How GrubHub Analyzed 4,000 Dishes to Predict Your Next Order

All Matt Maloney wanted to know was whether Chicago-style deep dish pizza is better than New York-style thin crust. If he were anyone else, Maloney would have had to get violently anecdotal. Deep dish, while delicious, is obviously not so much a pizza as a casserole; conversely, if you want to put pizza toppings on a cracker, why not just order a flatbread? Maloney felt like he should be able to literally answer the question. "Given the volume of transactions I do on a daily basis," Maloney says, "I should be able to tell you, objectively, which is better." Because broadly, Maloney is of course right.