CHRIS ROHLFS

Data scientist & economist  •  Author of Fame Machines

I’m Chris Rohlfs—a Staff Data Scientist at MagicSchool AI leading AI safety research for classrooms. I spent 11 years at Morgan Stanley as an Executive Director in predictive modeling, and I hold two doctorates (Chicago, Columbia)—trained by Freakonomics author Steve Levitt. My Foreign Affairs article on the Pentagon’s MRAP program drew coverage in the New York Times, USA Today, Time, Wired, and Harvard Business Review. I’ve given invited talks at MIT, the Pentagon, and West Point, and published 20+ academic articles in economics, AI, and neuroscience.

I study how ideas spread—and why some get amplified while others never get a first look. Fame Machines reverse-engineers the systems that route attention (filters, hubs, halos, and feedback loops) and turns them into practical moves writers, creators, and builders can actually use.

I’ve worked across academia as an econ professor, on Wall Street, and now in AI. I also release music as Moose, which gave me an on-the-ground education in playlists, gatekeepers, and the attention gap that helped spark this book.

I designed the visuals for Fame Machines using a mix of code-based generation, digital editing, and generative AI. I live in Savannah, Georgia with my wife Stephanie and a growing collection of houseplants.