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Nate Silver
Nathaniel Read Silver (born January 13, 1978) is an American statistician, political analyst, author, sports gambler, and poker player who analyzes baseball, basketball, football, and elections. He is the founder of FiveThirtyEight and held the position of editor-in-chief there, along with being a special correspondent for ABC News until May 2023. Since departing FiveThirtyEight, Silver has been publishing in his online newsletter Silver Bulletin and serves as an advisor to Polymarket.
Silver was named one of the world's 100 most influential people by Time in 2009 after his election forecasting model correctly predicted the outcomes in 49 of 50 states in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. His subsequent models predicted the outcome of the 2012 and 2020 presidential elections with high accuracy. Although he gave Donald Trump, the eventual winner, a 28.6% chance of victory in the 2016 presidential election, this was a higher estimate than other major scientific forecasts.
Much of Silver's approach can be characterized by using statistical models to understand complex social systems such as professional sports, the popularity of political platforms and elections.
Silver was born in East Lansing, Michigan, to Sally (née Thrun), a community activist, and Brian David Silver, a former chair of the political science department at Michigan State University. Silver's mother's family was of English and German descent. His maternal great-grandfather, Harmon Lewis, was president of the Alcoa Steamship Company, Inc. Silver's father's family includes two uncles—Leon Silver and Caswell Silver—who were distinguished geologists. Silver has described himself as "half-Jewish".
Silver showed a proficiency in math from a young age. According to journalist William Hageman, "Silver caught the baseball bug when he was 6.... It was 1984, the year the Detroit Tigers won the World Series. The Tigers became his team and baseball his sport. And if there's anything that goes hand in glove with baseball, it's numbers, another of Silver's childhood interests. ('It's always more interesting to apply it to batting averages than algebra class.')"
Silver first showed his journalism skills as a writer and opinion page editor for The Portrait, East Lansing High School's student newspaper, from 1993–1996. Silver won first place in the state of Michigan in the 49th John S. Knight Scholarship Contest for senior high school debaters in 1996.
In 2000, Silver graduated with honors with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from the University of Chicago. He also wrote for the South Side Weekly and The Chicago Maroon. He spent his third year at the London School of Economics.
After college graduation in 2000, Silver worked for three and a half years as a transfer pricing consultant with KPMG in Chicago. When asked in 2009, "What is your biggest regret in life?" Silver responded, "Spending four years of my life at a job I didn't like". While employed at KPMG, Silver continued to nurture his lifelong interest in baseball and statistics, and on the side he began to work on his PECOTA system for projecting player performance and careers. He quit his job at KPMG in April 2004 and for a time earned his living mainly by playing online poker. According to Sports Illustrated writer Alexander Wolff, over a three-year period Silver earned $400,000 from online poker.
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Nate Silver
Nathaniel Read Silver (born January 13, 1978) is an American statistician, political analyst, author, sports gambler, and poker player who analyzes baseball, basketball, football, and elections. He is the founder of FiveThirtyEight and held the position of editor-in-chief there, along with being a special correspondent for ABC News until May 2023. Since departing FiveThirtyEight, Silver has been publishing in his online newsletter Silver Bulletin and serves as an advisor to Polymarket.
Silver was named one of the world's 100 most influential people by Time in 2009 after his election forecasting model correctly predicted the outcomes in 49 of 50 states in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. His subsequent models predicted the outcome of the 2012 and 2020 presidential elections with high accuracy. Although he gave Donald Trump, the eventual winner, a 28.6% chance of victory in the 2016 presidential election, this was a higher estimate than other major scientific forecasts.
Much of Silver's approach can be characterized by using statistical models to understand complex social systems such as professional sports, the popularity of political platforms and elections.
Silver was born in East Lansing, Michigan, to Sally (née Thrun), a community activist, and Brian David Silver, a former chair of the political science department at Michigan State University. Silver's mother's family was of English and German descent. His maternal great-grandfather, Harmon Lewis, was president of the Alcoa Steamship Company, Inc. Silver's father's family includes two uncles—Leon Silver and Caswell Silver—who were distinguished geologists. Silver has described himself as "half-Jewish".
Silver showed a proficiency in math from a young age. According to journalist William Hageman, "Silver caught the baseball bug when he was 6.... It was 1984, the year the Detroit Tigers won the World Series. The Tigers became his team and baseball his sport. And if there's anything that goes hand in glove with baseball, it's numbers, another of Silver's childhood interests. ('It's always more interesting to apply it to batting averages than algebra class.')"
Silver first showed his journalism skills as a writer and opinion page editor for The Portrait, East Lansing High School's student newspaper, from 1993–1996. Silver won first place in the state of Michigan in the 49th John S. Knight Scholarship Contest for senior high school debaters in 1996.
In 2000, Silver graduated with honors with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from the University of Chicago. He also wrote for the South Side Weekly and The Chicago Maroon. He spent his third year at the London School of Economics.
After college graduation in 2000, Silver worked for three and a half years as a transfer pricing consultant with KPMG in Chicago. When asked in 2009, "What is your biggest regret in life?" Silver responded, "Spending four years of my life at a job I didn't like". While employed at KPMG, Silver continued to nurture his lifelong interest in baseball and statistics, and on the side he began to work on his PECOTA system for projecting player performance and careers. He quit his job at KPMG in April 2004 and for a time earned his living mainly by playing online poker. According to Sports Illustrated writer Alexander Wolff, over a three-year period Silver earned $400,000 from online poker.