...

Applied Predictive Technologies Applied Predictive Technologies (APT) was a software company that provided business analytics software, intended to help large, consumer-facing businesses "reduce the risk of any new initiative by systematically testing the idea with a subset of ...

business analytics Business analytics (BA) refers to the skills, technologies, and practices for continuous iterative exploration and investigation of past business performance to gain insight and drive business planning. Business analytics focuses on developing ne ...

firm) that was sold to MasterCard in 2015 for $600 million. He subsequently co-founded the artificial intelligence software company Foundry.ai. He is the inventor of a series of related software patents. Manzi has also written widely on the philosophy of science, politics and policy. He is the author of the book ''Uncontrolled'', which argues for the more widespread use of randomized experimentation in business and social science. He co-authored an article on the use of randomized experimentation in business for the ''Harvard Business Review''. He is a contributing editor at ''

National Review ''National Review'' is an American conservative editorial magazine, focusing on news and commentary pieces on political, social, and cultural affairs. The magazine was founded by the author William F. Buckley Jr. in 1955. Its editor-in-chief i ...

'', a senior fellow at the

Manhattan Institute The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research (renamed in 1981 from the International Center for Economic Policy Studies) is a conservative American think tank focused on domestic policy and urban affairs, established in Manhattan in 1978 by Ant ...

, and was formerly a contributor to a variety of blogs.

Early life and education

Manzi grew up in

Spring Lake, New Jersey Spring Lake is a borough situated on the Jersey Shore in Monmouth County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2010 United States census, the borough's population was 2,993,Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

in 1984 with a

B.S. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

. He was also awarded a Dean's Fellowship in statistics to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania as one of the eight top matriculants to the business school's doctoral programs.

Career

After college, Manzi joined

AT&T Laboratories AT&T Laboratories, Inc. was the research & development division of AT&T Corporation. It was founded in 1925 as Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc., following the merger of the research & development divisions of American Telephone & Telegraph an ...

and developed early PC-based pattern recognition software in their Data Networks division. He subsequently worked as a corporate strategy consultant at Boston Consulting Group spin-off Strategic Planning Associates. In 1999, he left and founded

in his apartment. Manzi served as

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

until 2008, at which point he was named

Executive Chairman The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the grou ...

. He is also a senior fellow at the

and a contributing editor of ''National Review''.

Political views and commentary

Manzi has written articles for a variety of political publications including the ''

New York Post The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com, and the entertainment site Decider.com. It was established ...

'', ''

The Weekly Standard ''The Weekly Standard'' was an American neoconservative political magazine of news, analysis and commentary, published 48 times per year. Originally edited by founders Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes, the ''Standard'' had been described as a "red ...

'', ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

'', and ''

Slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

''. Manzi cites

Sir Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both n ...

's ''New Method'' as a significant inspiration for and influence on his book ''Uncontrolled: the Surprising Power of Trial and Error for Business, Politics, and Society'', saying of it, "there are an incredible array of insights in that book but one of the most fundamental is his argument that we have a tendency to jump to conclusions, that we see patterns in nature and believe we’ve found what we would call today causal rules, but we’re kidding ourselves." Bacon's idea underpins Manzi's thesis that trial and error plays a significant role in helping companies and societies adapt and progress. He has also contributed to the blogs of those publications and others, such as ''The American Scene'',

Andrew Sullivan Andrew Michael Sullivan (born 10 August 1963) is a British-American author, editor, and blogger. Sullivan is a political commentator, a former editor of ''The New Republic'', and the author or editor of six books. He started a political blog, ' ...

's ''The Daily Dish'', and

's ''The Corner''. David Brooks identified him as one of the "reformers" within the Republican Party, and later noted Manzi's

National Affairs ''National Affairs'' is a quarterly magazine in the United States about political affairs that was first published in September 2009. Its founding editor, Yuval Levin, and authors are typically considered to be conservative and right-wing. The ma ...

article ''Keeping America's Edge'' as one of the best magazine essays of 2009.

Specific positions

Manzi has written about

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

, prominently in a controversial ''

'' cover article in which he argued that conservatives should stop denying

global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

is happening, which

Rush Limbaugh Rush Hudson Limbaugh III ( ; January 12, 1951 – February 17, 2021) was an American conservative political commentator who was the host of '' The Rush Limbaugh Show'', which first aired in 1984 and was nationally syndicated on AM and FM r ...

attacked. He has said that while

may be a real phenomenon, the current evidence does not justify the

economic An economy is an area of the Production (economics), production, Distribution (economics), distribution and trade, as well as Consumption (economics), consumption of Goods (economics), goods and Service (economics), services. In general, it is ...

costs required to reduce

carbon emissions Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities strengthen the greenhouse effect, contributing to climate change. Most is carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. The largest emitters include coal in China and larg ...

. In writing about the future of the

Republican Party Republican Party is a name used by many political parties around the world, though the term most commonly refers to the United States' Republican Party. Republican Party may also refer to: Africa *Republican Party (Liberia) * Republican Part ...

, he has argued that the primary challenge for conservatives is to "continue to increase the market orientation of the American economy while helping more Americans to participate in it more equally".

References

External links