Brandon Freiberg

Hi, I'm Brandon, a PhD Candidate in Management at Columbia Business School.

I study entrepreneurial psychology from a macro-strategy perspective. My research explores how founders’ psychological traits, like optimism and risk tolerance, shape their decisions to launch startups and influence venture outcomes across different market contexts.

In my Job Market Paper, I examine how hot markets attract a different mix of founders: less optimistic, more risk-averse individuals who build more specialized businesses. These startups tend to shut down quickly without early traction, and are more likely to achieve modest outcomes, but less likely to generate standout success.

Empirically, I focus on growth-oriented technology entrepreneurs and use tools from natural language processing and AI to assess founder traits from their digital footprints.

Before academia, I earned an MBA from Harvard Business School, founded a startup, worked as an investor, and was a consultant at McKinsey.

In my spare time, I enjoy hiking, games, and hackathons.