Nate Silver: On the Edge

Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

Professional risk takers—poker players and hedge fund managers, crypto true-believers and blue-chip art collectors—can teach us a lot about navigating the uncertainty of the 21st century, says statistician and analyst Nate Silver. He embedded himself within the worlds of Doyle Brunson, Peter Thiel, Sam Bankman-Fried, Sam Altman and many others and now comes to Commonwealth Club World Affairs to share insight into a range of issues that affect everyone, from the frontiers of finance to the future of AI.

In his bestselling book The Signal and the Noise, Silver showed how forecasting would define the age of Big Data. Now, in his riveting new book On the Edge, Silver investigates "The River"—those whose mastery of risk allows them to shape and dominate so much of modern life. The River has increasing amounts of wealth and power in our society, and understanding their mindset—including the flaws in their thinking—is key to understanding what drives technology and the global economy today.

There are certain commonalities in this otherwise diverse group: high tolerance for risk; appreciation of uncertainty; affinity for numbers; skill at de-coupling; self-reliance and a distrust of the conventional wisdom. For these people, complexity is baked in, and the work is how to navigate it, without going beyond the pale.

Join us in-person or online as Silver takes you behind the scenes from casinos to venture capital firms to the FTX inner sanctum to meetings of the effective altruism movement

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