David Reiley
The Scientist behind the Experiment
David Reiley has spent his career seeking truth — first as a scientist, now as a storyteller.
As an economist, he pioneered the use of real-world experiments to understand how much various factors can influence people's economic choices, such as digital advertising, charity solicitations, and the bidding rules in an auction. He worked at Yahoo!, Google, and Pandora (now SiriusXM), taught at the University of Arizona, and built a course on experiments and causality at UC Berkeley.
But in 2025, after leaving his job in tech, David turned his curiosity inward. He created Experiment, a one-man storytelling show where he demonstrates how thinking like a scientist has enabled him to solve problems in his personal life.
Blending science, humor, and raw honesty, David brings audiences along on his most personal experiments — in love, family, and the ability to correct our own beliefs when we turn out to be mistaken.
Experiment
An interactive, thought-provoking stage show that dares to ask the question...
How do we choose what to believe? And how do these beliefs affect our lives?
About The Show
David's one-man storytelling show, Experiment, draws on the same tools he used as a scientist — careful observation, deliberate experimentation, skepticism, humility — and illustrates how he has applied them to his personal life. With humor, vulnerability, and intellectual curiosity, he shares what he’s learned from observing his emotions and running experiments in love, honesty, failure, and starting over.
His belief is simple but radical: we all carry mistaken beliefs, and unless we question them, they cause us to make bad decisions without realizing it. If we learn to think more like scientists, we can identify those mistaken beliefs, understand ourselves more clearly, make wiser choices, and create better lives. On stage, David doesn’t just share his experiments — he invites audiences to imagine their own
