ORLY LOBEL
Award-winning author of several books, including The Equality Machine: Harnessing Digital Technology for a Brighter, More Inclusive Future
Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of San Diego and the Director of the Center for Employment and Labor Law (CELP)
Discover the transformative power of Orly Lobel's groundbreaking insights. With her expertise in law, innovation, and the future of work, Lobel provides a fresh perspective that will revolutionize your understanding of business and inspire a new era of success.
Orly Lobel is the Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of San Diego and the Director of the Center for Employment and Labor Law (CELP). She is the award-winning author several books and a leading scholar in behavioral law and policy. Lobel regularly advises government and private industry on competition law and tech. A graduate of Tel-Aviv University and Harvard Law School, Lobel clerked on the Israeli Supreme Court and is a member of the American Law Institute. She is consistently ranked among the most cited legal scholars in the United States. Her books You Don’t Own Me: How Mattel v. MGA Entertainment Exposed Barbie’s Dark Side (Norton) and Talent Wants to Be Free: Why We Should Learn to Love Leaks, Raids and Free Riding (Yale University Press) have been received glowing reviews by top media including The New Yorker, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, Slate, NPR and more. Her new book The Equality Machine: Harnessing Digital Technology for a Brighter, More Inclusive Future (PublicAffairs 2022) is a contrarian constructive response to debates on AI, automation, and datafication. The book examines distributive justice and the potential – as well as risks – of digital technology to tackle inequities in our labor markets, media, government, health, family, and intimate relations. The book reveals the costs and inequities of privileging privacy and slowing down automation. Science calls the book “masterful”. The Economist selected The Equality Machine as a Best Book of 2022: “in a brilliant act of intellectual jiu-jitsu, Lobel argues that the answer is not to slow the technology, but to speed it up to solve those defects and achieve social progress.” The Economist also writes in a separate review, “The Equality Machine buzzes…One of the most persuasive proponents of a more balanced view”. Kirkus describes The Equality Machine as a compelling, hopeful, enthusiastic yet measured argument for technology’s potential to promote equality across many facets of culture and industry.
Speech topics
AI for Good: How to Build an Equality Machine
At a time when AI and digital platforms are under fire, Orly Lobel, a renowned tech policy scholar, defends technology as a powerful tool we can harness to achieve equality and a better future. Lobel makes a compelling argument that while we cannot stop technological development, we can direct its course according to our most fundamental values. Lobel masterfully shows that digital technology frequently has a comparative advantage over humans in detecting discrimination, correcting historical exclusions, subverting long-standing stereotypes, and addressing the world’s thorniest problems: climate, poverty, injustice, literacy, accessibility, speech, health, and safety. Lobel's vivid examples—from labor markets to dating markets—provide powerful evidence for how we can harness technology for good.
The Global Talent Wars: How to Win the Innovation Battles
Conventional business wisdom about competition, secrecy, motivation, and creativity turned on their head. Orly Lobel, an internationally acclaimed expert in the law and economics of human capital, warns that a set of counterproductive mentalities are stifling innovation in many regions and companies. Lobel shows how innovators, entrepreneurs, research teams, and every one of us who experiences the occasional spark of creativity can triumph in today's innovation ecosystems. In every industry and every market, battles to recruit, retain, train, energize, and motivate the best people are fierce. From Facebook to Google, Coca-Cola to Intel, JetBlue to Mattel, Lobel uncovers specific factors that produce winners or losers in the talent wars. Combining her original behavioral experiments, her extensive experience working with the White House and private industry on winning the talent wars, and sharp observations of contemporary battles over ideas, secrets, and skill, Lobel identifies motivation, relationships, and mobility as the most important ingredients for successful innovation. Lobel presents a set of positive changes in corporate strategies, industry norms, regional policies, and national laws that will help talent flow, creativity, and growth.
Books
The Equality Machine: Harnessing Digital Technology for a Brighter, More Inclusive Future
At a time when AI and digital platforms are under fire, Orly Lobel, a renowned tech policy scholar, defends technology as a powerful tool we can harness to achieve equality and a better future.
You Don't Own Me: The Court Battles That Exposed Barbie's Dark Side
Are your ideas your own or does your employer own them? This is the question that set off the greatest toy war of our time.
Talent Wants to Be Free: Why We Should Learn to Love Leaks, Raids, and Free Riding
This influential award-winning book challenges conventional business wisdom about competition, secrecy, motivation, and creativity.