171–180 of 186 posts
ABC is a strange place. I'll never forget working at Disney around 2008ish and attending a meeting with an ABC exec. They said to my boss, "I know you don't want to believe this because you're so close to it, but the internet is a fad."
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So Nate & Co sell out to a big corporation then are upset that it does big corporation stuff? I'm more mad at Nate here because 538 was my go-to for political coverage pre-sellout, and because of his greed it went away.
It's petty even for a corporation. It's not exactly maximizing shareholder value. But yeah, it's the sort of stuff corporations (especially media corporations) can be expected to do. I think Nate has become better at this sort of stuff in recent years. But still, he said that Disney "hardly ever" interfered in their editorial process, oblivious to the implication. (What it means is that Disney/ABC were perfectly will…
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But he kind of sucks and isn’t worth following. He’s a sellout at heart, including his recent association with Polymarket. Someone cool would have never sold out a website as good as 538 used to be. Now he’s more interested in profiting off of gamblers.
538 got one election right a decade and a half ago with a contrarian alternative data source, and hooked a bunch of partisan gamblers since now you can actually bet on your beliefs and dont need to debate with anyone on whether the koolaid colored wave of choice will actually happen, or whether you are a slave to an algorithm induced hall of mirrors. note, the senate has been 50-50 for over a decade, its probably the…
A better way to assess accuracy would be to bin predictions (0-10% chance, 10-20% chance, etc.) and see if the observed frequency aligns with the predictions.
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538 got one election right a decade and a half ago with a contrarian alternative data source, and hooked a bunch of partisan gamblers since now you can actually bet on your beliefs and dont need to debate with anyone on whether the koolaid colored wave of choice will actually happen, or whether you are a slave to an algorithm induced hall of mirrors. note, the senate has been 50-50 for over a decade, its probably the…
There's no "getting elections right"; these models just estimate probability. They gave Trump a 29% change in 2016 -- that's almost 1 in 3! A better way to assess accuracy would be to bin predictions (0-10% chance, 10-20% chance, etc.) and see if the observed frequency aligns with the predictions.
In parallel your signal could be a data source adding to individuals contribution to price discovery
> 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.
So Nate & Co sell out to a big corporation then are upset that it does big corporation stuff? I'm more mad at Nate here because 538 was my go-to for political coverage pre-sellout, and because of his greed it went away.
Parent says because they “criticized our management of the brand”.
Big corporations don’t give a crap. They are 100% about the bottom line.
This isn’t “big corporation” behavior.
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So Nate & Co sell out to a big corporation then are upset that it does big corporation stuff? I'm more mad at Nate here because 538 was my go-to for political coverage pre-sellout, and because of his greed it went away.
538 had some decent years through its various sellout phases and imo hit its peak after Nate Silver left - he'd long since exposed himself more as a contrarian than a serious analyst and had become a real detriment to the brand. It was definitely sad to lose 538 how we did, but G Elliott Morris has really stepped up to continue the spirit on his Strength in Numbers blog. It's the best data-driven US politics reportin…
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this is what the salesforces of the world do to startups every day. it is so painful to watch. billions upon billions wasted for just the stupidest possible reasons.
at least they aren't inefficient, like governments are. Because as you can clearly see market forces always lead to optimal resource allocations.
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So Nate & Co sell out to a big corporation then are upset that it does big corporation stuff? I'm more mad at Nate here because 538 was my go-to for political coverage pre-sellout, and because of his greed it went away.
Your annoyance is understandable, but it's worth remembering: he is not your slave. He does not exist to do things for you. His providing you with something good for a time does not obligate him to provide it to you forever. Because he is not your slave.
Really sad to see some of the best visualizations I've ever seen in my life being taken down. I've easily spent hours exploring playing with their gun deaths visualization, p-hacking piece, gut microbiome explorable explainer and many others. Guess we better back up their GitHub repos before that gets taken down as well https://github.com/fivethirtyeight
they took down the burrito bracket, it must be resurrected when i lived in SF i found al pastor at Tacqueria Cancun messianic
Still chasing that dragon to this day.
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It's petty even for a corporation. It's not exactly maximizing shareholder value. But yeah, it's the sort of stuff corporations (especially media corporations) can be expected to do. I think Nate has become better at this sort of stuff in recent years. But still, he said that Disney "hardly ever" interfered in their editorial process, oblivious to the implication. (What it means is that Disney/ABC were perfectly will…
How can we jump to that conclusion? Maybe they were only willing to interfere in that process in extreme cases.
There's not much extreme about Nate Silver.