Economist Milton Friedman said Savage was "one of the few people I have met whom I would unhesitatingly call a genius.
He continued at the University of Michigan with a PhD on differential geometry in 1941 under the supervision of Sumner Byron Myers.
Though his thesis advisor was Sumner Myers, he also credited Milton Friedman and W. Allen Wallis as statistical mentors.
During World War II, Savage served as chief "statistical" assistant to John von Neumann, the mathematician credited with describing the principles upon which electronic computers should be based.
Savage brought the work of Bachelier to the attention of Paul Samuelson.