[1] A former assistant professor of behavioral finance at Stony Brook University, Smith writes for his own Substack blog, Noahpinion, and has also written for publications including Bloomberg, Quartz, Associated Press, Business Insider, and The Atlantic.
[2] Smith started blogging in graduate school, on Google's Blogger platform, inspired by his original goal, as well as feeling disaffected with studying macroeconomics.
He attributes the blog's early success to established pundits and economists such as J. Bradford DeLong, Mark Thoma and Paul Krugman reading and referencing it.
[8] Starting July 2023, Smith alongside Erik Torenberg began the podcast ECON 102, where technology, current events, and economics are discussed with occasional guests.
[22] New York Times writer David Brooks has characterized Smith as a proponent of industrial policy alongside center-left commentators such as Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson who champion a so-called "abundance agenda.