George Szpiro, born in Vienna, holds dual Swiss and Israeli citizenship. He earned his MSc in mathematics from the Swiss Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, an MBA from Stanford University, and a doctorate in mathematical economics from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Following consulting stints with McKinsey and Company, he turned to academia. After several years of academic research and teaching at the Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania) and the Hebrew University, he changed careers again and became a foreign correspondent and mathematics columnist for the Swiss daily Neue Zürcher Zeitung. For over twenty years he reported from Israel, and for six years from New York.

Apart from two dozen academic papers in mathematics, statistics, economics, and genetic algorithms, Szpiro has authored nine books for general interest readers in mathematics, economics, and political science. He has been awarded the Prix Média by the Swiss Academy of Natural Sciences, the Medienpreis of the German Mathematical Society, and was a finalist for the Descartes Prize of the European Union.