Rivers received his B.A. from
Columbia University in 1977 and Ph.D. from
Harvard University in 1981. Before joining the Stanford faculty in 1989, he taught at
Harvard University,
Caltech, and
University of California, Los Angeles. In 1996, Rivers founded Preview Systems, a publicly trading maker of software for distributing and licensing music and software over the Internet. He co-founded Knowledge Networks in 1998 to provide public opinion survey tools and access to very large and cost-effective panels to conduct survey experiments through the
WebTV box, yielding an overall response rate that is higher than most polling firms. His company was contracted by
CBS,
NBC and
USA Today to carry out surveys. He was named "executive of the year by the
Research Business Report in 2000. He founded the firm Polimetrix, which was acquired by
YouGov in 2007, and has led the company's American business until 2011, when he was named chief scientist of
YouGov. Rivers was elected a fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2015. He is also a director of the
Roper Center for Public Opinion Research and
YouGov. == References ==