Business Leaders - Nir Eyal

Nir Eyal is an entrepreneur and author. After graduating from Stanford in 2008, Nir co-founded AdNectar, a social media advertising company which enabled sites to monetise on adverts. With a background in academia, his research into what makes companies like Facebook and Google “sticky” formed the basis of his best-selling book ‘Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products’. His latest book, ‘Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life’, advises readers on how to beat technology addiction in everyday life and claims that all behaviour is prompted by a desire to escape discomfort. In this in-depth conversation, Nir explains why people “prioritise the urgent at the expense of the important”, describes his theory about why love does actually hurt – and argues that distraction has become “commoditised”.