????Eventbrite公司工程副總裁帕特里克?普爾斯

????帕特里克?普爾斯曾經(jīng)告別科技業(yè)整整五年，這期間他轉(zhuǎn)行做了一名職業(yè)撲克玩家。不過職業(yè)撲克市場在2010年萎縮得非常厲害，于是他決定重返科技行業(yè)。他并不為他的選擇后悔，他說：“分析數(shù)據(jù)跟玩撲克很像。你玩了幾千手牌，你也了解了人，你也處理了數(shù)據(jù)，而且你會留心尋找一些顯眼的東西。這些都是共通的。”在Eventbrite網(wǎng)絡(luò)售票公司里，普爾斯和他的團隊開了一個推薦系統(tǒng)，能夠根據(jù)用戶已經(jīng)瀏覽的內(nèi)容，向他們推薦他們可能感興趣的大型活動。這個系統(tǒng)的反響很不錯，現(xiàn)在每周大約有100萬人在Eventbrite上購票，其中近半數(shù)都是回頭客。普爾斯的下個項目，是要想出怎樣才能最好地賣掉需要預(yù)訂座位的活動的門票。

????Patrick Poels, Vice President of Engineering, Eventbrite

????Patrick Poels left the tech industry for five years to be a professional poker player. The poker market dried up in 2010, though, and he decided to the return to technology. He doesn't regret it. “Analyzing data is a lot like poker," he says. "You play thousands of hands, you learn about people, you process data, you look for things that stick out. The same things are applicable.” At the online ticketing company Eventbrite, Poels and his team created a recommendation system that suggests events to users based on what other people also read. It's working: A million people a week buy tickets on Eventbrite, and nearly half of them are return buyers. His next project? Figuring out best practices for reserved seating events. —Shalene Gupta