Jeffrey Ma
PROTRADE
Subject of a New York Times bestseller, Bringing Down the House , and the blockbuster hit movie, 21, Jeffrey Ma is the famous number-crunching MIT whiz kid who took Vegas by storm. In his keynotes he draws on his extraordinary life and work to show us how to harness the power of rational, quantitative analysis to make smarter business decisions.
Using the undeniable power of numbers - of math! - Jeffrey Ma has helped spearhead what BusinessWeek calls "The New Age of Numbers." The famous number-crunching MIT whiz kid who took Vegas by storm, Ma is the subject of both a New York Times bestseller, Bringing Down the House, and the feature film 21, starring Kevin Spacey. In his keynotes, he draws on his extraordinary life and work to show us how to harness the power of rational, quantitative analysis to make smarter business decisions.
Putting his innovative theories into practice, Jeffrey Ma co-founded PROTRADE, the popular sports fantasy website that allows users to trade players like stocks. He uses hard facts and results-not emotions-to determine the true market value of an athlete or team. (Think of Billy Beane's Moneyball-style of talent management.) Ma has created a series of proprietary analysis tools and metrics to help users make smarter decisions-decisions that often prove to be the difference between winning and losing. (Best of all, you don't have to be a calculus nerd to use them). Partnering with Sports Illustrated, Major League Baseball and ESPN, Ma and PROTRADE have revolutionized the way we think about sports and business, and how we make decisions that will benefit the bottom line.
Jeff Ma first tested his unique approach to numbers as a member of the MIT Blackjack team, a small group of hyper-geniuses who took the gaming world by surprise. His life story became the national bestseller Bringing Down the House, and is also the focus of a critically acclaimed movie, 21, starring Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth and Laurence Fishburne. In the movie, Ma's name has been changed to Ben Sherman, but you'll still be able to easily pick him out: he's the one using his unlikely mixture of wits, charm and math skills to trump his competitors.
