51–60 of 186 posts
I don't understand why Nate doesn't just start SixFortyNine and does it all over again. In the end, what ABC owns is just a name - which was always kinda stupid and even hard to spell - and a bunch of obsolete content.
i was a casual reader of 538 back in the day. his substack feels pretty similar, if smaller in scope.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s basically a fuck you to the shareholders. Hey we’ve got this dead asset someone will pay for but we won’t sell because they were mean to us. Any exec who operates that way should be shown the door ASAP as they are likely doing similar emotional management of other aspects of the business.
ABC's shareholders are Disney. Whatever Nate offered them isn't even a rounding error in Disney's $36 billion dollars in profits last year. The shareholders aren't going to care.
If they shut it down, then it's just a strategic decision. If Nate Silver buys it back (for pennies on the dollar) and then makes it successful, it's embarrassing and makes ABC look bad at business.
Maybe that was the logic on ABC's part but it's ridiculously wrong given how much clear market demand there is for the 538 people and content.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s basically a fuck you to the shareholders. Hey we’ve got this dead asset someone will pay for but we won’t sell because they were mean to us. Any exec who operates that way should be shown the door ASAP as they are likely doing similar emotional management of other aspects of the business.
ABC's shareholders are Disney. Whatever Nate offered them isn't even a rounding error in Disney's $36 billion dollars in profits last year. The shareholders aren't going to care.
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/DIS/disney/net-inc...
Tangential: I miss Nate and Maria Konnikova's Risky Business podcast. It only lasted a year (or two?). I expected it would be resurrected outside the Pushkin network, but hasn't happened yet. What I _don't_ miss is listening to podcasts on Pushkin. I had nothing against Malcolm Gladwell, but something about having his voice on every one of the network's very numerous ads became incredibly grating.
Gladwell also annoys me, so that didn't help matters.
Guess we better back up their GitHub repos before that gets taken down as well
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The 70:30 prediction against Trump was far better than most. I did see models back then that considered the state polls mostly or entirely uncorrelated, and those produced obviously garbage with 90% or even 99% in favor of Clinton. But in the end people pick on Nate because he really enjoys being an asshole on the internet. It's far more about when he acts as a pundit, not as an expert on statistics.
> BTW, I approached ABC about buying back the former FiveThirtyEight IP*, and they said they wouldn't sell at any price because I'd criticized their management of the brand. --Nate Silver (538 founder) ABC seem pretty petty here.
WOuldn't proof of that be some grounds for breach of fiduciary duty?