Buddha was born a prince, but spent years living an ascetic life. Ultimately, after a lifetime of data gathering, he settled on something in between. The Middle Way. “One of the hallmarks of Buddha’s teachings—and the way he lived his life—was this insistence on evidence, on data. He didn’t want anyone to take anything on faith,” he says. “Buddha was a data scientist.”

Buddha was born a prince, but spent years living an ascetic life. Ultimately, after a lifetime of data gathering, he settled on something in between. The Middle Way. “One of the hallmarks of Buddha’s teachings—and the way he lived his life—was this insistence on evidence, on data. He didn’t want anyone to take anything on faith,” he says. “Buddha was a data scientist.”