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From the New York Times bestselling author of The Signal and the Noise, the definitive guide to our era of risk—and the players raising the stakes In the bestselling The Signal and the Noise, Nate Silver showed how forecasting would define the age of Big Data. Now, in this timely and riveting new book, Silver investigates "The River," or those whose mastery of risk allows them to shape—and dominate—so much of modern life. These professional risk takers—poker players and hedge fund managers, crypto true-believers and blue-chip art collectors—can teach us much about navigating the uncertainty of the 21st century. By embedding within these worlds, Silver offers insight into a range of issues that affect us all, from the frontiers of finance to the future of AI.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 high tolerance for risk; appreciation of uncertainty; affinity for numbers; skill at de-coupling; self-reliance and a distrust of the conventional wisdom. For the River, complexity is baked in, and the work is how to navigate it, without going beyond the pale.Taking us behind-the-scenes from casinos to venture capital firms to meetings of the effective altruism movement, On the Edge is a deeply-reported, all-access journey into a hidden world of powerbrokers and risk takers.
656 pages, Paperback
First published August 13, 2024
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About the author
Nate Silver
13 books740 followersNathaniel Read “Nate” Silver (born January 13, 1978) is an American statistician and writer who analyzes baseball and elections. He is currently the editor-in-chief of ESPN’s FiveThirtyEight blog and a Special Correspondent for ABC News. Silver first gained public recognition for developing PECOTA, a system for forecasting the performance and career development of Major League Baseball players, which he sold to and then managed for Baseball Prospectus from 2003 to 2009.
In 2007, writing under the pseudonym “Poblano”, Silver began to publish analyses and predictions related to the 2008 United States presidential election. At first this work appeared on the political blog Daily Kos, but in March 2008 Silver established his own website, FiveThirtyEight.com. By summer of that year, after he revealed his identity to his readers, he began to appear as an electoral and political analyst in national print, online, and cable news media.
The accuracy of his November 2008 presidential election predictions—he correctly predicted the winner of 49 of the 50 states—won Silver further attention and commendation. The only state he missed was Indiana, which went for Barack Obama by one percentage point. He correctly predicted the winner of all 35 U.S. Senate races that year.
In April 2009, he was named one of The World’s 100 Most Influential People by Time.
In 2010, Silver’s FiveThirtyEight. blog was licensed for publication by The New York Times. The newly renamed blog, FiveThirtyEight: Nate Silver’s Political Calculus, first appeared in The Times on August 25, 2010. In 2012 and 2013, FiveThirtyEight won Webby Awards as the “Best Political Blog” from the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.
Silver’s book, The Signal and the Noise , was published in September 2012. It subsequently reached The New York Times best seller list for nonfiction, and was named by Amazon.com as the #1 best nonfiction book of 2012. The Signal and the Noise won the 2013 Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science. The book has been published in eight languages.
In the 2012 United States presidential election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, he correctly predicted the winner of all 50 states and the District of Columbia. That same year, Silver’s predictions of U.S. Senate races were correct in 31 of 33 states; he predicted Republican victory in North Dakota and Montana, where Democrats won.
In July 2013, it was revealed that Silver and his FiveThirtyEight blog would depart The New York Times and join ESPN. In his new role at ESPN, Silver would become editor-in-chief of the FiveThirtyEight site. ESPN would own the FiveThirtyEight site and the brand. The ESPN-owned FiveThirtyEight launched on March 17, 2014. Silver’s lead article explained that the site would focus on a broad range of subjects under the general rubric of “data journalism”.
In 2007, writing under the pseudonym “Poblano”, Silver began to publish analyses and predictions related to the 2008 United States presidential election. At first this work appeared on the political blog Daily Kos, but in March 2008 Silver established his own website, FiveThirtyEight.com. By summer of that year, after he revealed his identity to his readers, he began to appear as an electoral and political analyst in national print, online, and cable news media.
The accuracy of his November 2008 presidential election predictions—he correctly predicted the winner of 49 of the 50 states—won Silver further attention and commendation. The only state he missed was Indiana, which went for Barack Obama by one percentage point. He correctly predicted the winner of all 35 U.S. Senate races that year.
In April 2009, he was named one of The World’s 100 Most Influential People by Time.
In 2010, Silver’s FiveThirtyEight. blog was licensed for publication by The New York Times. The newly renamed blog, FiveThirtyEight: Nate Silver’s Political Calculus, first appeared in The Times on August 25, 2010. In 2012 and 2013, FiveThirtyEight won Webby Awards as the “Best Political Blog” from the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.
Silver’s book, The Signal and the Noise , was published in September 2012. It subsequently reached The New York Times best seller list for nonfiction, and was named by Amazon.com as the #1 best nonfiction book of 2012. The Signal and the Noise won the 2013 Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science. The book has been published in eight languages.
In the 2012 United States presidential election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, he correctly predicted the winner of all 50 states and the District of Columbia. That same year, Silver’s predictions of U.S. Senate races were correct in 31 of 33 states; he predicted Republican victory in North Dakota and Montana, where Democrats won.
In July 2013, it was revealed that Silver and his FiveThirtyEight blog would depart The New York Times and join ESPN. In his new role at ESPN, Silver would become editor-in-chief of the FiveThirtyEight site. ESPN would own the FiveThirtyEight site and the brand. The ESPN-owned FiveThirtyEight launched on March 17, 2014. Silver’s lead article explained that the site would focus on a broad range of subjects under the general rubric of “data journalism”.
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July 25, 2025
There are three kinds of people…
I have mixed feelings about Nate Silver’s On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything, because it is a mixed kind of book. On the one hand, I find Silver’s way of thinking: quantitative, probabilistic, epistemically humble, congenial. On the other, his need to make enemies is less congenial.
The premise of On the Edge is that people who live by managing risks form a community, which Silver Calls “The River”. His definition of the River (“River: A geographical metaphor for the territory covered in this book, a sprawling ecosystem of like-minded, highly analytical, and competitive people that includes everything from poker to Wall Street to AI. The demonym is Riverian.”) is broad and vague, but that is not really a problem, because the book consists mostly of profiles of hundreds of Riverians — by the end, you have a clear idea of who (in Silver's mind) the members are. Silver considers himself a Riverian, and it is clear that the Riverians are the Good Guys. It is far from clear to me that the River is actually a community in any world other than Silver's mind.
The first half of the book is about capital-G Gamblers, primarily poker players and people who bet on sports. (By the way, the subtitle “The Art of Risking Everything” is misleading. Although Silver profiles a few people who actually did risk everything, most Riverians would say it is stupid to risk everything, unless the “everything” at risk is limited in some way, e.g. “all your money”, or “your career”…) Silver earned his living as a professional poker player for a few years and is still a member in good standing of that community.
This first half is followed by a middle chapter entitled Chapter 13, even though it is not the thirteenth chapter of the book. It consists mostly of a list of “Thirteen Habits of Highly Successful Risk-Takers”.
Chapter 13 is followed by a series of chapters about, essentially, Silicon Valley’s preoccupations: Venture Capital, Effective Altrusim, etc. You might have thought Wall Street and financial markets would play a prominent role in a book about the quantitative aspects of managing risk, but in fact Wall Street is essentially absent from On the Edge. I suspect Silver considers finance professionals too stodgy to extend Riverian citizenship to. This last section of the book was, to my tastes, much less satisfactory than the first. Too much is reasonable but poorly supported opinions about subjects we don’t know enough about to treat with the analytic tools used in the first half of the book. Instead, those tools are used more metaphorically in this final section. Not to put too fine a point on it, it felt to me like a load of bullshit. As bullshit goes, it was pretty good bullshit, but still bullshit.
Finally, I come to one of my main sources of dissatisfaction. I mentioned that the Riverians are the good guys. The designation of good guys almost necessitates the designation of bad guys, and Silver does that.
Silver’s definition manages the trick of being both long and imprecise. Who are the Villagers? You would think from his definition that East-Coast journalists would be included, but Silver himself is a journalist (however much he would like to disown his occupation) who lives in New York City. You would also think academics would be Villagers, but in fact professors are quoted extensively, and usually with approval. Moreover, many of them are explicitly identified as Riverians. This even includes some Princeton profs. Princeton is definitely an East-Coast university. Unlike the River, which is well-defined by hundreds of individual profiles, the Village appears in the text mainly in the form of a long series of drive-by straw-men. This me-against-the-world schtick becomes tedious.
I think, in fact, the Village would be most accurately described as “people Nate Silver argues with on X/Twitter”.
So, in summary, there's good and there's bad. I liked it and am not sorry I read it. But it did not change the way I see the world.
Blog review.
I have mixed feelings about Nate Silver’s On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything, because it is a mixed kind of book. On the one hand, I find Silver’s way of thinking: quantitative, probabilistic, epistemically humble, congenial. On the other, his need to make enemies is less congenial.
The premise of On the Edge is that people who live by managing risks form a community, which Silver Calls “The River”. His definition of the River (“River: A geographical metaphor for the territory covered in this book, a sprawling ecosystem of like-minded, highly analytical, and competitive people that includes everything from poker to Wall Street to AI. The demonym is Riverian.”) is broad and vague, but that is not really a problem, because the book consists mostly of profiles of hundreds of Riverians — by the end, you have a clear idea of who (in Silver's mind) the members are. Silver considers himself a Riverian, and it is clear that the Riverians are the Good Guys. It is far from clear to me that the River is actually a community in any world other than Silver's mind.
The first half of the book is about capital-G Gamblers, primarily poker players and people who bet on sports. (By the way, the subtitle “The Art of Risking Everything” is misleading. Although Silver profiles a few people who actually did risk everything, most Riverians would say it is stupid to risk everything, unless the “everything” at risk is limited in some way, e.g. “all your money”, or “your career”…) Silver earned his living as a professional poker player for a few years and is still a member in good standing of that community.
This first half is followed by a middle chapter entitled Chapter 13, even though it is not the thirteenth chapter of the book. It consists mostly of a list of “Thirteen Habits of Highly Successful Risk-Takers”.
Chapter 13 is followed by a series of chapters about, essentially, Silicon Valley’s preoccupations: Venture Capital, Effective Altrusim, etc. You might have thought Wall Street and financial markets would play a prominent role in a book about the quantitative aspects of managing risk, but in fact Wall Street is essentially absent from On the Edge. I suspect Silver considers finance professionals too stodgy to extend Riverian citizenship to. This last section of the book was, to my tastes, much less satisfactory than the first. Too much is reasonable but poorly supported opinions about subjects we don’t know enough about to treat with the analytic tools used in the first half of the book. Instead, those tools are used more metaphorically in this final section. Not to put too fine a point on it, it felt to me like a load of bullshit. As bullshit goes, it was pretty good bullshit, but still bullshit.
Finally, I come to one of my main sources of dissatisfaction. I mentioned that the Riverians are the good guys. The designation of good guys almost necessitates the designation of bad guys, and Silver does that.
The Village: The rival community to the River, reflected most clearly in intellectual occupations with progressive politics, such as the media, academia, and government (especially when a Democrat is in the White House). To Riverians, the Village is parochial, excessively “political,” and suffers from various cognitive biases. However, the Village has any number of cogent objections to the River, as outlined in the introduction. My coinage is not entirely original and bears some similarity to terms like “professional-managerial class.” Both the Village and the River consist overwhelmingly of “elites”; the vast majority of the population doesn’t fall into either group.This definition is the source of my title: “There are three kinds of people…” -- to wit, the Riverians, the Villagers, and the non-elites who belong to neither community.
Silver’s definition manages the trick of being both long and imprecise. Who are the Villagers? You would think from his definition that East-Coast journalists would be included, but Silver himself is a journalist (however much he would like to disown his occupation) who lives in New York City. You would also think academics would be Villagers, but in fact professors are quoted extensively, and usually with approval. Moreover, many of them are explicitly identified as Riverians. This even includes some Princeton profs. Princeton is definitely an East-Coast university. Unlike the River, which is well-defined by hundreds of individual profiles, the Village appears in the text mainly in the form of a long series of drive-by straw-men. This me-against-the-world schtick becomes tedious.
I think, in fact, the Village would be most accurately described as “people Nate Silver argues with on X/Twitter”.
So, in summary, there's good and there's bad. I liked it and am not sorry I read it. But it did not change the way I see the world.
Blog review.
August 19, 2024
I seem to be an early reader of this, and notably an early reader with a strongly negative opinion, so I feel compelled to write a review for it.
I'm an engineer, and by nature I tend to like numerical approaches to problems, thinking probabilistically, and priding myself on feeling 'rational' about how I view situations. I've followed Nate Silver in one way or another for years, and generally remember enjoying The Signal and the Noise. I saw that Silver had written this book, had a spare Audible credit, and picked it up quickly.
It's not good.
As other (even positive) reviews have stated, there isn't a strong sense of a theme throughout the book. The closest I could discern is that Nate Silver knows notable people and isn't afraid to name-drop, and that some elites of the world think about things in a Super Special Numerical way and that's what makes them elite. But lest you worry he thinks too highly of the elites, he occasionally tosses in examples of valid criticism from the rest of society. And don't worry, he alone is uniquely qualified to have a foot in both that elite circle (telling stories of parties and exclusive interviews he's had) and still rub shoulders with the rest of us.
Perhaps in an effort to not spurn his Silicon Valley friends, he also comes across as strangely uncritical of figures like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Sam Bankman-Fried, among others. These are people you can't 'both sides' your way around, or hedge an opinion towards, and it feels weaselly that he does.
[As a total aside for audiobook listeners: Silver does his own narration for this performance, and it is actively bad. Most punctuation is treated as a paragraph stop, to the extent that the latter halves of many sentences are confusing as sometimes I couldn't tell if it was a new paragraph or not. He also tries to imitate the voices of some people he references, notably Steve Wynn and Peter Thiel, in a way that I can only imagine is incredibly insulting to them. It was such a bad narration that I genuinely questioned his decision-making in other elements of the publishing process. You've been warned.]
I wouldn't in good conscience recommend this book to anyone, I certainly doubt I learned anything from it, and it's turned me off of paying attention to Silver's future endeavours. If you want to learn more about FTX I'd recommend Number Go Up, and if you want a better take on some of the concepts Silver covers in the book I'd recommend Rationality or Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World.
I'm an engineer, and by nature I tend to like numerical approaches to problems, thinking probabilistically, and priding myself on feeling 'rational' about how I view situations. I've followed Nate Silver in one way or another for years, and generally remember enjoying The Signal and the Noise. I saw that Silver had written this book, had a spare Audible credit, and picked it up quickly.
It's not good.
As other (even positive) reviews have stated, there isn't a strong sense of a theme throughout the book. The closest I could discern is that Nate Silver knows notable people and isn't afraid to name-drop, and that some elites of the world think about things in a Super Special Numerical way and that's what makes them elite. But lest you worry he thinks too highly of the elites, he occasionally tosses in examples of valid criticism from the rest of society. And don't worry, he alone is uniquely qualified to have a foot in both that elite circle (telling stories of parties and exclusive interviews he's had) and still rub shoulders with the rest of us.
Perhaps in an effort to not spurn his Silicon Valley friends, he also comes across as strangely uncritical of figures like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Sam Bankman-Fried, among others. These are people you can't 'both sides' your way around, or hedge an opinion towards, and it feels weaselly that he does.
[As a total aside for audiobook listeners: Silver does his own narration for this performance, and it is actively bad. Most punctuation is treated as a paragraph stop, to the extent that the latter halves of many sentences are confusing as sometimes I couldn't tell if it was a new paragraph or not. He also tries to imitate the voices of some people he references, notably Steve Wynn and Peter Thiel, in a way that I can only imagine is incredibly insulting to them. It was such a bad narration that I genuinely questioned his decision-making in other elements of the publishing process. You've been warned.]
I wouldn't in good conscience recommend this book to anyone, I certainly doubt I learned anything from it, and it's turned me off of paying attention to Silver's future endeavours. If you want to learn more about FTX I'd recommend Number Go Up, and if you want a better take on some of the concepts Silver covers in the book I'd recommend Rationality or Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World.
August 22, 2024
I generally like Nate Silver and appreciate his quant/stat approach to things, but this book was just a little too scattershot (when it wasn't spending too much time on Sam Bankman-Fried), and rather than presenting a cohesive thesis it seemed more like a collection of things that are interesting to Silver himself: poker, Silicon Valley, prediction markets, and most of all, lots of personal Nate Silver humblebrag anecdotes. Did you know that he plays poker and is very good at it? Don't worry, you'll be left in no doubt by the end of this book. Ditto on founding Five Thirty-Eight, etc.
Silver also misses a trick when analyzing many of the big risk-taking plutocrats of Silicon Valley, delving into psychology, what sorts of traits people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have in common, and so on. What is unfortunately neglected is any mention of, in Musk's case, the massive infusion of Federal loans that made Tesla possible (or the Federal subsidies that enable SpaceX, for that matter), and in Bezos' case, the massive infusion of cash that his parents gave him to keep Amazon from going out of business in the mid-1990s. Taking risks is necessary, but taking them is a whole lot easier when the consequences of failure aren't anything approaching existential (which, financially speaking, is the case for probably 80% of Americans, at a minimum).
Silver also misses a trick when analyzing many of the big risk-taking plutocrats of Silicon Valley, delving into psychology, what sorts of traits people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have in common, and so on. What is unfortunately neglected is any mention of, in Musk's case, the massive infusion of Federal loans that made Tesla possible (or the Federal subsidies that enable SpaceX, for that matter), and in Bezos' case, the massive infusion of cash that his parents gave him to keep Amazon from going out of business in the mid-1990s. Taking risks is necessary, but taking them is a whole lot easier when the consequences of failure aren't anything approaching existential (which, financially speaking, is the case for probably 80% of Americans, at a minimum).
August 16, 2024
Longer review to follow. Quick thoughts.
Overall, it’s good and the information is presented well but I think my sentiment is mostly one of disappointment that it wasn’t better. Nate doesn’t seem to say anything new or unique to his perspective. I’ve read all of his examples and most of the research other places. I don’t need to read Nate Silver’s interpretation of Philip Tetlock.
Overall, it’s good and the information is presented well but I think my sentiment is mostly one of disappointment that it wasn’t better. Nate doesn’t seem to say anything new or unique to his perspective. I’ve read all of his examples and most of the research other places. I don’t need to read Nate Silver’s interpretation of Philip Tetlock.
December 9, 2025
I really liked this book.
There’s a hidden world out there, called “The River” in which reside certain types of people who like to gamble and are comfortable with quantitative analysis. Nate Silver is your tour guide into this world.
I would struggle to summarize what Silver’s overall point was – I got a little lost in some of the overall themes and takeaways. But that doesn’t bother me, because I enjoyed the tour so much.
To start with, there was a ton of interesting information on gambling. Silver himself is a successful poker player and sports gambler. I loved hearing about the world of poker and how it evolved – stories about how the best poker players learned to gain an edge (sometimes by superior knowledge of the odds, and sometimes by understanding the human element of the game), and how increased computing power and “game theory” strategies changed things. There was also a great story about a famous poker hand between Robbi Jade Lew and Garrett Adelstein where people today still debate whether the only explanation for the mysterious events of that hand is that cheating happened.
I loved learning about the world of sports betting. How do these establishments make odds? Especially opening odds where you don’t have market data yet and companies run the risk of setting odds incorrectly and having knowledgeable betters take advantage of them. And how do the select few people who profitably bet on sports betting succeed? There was so much interesting stuff there.
Did you know there are some people who are professional slots machine players? Yes, there are even people out there who found a way to gain a slight edge over the house in slot machine gambling.
I lost interest a bit in the section on cryptocurrency, though I see why it had to be discussed. It’s just not something I’m particularly interested in and I have trouble understanding.
But the ending section on AI risk (and opportunities) was excellent. If you’ve never fully understood why some people are so worried about AI (or why some people aren't worried), you may find Silver’s clear and concise explanation helpful. He made some analogies to nuclear war risk, and what we’ve learned from that experience, that I think are insightful.
One thing that stood out to me is that when I think of “AI risk”, I think about the economic disruption of job losses which could also cause civil unrest and degradation of our institutions and culture. That’s really bad! But that’s not what AI researchers worry about. They worry about, literally, the destruction of the human race. Or scenarios that aren’t quite that bleak but still incredible to think about (“reduction of the global population to less than 5000”, “the destruction of humanity’s long-term potential”, and “coup or revolution involving some kind of violence or destruction” are some other scenarios discussed). And while Silver doesn’t think any of these scenarios are likely, he does agree each of them are a possibility. And some experts forecast a high probability of doom. Eliezer Yudkowsky, for instance, is almost 100% certain that humanity will literally go extinct by 2100.
So, it is certainly not a kooky belief to think AI is going to destroy civilization. Interestingly, while Silver acknowledges there is some material risk of this happening, he still says that even if he had the opportunity to throw the breaks on AI advancement, he wouldn’t do it. Because the opportunities are also amazing. Silver notes that 85% of the world lives on less than $30 a day, and AI could be something that could increase living standards dramatically.
Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you enjoy your holidays and try not to think about how there is a 5% or whatever chance of us all being annihilated by robots.
There’s a hidden world out there, called “The River” in which reside certain types of people who like to gamble and are comfortable with quantitative analysis. Nate Silver is your tour guide into this world.
I would struggle to summarize what Silver’s overall point was – I got a little lost in some of the overall themes and takeaways. But that doesn’t bother me, because I enjoyed the tour so much.
To start with, there was a ton of interesting information on gambling. Silver himself is a successful poker player and sports gambler. I loved hearing about the world of poker and how it evolved – stories about how the best poker players learned to gain an edge (sometimes by superior knowledge of the odds, and sometimes by understanding the human element of the game), and how increased computing power and “game theory” strategies changed things. There was also a great story about a famous poker hand between Robbi Jade Lew and Garrett Adelstein where people today still debate whether the only explanation for the mysterious events of that hand is that cheating happened.
I loved learning about the world of sports betting. How do these establishments make odds? Especially opening odds where you don’t have market data yet and companies run the risk of setting odds incorrectly and having knowledgeable betters take advantage of them. And how do the select few people who profitably bet on sports betting succeed? There was so much interesting stuff there.
Did you know there are some people who are professional slots machine players? Yes, there are even people out there who found a way to gain a slight edge over the house in slot machine gambling.
I lost interest a bit in the section on cryptocurrency, though I see why it had to be discussed. It’s just not something I’m particularly interested in and I have trouble understanding.
But the ending section on AI risk (and opportunities) was excellent. If you’ve never fully understood why some people are so worried about AI (or why some people aren't worried), you may find Silver’s clear and concise explanation helpful. He made some analogies to nuclear war risk, and what we’ve learned from that experience, that I think are insightful.
One thing that stood out to me is that when I think of “AI risk”, I think about the economic disruption of job losses which could also cause civil unrest and degradation of our institutions and culture. That’s really bad! But that’s not what AI researchers worry about. They worry about, literally, the destruction of the human race. Or scenarios that aren’t quite that bleak but still incredible to think about (“reduction of the global population to less than 5000”, “the destruction of humanity’s long-term potential”, and “coup or revolution involving some kind of violence or destruction” are some other scenarios discussed). And while Silver doesn’t think any of these scenarios are likely, he does agree each of them are a possibility. And some experts forecast a high probability of doom. Eliezer Yudkowsky, for instance, is almost 100% certain that humanity will literally go extinct by 2100.
So, it is certainly not a kooky belief to think AI is going to destroy civilization. Interestingly, while Silver acknowledges there is some material risk of this happening, he still says that even if he had the opportunity to throw the breaks on AI advancement, he wouldn’t do it. Because the opportunities are also amazing. Silver notes that 85% of the world lives on less than $30 a day, and AI could be something that could increase living standards dramatically.
Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you enjoy your holidays and try not to think about how there is a 5% or whatever chance of us all being annihilated by robots.
August 30, 2024
This book has a strong feeling of confirmation bias in which Silver thinks everything his analogy is a Hammer that finds nails everywhere.
I'd think a book about gambling, Venture Capital, statistics, and EA would appeal, but it does a relative poor job elucidating much actual insight about these distinct businesses or ideas.
I'd think a book about gambling, Venture Capital, statistics, and EA would appeal, but it does a relative poor job elucidating much actual insight about these distinct businesses or ideas.
August 21, 2024
Everyone knows that in poker, players call too frequently. Thing is, players also don't raise enough.
An interesting book about poker, crypto, and venture capital. My only criticism is that anyone who would care about this stuff already knows it from reading the news. It would be like the perfect book for anyone who has been offline since the pandemic and needs a speedy refresher on what has happened in pop culture. The sections on sbf are gratuitous and kind of break up the throughline from risk taking to AI.
Interesting factoids:
- A top 200 poker player could have a ten year losing streak (under reasonable assumptions of bankroll, play frequency etc). That's how risky it is.
- Thiel thinks all the alpha is gone from statistics and numerical analysis
- There is a huge herd mentality in VC, a keynesian beauty contest, where people are trying to estimate how attractive other people will think an investment is
- Sbf blames his poor performance on the poor quality of vegan delivery food in the Bahamas
- If you read the audiobook version nate silver imitates roon's voice!
An interesting book about poker, crypto, and venture capital. My only criticism is that anyone who would care about this stuff already knows it from reading the news. It would be like the perfect book for anyone who has been offline since the pandemic and needs a speedy refresher on what has happened in pop culture. The sections on sbf are gratuitous and kind of break up the throughline from risk taking to AI.
Interesting factoids:
- A top 200 poker player could have a ten year losing streak (under reasonable assumptions of bankroll, play frequency etc). That's how risky it is.
- Thiel thinks all the alpha is gone from statistics and numerical analysis
- There is a huge herd mentality in VC, a keynesian beauty contest, where people are trying to estimate how attractive other people will think an investment is
- Sbf blames his poor performance on the poor quality of vegan delivery food in the Bahamas
- If you read the audiobook version nate silver imitates roon's voice!
August 16, 2024
I enjoyed this book a lot. Very fun and engaging without losing intellectual depth. If my rating was on only enjoyment it would get a 4/5. However, this book’s organization leaves a lot to be desired. I wish Silver could’ve written the three separate books he obviously wanted to: a history of Vegas and extended gambling, a risk profile of Silicon Valley mavericks, and an intellectual biography of EA with SBF at the center. All three would’ve been outstanding 200 page books. Instead we got one bloated ~560 page book. Would recommend though!
April 5, 2025
Nate Silver's previous book, The Signal and the Noise, has the distinction of being a book that made me see things from an entirely different perspective. On the Edge is less cohesive—in fact it's quite long and very far-ranging, covering poker, sports betting, venture capital, cryptocurrency, AI, and democracy. With so much going on, it didn't necessary contain one lightning bolt idea; still it's very engaging and full of interesting smaller ideas. My husband has been reading the book, too, and we have been talking about it non-stop.
There so much to choose from, that I'm just going to structure this review as as sampling of the ones that stood out to me, in bulleted format.
* Being a professional gambler is challenging, risky, and a huge amount of work. Even Nate Silver, a semi-professional player with several other jobs, has a poker coach. People who bet on a sports for a living have to do things like build their own statistical models and read every single tweet about the NBA all day long. Some days you will lose—some years you will lose. As far as I can tell, the only real reason to do this is because you are the kind of anti-authoritarian, natural-born risk taker who simply can't live in the 9-to-5 world.
* Many situations, in poker and in life, are what Silver calls "raise-or-fold." You're often better off either confidently pursuing your desires or simply getting out and waiting for something better. Just hanging around while your resources slowly bleed away can often be the worst option.
* Silver has an ongoing thesis that gambling fills a void created by the modern lack of risky activities like going to war, and that people don't actually respond to visions of a socialist utopia where all needs are provided for. "Where are the things I like—the poker games, the sporting events, the sushi flown in from Japan? And doesn't this all sound a little...boring?" I think this is an idea that the political left ignores to its detriment (and one that Orwell brings up quite often too).
* Most people could be taking more risks. Silver's not advocating that people risk their livelihoods on insane long-shots (though he acknowledges that people who do are often the ones who move humanity forward). But he thinks that people would benefit from thinking about risk more probabilistically and understanding when "a relatively remote chance is worth taking if it has sufficiently high payoff."
* Finally, Silver sees risk-taking as another partisan divider, increasing the distance between the River (his name for a community of risk-takers, many of whom are right-leaning or libertarian) and the Village (academics, government workers, and other risk-adverse liberals). "Instead of a bell-curve of risk-taking where most people fall someone toward the middle, you have [Elon] Musk at one extreme and people who haven't left their apartment since COVID on the other one. The Village and the River are growing apart."
There so much to choose from, that I'm just going to structure this review as as sampling of the ones that stood out to me, in bulleted format.
* Being a professional gambler is challenging, risky, and a huge amount of work. Even Nate Silver, a semi-professional player with several other jobs, has a poker coach. People who bet on a sports for a living have to do things like build their own statistical models and read every single tweet about the NBA all day long. Some days you will lose—some years you will lose. As far as I can tell, the only real reason to do this is because you are the kind of anti-authoritarian, natural-born risk taker who simply can't live in the 9-to-5 world.
* Many situations, in poker and in life, are what Silver calls "raise-or-fold." You're often better off either confidently pursuing your desires or simply getting out and waiting for something better. Just hanging around while your resources slowly bleed away can often be the worst option.
* Silver has an ongoing thesis that gambling fills a void created by the modern lack of risky activities like going to war, and that people don't actually respond to visions of a socialist utopia where all needs are provided for. "Where are the things I like—the poker games, the sporting events, the sushi flown in from Japan? And doesn't this all sound a little...boring?" I think this is an idea that the political left ignores to its detriment (and one that Orwell brings up quite often too).
* Most people could be taking more risks. Silver's not advocating that people risk their livelihoods on insane long-shots (though he acknowledges that people who do are often the ones who move humanity forward). But he thinks that people would benefit from thinking about risk more probabilistically and understanding when "a relatively remote chance is worth taking if it has sufficiently high payoff."
* Finally, Silver sees risk-taking as another partisan divider, increasing the distance between the River (his name for a community of risk-takers, many of whom are right-leaning or libertarian) and the Village (academics, government workers, and other risk-adverse liberals). "Instead of a bell-curve of risk-taking where most people fall someone toward the middle, you have [Elon] Musk at one extreme and people who haven't left their apartment since COVID on the other one. The Village and the River are growing apart."
October 26, 2024
On the Edge : The Art of Risking Everything (2024) by Nate Silver blends poker, AI and the fate of humanity via the study of risk and people who analytically evaluate and take risks.
Silver is probably best known as the author of 538, a website that did statistical election projection and projections for various sports. He is also a successful professional poker player and has managed to make money from sports betting.
The book maps out the world and creates two amorphous groups. The river, is people who evaluate risk, calculate expected values and take more risks, the village is people who are more conservative, are more part of the establishment and respect credentials more. The river is where professional gamblers are, the village has people who go into working for the government.
The book has two parts, the first is ‘Gambling’, the second part is on ‘Risk’. The first part has Silver talking to a lot of professional gamblers. He talks with many successful poker players. He discusses possible cheating incidents, people who manage to play slots machines successfully, sports gamblers and others. Silver is really in his element and many of the discussions are very interesting. There is also a quote from Kenny Rogers for anyone who was wondering if there was.
There is a short ‘Halftime’ part which describes habits of highly successful risk takers.
In the second part, on Risk, Silver turns his attention to Silicon Valley, Effective Altruism, Sam Bankman Fried (SBF) an AI. Silver sees people who risk everything to make companies as being closer to people in the river than those in the village. Certainly with SBF this comparison is very valid. The book does also discuss how traders are often sympathetic to the river. Silver talks to Eli Yudkowsky about the risk of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and the probability of doom. There is also an interview with Sam Altman.
The book perhaps overdoes the similarity between people who work very hard to build something new and gamblers. There is risk, but there is also a determination to create something of real value. No doubt some of the rich founders gamble, but these companies require enormous amount of effort and skill on behalf of their employees and this is different to risk taking.
The discussion of taking expected value calculations to the extreme with SBF and regarding AI doom is interesting. The skepticism of people on the river of their own models in extremis and the way in which SBF bankrupted FTX is a good comparison. The discussion of AI doom is worth reading as well. Silver makes something there too of the innate skepticism of people who live on the river.
On the Edge is an engaging, well written book that has a heap of interesting interviews with successful gamblers and interesting entrepreneurs and people who work on AI in Silicon Valley. It’s well written and should appeal to both denizens of the river, the village and those in between.
Silver is probably best known as the author of 538, a website that did statistical election projection and projections for various sports. He is also a successful professional poker player and has managed to make money from sports betting.
The book maps out the world and creates two amorphous groups. The river, is people who evaluate risk, calculate expected values and take more risks, the village is people who are more conservative, are more part of the establishment and respect credentials more. The river is where professional gamblers are, the village has people who go into working for the government.
The book has two parts, the first is ‘Gambling’, the second part is on ‘Risk’. The first part has Silver talking to a lot of professional gamblers. He talks with many successful poker players. He discusses possible cheating incidents, people who manage to play slots machines successfully, sports gamblers and others. Silver is really in his element and many of the discussions are very interesting. There is also a quote from Kenny Rogers for anyone who was wondering if there was.
There is a short ‘Halftime’ part which describes habits of highly successful risk takers.
In the second part, on Risk, Silver turns his attention to Silicon Valley, Effective Altruism, Sam Bankman Fried (SBF) an AI. Silver sees people who risk everything to make companies as being closer to people in the river than those in the village. Certainly with SBF this comparison is very valid. The book does also discuss how traders are often sympathetic to the river. Silver talks to Eli Yudkowsky about the risk of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and the probability of doom. There is also an interview with Sam Altman.
The book perhaps overdoes the similarity between people who work very hard to build something new and gamblers. There is risk, but there is also a determination to create something of real value. No doubt some of the rich founders gamble, but these companies require enormous amount of effort and skill on behalf of their employees and this is different to risk taking.
The discussion of taking expected value calculations to the extreme with SBF and regarding AI doom is interesting. The skepticism of people on the river of their own models in extremis and the way in which SBF bankrupted FTX is a good comparison. The discussion of AI doom is worth reading as well. Silver makes something there too of the innate skepticism of people who live on the river.
On the Edge is an engaging, well written book that has a heap of interesting interviews with successful gamblers and interesting entrepreneurs and people who work on AI in Silicon Valley. It’s well written and should appeal to both denizens of the river, the village and those in between.
October 1, 2024
Silver, of The Signal and The Noise and founder of forecasting outlet 538, has dropped his latest book as the 2024 election season approaches its climax. The conceit at the center of the book is the increasingly salient divide between the risk-tolerant disrupters (The River) and the risk-averse establishment (The Village). In this spirit, Silver shares his personal approach to getting an edge and handling uncertainty in everyday life and professionally. The book is surprisingly more memoiristic and journalistic than one would expect. This contrasts with The Signal and The Noise, which is mostly a practical-guide to forecasting informed by Bayesian approaches and a critique of the epistemology of many modern experts. In this regard, it was quite similar to a number of Nassim Taleb's books.
Silver obviously has a gambling itch and seeks to defend the pursuit of "positive expected value" in the face of significant risk. However, he also outlines how to figure out what risks are reasonable and unreasonable and where unleashed utilitarianism breaks down. This is illustrated via his extended coverage of his experiences with SBF and among others in the EA community.
Silver expresses concern about the increasing aversion to risk in American. He worries it may eventually become a real roadblock to innovation, progress, and prosperity. However, he also understands the discomfort created by members of The River. He offers cogent critiques of the flaws of Riverian figures like SBF, Musk, Thiel, etc. He also voices concerns about enabling thoughtless and emotional risk-taking, critiquing some of the addictive gamification of activities with net costs to most participants: slots, day trading, sports betting apps, and certain social media contexts.
Ultimately, this is a substantial and engaging work that deserves a close read and communicates a lot of valuable information about Silver's personal learning experiences and his expertise in forecasting and risk.
Silver obviously has a gambling itch and seeks to defend the pursuit of "positive expected value" in the face of significant risk. However, he also outlines how to figure out what risks are reasonable and unreasonable and where unleashed utilitarianism breaks down. This is illustrated via his extended coverage of his experiences with SBF and among others in the EA community.
Silver expresses concern about the increasing aversion to risk in American. He worries it may eventually become a real roadblock to innovation, progress, and prosperity. However, he also understands the discomfort created by members of The River. He offers cogent critiques of the flaws of Riverian figures like SBF, Musk, Thiel, etc. He also voices concerns about enabling thoughtless and emotional risk-taking, critiquing some of the addictive gamification of activities with net costs to most participants: slots, day trading, sports betting apps, and certain social media contexts.
Ultimately, this is a substantial and engaging work that deserves a close read and communicates a lot of valuable information about Silver's personal learning experiences and his expertise in forecasting and risk.
October 12, 2024
The ‘river’ and ‘village’ distinction is real and useful. Riverites are that crowd with outposts in EA / rationalist / Bay Area tech scenes; the kinds who go to house parties to argue with one another over music; Jacobins to the village's cultural aristocracy.
Per Andy Masley, Silver gets the ‘avante garde EA’ crowd of people who care about some subset of AI risks, futurism, forecasting, and being borderline-obnoxiously analytical and quantitative about ethics. He gets it because, being a proud riverite, he's more insider than outsider.
For narcissism of small differences reasons I found a lot of Nate's commentary a bit annoying and superficial, and it's too scattered to add up to much more than a bunch of journalistic sketches. Still, very readable.
Per Andy Masley, Silver gets the ‘avante garde EA’ crowd of people who care about some subset of AI risks, futurism, forecasting, and being borderline-obnoxiously analytical and quantitative about ethics. He gets it because, being a proud riverite, he's more insider than outsider.
For narcissism of small differences reasons I found a lot of Nate's commentary a bit annoying and superficial, and it's too scattered to add up to much more than a bunch of journalistic sketches. Still, very readable.
May 8, 2025
Noen har kanskje hørt om forfatteren av boka, den politiske analytikeren Nate Silver.
Silver grunnla den fantastiske prediksjon-og-nerdenettsiden 538.com (RIP), og er mest kjent i offentligheten for å predikere det amerikanske presidentvalget presist ved flere anledninger.
Det ikke så mange vet er at Nate Silver også er ganske flink i poker. Etter å ha lest boka er det umulig å ikke få med seg at Nate Silver er ganske flink i poker – dette får han nemlig fram både i klartekst og mellom linjene på annenhver side.
Hva jeg håpet å få servert her var noe halvveis vitenskapelig om hvordan vi mennesker forholder oss til risiko, i strukturert og anvendelig format a là verdens beste selvhjelpsbok, Thinking Fast and Slow.
Dessverre er dette først og fremst en litt rotete samling anekdoter om poker, statistikk, politisk analyse og Nate Silvers privatliv, i en bok som bærer preg av at veien ble til mens man gikk.
Men hey: jeg er en enkel fyr. Poker er gøy, statistikk er gøy og politisk analyse er gøy. Og Nate Silver er en ok+ spennende type.
Så får det bare være at det er mye snikskryt og lite rød tråd – skal man holde seg unna bøker fra smånarcissistiske forfattere er det ikke mye igjen å lese.
Silver grunnla den fantastiske prediksjon-og-nerdenettsiden 538.com (RIP), og er mest kjent i offentligheten for å predikere det amerikanske presidentvalget presist ved flere anledninger.
Det ikke så mange vet er at Nate Silver også er ganske flink i poker. Etter å ha lest boka er det umulig å ikke få med seg at Nate Silver er ganske flink i poker – dette får han nemlig fram både i klartekst og mellom linjene på annenhver side.
Hva jeg håpet å få servert her var noe halvveis vitenskapelig om hvordan vi mennesker forholder oss til risiko, i strukturert og anvendelig format a là verdens beste selvhjelpsbok, Thinking Fast and Slow.
Dessverre er dette først og fremst en litt rotete samling anekdoter om poker, statistikk, politisk analyse og Nate Silvers privatliv, i en bok som bærer preg av at veien ble til mens man gikk.
Men hey: jeg er en enkel fyr. Poker er gøy, statistikk er gøy og politisk analyse er gøy. Og Nate Silver er en ok+ spennende type.
Så får det bare være at det er mye snikskryt og lite rød tråd – skal man holde seg unna bøker fra smånarcissistiske forfattere er det ikke mye igjen å lese.
August 28, 2024
Reversion to the Trend
On the Edge is two books sewn together by the thinnest of threads. It begins with an enjoyable deep-dive into gambling society through interviews and the author’s first-hand experiences. Betting is an activity defined by assessing probabilities. One’s long-term success in such a career is dependent on accurate mathematics. Wielding entertaining anecdotes, the author explains game theory and teaches the theory of large numbers. His behind-the-scenes understanding of the betting industry further bolsters his credibility, and while all poker stories were insightful, the analysis of the sports gambling platforms was illuminating. Regardless of arbitrage opportunities, mathematical model design, or even insider information, finding a counterparty to bet against is the real challenge.
Michael Burry also struggled to find banks willing to allow him to short the American mortgage sector, scenes of which were immortalized in The Big Short. These similarities led the author to naturally segue to Wall Street, where hedge fund managers and derivatives traders create and sell risk in the form of tranched securities. Again, On the Edge dives into the mindset of folks who assess risk as a career, though it quickly gets sidetracked into cryptocurrency. There, the author loses the plot and gets sucked into superficial gossip. His interviews with Sam Bankman-Fried are all about personality and public personas, rather than showcasing how cryptocurrency was repeating the same banking mistakes of the unregulated past by inappropriately hedging against risk.
Then On the Edge tackles AI and Silicon Valley, neither of which has anything to do with probabilities and risk analysis. Venture capital funds are diversified, but for the rest, the author blurs method and outcome. He spends half the book discussing AI existential risk as if repeating the term “p(doom)” makes the topic sufficiently related to his original subject matter. The AI industry is not about the mechanics of probability. Successfully writing another line of code or training another model isn’t about rolling the dice with advantages. One can forecast any outcome as a percentage chance. You could model my likelihood of waking up at six, seven, or eight AM. That doesn’t mean assessing risk will improve the success of my sleep cycle!
I suspect that during the writing process, news broke about ChatGPT, and either the author or the publisher decided they needed to cover the latest trend. The book’s first half contains a well-researched, reasoned, and insightful discussion of “The River,” casinos and sports gambling. The latter half is philosophical wankery over effective altruism, gossip about the flaws of the crypto-industry, and reactionary punditry about AI. While the author is articulate, and his quantitative analysis supports his contrarian takes, I remain unimpressed. There are very few facts, just opinions and interviews with people who have opinions — all of which are USA-centric. On the Edge is weighed down by the politics and punditry of 2023-2024, making it quickly irrelevant. What a shame. It started so well.
Recommended, but only the first half.
On the Edge is two books sewn together by the thinnest of threads. It begins with an enjoyable deep-dive into gambling society through interviews and the author’s first-hand experiences. Betting is an activity defined by assessing probabilities. One’s long-term success in such a career is dependent on accurate mathematics. Wielding entertaining anecdotes, the author explains game theory and teaches the theory of large numbers. His behind-the-scenes understanding of the betting industry further bolsters his credibility, and while all poker stories were insightful, the analysis of the sports gambling platforms was illuminating. Regardless of arbitrage opportunities, mathematical model design, or even insider information, finding a counterparty to bet against is the real challenge.
Michael Burry also struggled to find banks willing to allow him to short the American mortgage sector, scenes of which were immortalized in The Big Short. These similarities led the author to naturally segue to Wall Street, where hedge fund managers and derivatives traders create and sell risk in the form of tranched securities. Again, On the Edge dives into the mindset of folks who assess risk as a career, though it quickly gets sidetracked into cryptocurrency. There, the author loses the plot and gets sucked into superficial gossip. His interviews with Sam Bankman-Fried are all about personality and public personas, rather than showcasing how cryptocurrency was repeating the same banking mistakes of the unregulated past by inappropriately hedging against risk.
Then On the Edge tackles AI and Silicon Valley, neither of which has anything to do with probabilities and risk analysis. Venture capital funds are diversified, but for the rest, the author blurs method and outcome. He spends half the book discussing AI existential risk as if repeating the term “p(doom)” makes the topic sufficiently related to his original subject matter. The AI industry is not about the mechanics of probability. Successfully writing another line of code or training another model isn’t about rolling the dice with advantages. One can forecast any outcome as a percentage chance. You could model my likelihood of waking up at six, seven, or eight AM. That doesn’t mean assessing risk will improve the success of my sleep cycle!
I suspect that during the writing process, news broke about ChatGPT, and either the author or the publisher decided they needed to cover the latest trend. The book’s first half contains a well-researched, reasoned, and insightful discussion of “The River,” casinos and sports gambling. The latter half is philosophical wankery over effective altruism, gossip about the flaws of the crypto-industry, and reactionary punditry about AI. While the author is articulate, and his quantitative analysis supports his contrarian takes, I remain unimpressed. There are very few facts, just opinions and interviews with people who have opinions — all of which are USA-centric. On the Edge is weighed down by the politics and punditry of 2023-2024, making it quickly irrelevant. What a shame. It started so well.
Recommended, but only the first half.
August 29, 2024
I maybe should give this 4 stars. I think that for the people who aren't super familiar with what's in the book this would be a 4 star good book. I kind of already knew the deal though so it was a 3 star reading experience for me.
What's good
I agree with Nate that effective altruists are cool and hip anti-establishment Riverians not unlike The Gambler in Kenny Rogers's "The Gambler."
This book is a much better and more accurate introduction to how EAs actually think and act and see the world than most popular writing about it. The criticisms were all fair. This is probably because Nate is one of us.
I agree that what separates "The Establishment" (pejorative) from "the cool kids" is that the establishment doesn't think in terms of EV and potential future value, and doesn't value risk enough.
This book had a ton of useful intuition pumps for some of the most important ideas about how to think that I've read anywhere.
He's just like me fr
What's bad
I found a lot of the examples very repetitive and tedious. Too many famous people built up to be cool and dolling out some one-liners about risk in their interviews. Too many tangents that go nowhere beyond "this person's so quirky and different, and oh they think about risk."
The river and village thing gets pretty strained from overuse.
I mostly picked up a lot of the ideas here from his blog and the interviews didn't add much.
The book felt super sprawling and unfocused. Could've used a lot of editing. Found myself getting bored a lot.
Overall
Nate Silver is "Just like me fr" so I'm rooting for him. I'm happy this book exists and hope more people get into this style of thinking because of it. It wasn't a great reading experience for me though.
What's good
I agree with Nate that effective altruists are cool and hip anti-establishment Riverians not unlike The Gambler in Kenny Rogers's "The Gambler."
This book is a much better and more accurate introduction to how EAs actually think and act and see the world than most popular writing about it. The criticisms were all fair. This is probably because Nate is one of us.
I agree that what separates "The Establishment" (pejorative) from "the cool kids" is that the establishment doesn't think in terms of EV and potential future value, and doesn't value risk enough.
This book had a ton of useful intuition pumps for some of the most important ideas about how to think that I've read anywhere.
He's just like me fr
What's bad
I found a lot of the examples very repetitive and tedious. Too many famous people built up to be cool and dolling out some one-liners about risk in their interviews. Too many tangents that go nowhere beyond "this person's so quirky and different, and oh they think about risk."
The river and village thing gets pretty strained from overuse.
I mostly picked up a lot of the ideas here from his blog and the interviews didn't add much.
The book felt super sprawling and unfocused. Could've used a lot of editing. Found myself getting bored a lot.
Overall
Nate Silver is "Just like me fr" so I'm rooting for him. I'm happy this book exists and hope more people get into this style of thinking because of it. It wasn't a great reading experience for me though.
January 14, 2025
Provides an interesting profile of the culture around gamblers and risk takers but really starts to meander in the second half and fizzles out without anything thought provoking to say.
It does what it sets out to do but doesn’t tie together the theme of living on the edge very well
It does what it sets out to do but doesn’t tie together the theme of living on the edge very well
February 1, 2025
Really interesting book. I like the format a lot and especially like the gambling/game theory sections. The p(doom) stuff makes me depressed and I stopped reading it late at night because of that.
September 8, 2024
Reading the other reviews highlights that Silver is a bit of a lightening rod for other people’s complaints.
The book is a tour of how those in the “River” think about their decision making processes, with lite background on whether the academic literature supports their views or not. Those complaining about cohesion clearly failed to see the careful arc from the world of the more solved and quantifiable into the world of the almost entirely speculative, where people are nonetheless still trying to quantify.
I thought Silver was far too credulous of AI doomers and he has every tool to know better. But as far as a narrative thread, ending with such an emblematically unanchored attempt by many to put probabilities on science fiction risks is an intentional and reasonable end to the tour.
I think at the end of the day Silver just doesn’t tell you what he thinks in a unified way because a) the appropriate blend of quantitative and risk taking in any given context is just that, contextual b) these were all different angles on models and modeling of decision making and as he says repeatedly, models are flawed and you use them as starting points to make better informed decisions and adjust them accordingly, so the reader should be doing just that as they read, and c) he doesn’t want to tell you what to think about this, he wants you to think about the overall method and go from there.
This is a thought piece and should be judged as such. It’s like having a conversation with the author. If you want an academic treatment go read an academic book.
The book is a tour of how those in the “River” think about their decision making processes, with lite background on whether the academic literature supports their views or not. Those complaining about cohesion clearly failed to see the careful arc from the world of the more solved and quantifiable into the world of the almost entirely speculative, where people are nonetheless still trying to quantify.
I thought Silver was far too credulous of AI doomers and he has every tool to know better. But as far as a narrative thread, ending with such an emblematically unanchored attempt by many to put probabilities on science fiction risks is an intentional and reasonable end to the tour.
I think at the end of the day Silver just doesn’t tell you what he thinks in a unified way because a) the appropriate blend of quantitative and risk taking in any given context is just that, contextual b) these were all different angles on models and modeling of decision making and as he says repeatedly, models are flawed and you use them as starting points to make better informed decisions and adjust them accordingly, so the reader should be doing just that as they read, and c) he doesn’t want to tell you what to think about this, he wants you to think about the overall method and go from there.
This is a thought piece and should be judged as such. It’s like having a conversation with the author. If you want an academic treatment go read an academic book.
December 8, 2024
I like Nate Silver. I enjoy his prognostications, admire his mathematical and gambling expertise and feel that some of the large philosophical questions he raises in this book regarding topics like artificial intelligence really are interesting to address. He divides the world into the "Riverians" - risk takers constantly looking for a positive expected value based on the imputed odds in a situation and the "Villagers" the mopey folks who tend to value stability, comfort, maintaining the status quo, etc.
So why only 3 stars? Well for starters it could be trimmed by about 30% with the removal of the repetitive and draggy material scattered throughout. Next, I happen to hate footnotes unless they are used only to credit a specific source of information. To use it as this book does, to expand, to explain, to digress is rally annoying. To have to switch down to the tiny print at the bottom of the page really interrupts the flow of the read and gives a herky-jerky sensation to the prose. Also, for some reason the author likes to enclose portions of the text in gray boxes, to what end I am not really sure. Did not seem to me to me necessary to isolate it from the other material.
So 4 stars for the topics and contents, 2 stars for the presentation gives us the 3.
So why only 3 stars? Well for starters it could be trimmed by about 30% with the removal of the repetitive and draggy material scattered throughout. Next, I happen to hate footnotes unless they are used only to credit a specific source of information. To use it as this book does, to expand, to explain, to digress is rally annoying. To have to switch down to the tiny print at the bottom of the page really interrupts the flow of the read and gives a herky-jerky sensation to the prose. Also, for some reason the author likes to enclose portions of the text in gray boxes, to what end I am not really sure. Did not seem to me to me necessary to isolate it from the other material.
So 4 stars for the topics and contents, 2 stars for the presentation gives us the 3.
July 13, 2025
Smooth read, a manifest + sociological account of relatively risk-seeking subcultures, from the rational to the insane (poker, sports betting, gambling, VC, crypto, ambitious philanthropy).
I don't care much about poker or sports betting. It feels like such a waste for society that engineers and scientists quit their jobs to become poker players, sport bettors, or otherwise spend their productive years on gaining an edge over casinos or degens, something that Silver celebrates (though not fully unapologetically, e.g. making a defense for slot machines). I don't know, Moneyball plausibly had a large and positive impact on society, so maybe I'm underrating the cultural aspect of it all. Nate Silver's work and that of the other poker intellectuals might prove my disapproval wrong. I just wish prediction markets were bigger and would swallow up all this intelligence and hype for more useful purposes.
It was cool and unexpected to see him engage so much with effective altruism and existential risk concerns. He does a reasonable job, though also it sometimes feels a bit rushed and like he could have improved his reasoning by spending only slightly more of a back and forth with the relevant people. One example is the false dilemma he ends his final chapter with, either stopping AI forever or going full steam ahead, as if those are the two choices.
I didn't 100% feel the three principles for the subculture Silver identified:
1) Agency - Ability to develop good options for action
2) Pluralism - No dominant ideological perspective, competition
3) Reciprocity - More cooperation tit-for-tat functional than egalitarianism
I'd maybe summarize the ideology and the social cluster with:
1) Competitiveness & meritocracy
2) Disagreeableness and independence
3) Individualism
I don't care much about poker or sports betting. It feels like such a waste for society that engineers and scientists quit their jobs to become poker players, sport bettors, or otherwise spend their productive years on gaining an edge over casinos or degens, something that Silver celebrates (though not fully unapologetically, e.g. making a defense for slot machines). I don't know, Moneyball plausibly had a large and positive impact on society, so maybe I'm underrating the cultural aspect of it all. Nate Silver's work and that of the other poker intellectuals might prove my disapproval wrong. I just wish prediction markets were bigger and would swallow up all this intelligence and hype for more useful purposes.
It was cool and unexpected to see him engage so much with effective altruism and existential risk concerns. He does a reasonable job, though also it sometimes feels a bit rushed and like he could have improved his reasoning by spending only slightly more of a back and forth with the relevant people. One example is the false dilemma he ends his final chapter with, either stopping AI forever or going full steam ahead, as if those are the two choices.
I didn't 100% feel the three principles for the subculture Silver identified:
1) Agency - Ability to develop good options for action
2) Pluralism - No dominant ideological perspective, competition
3) Reciprocity - More cooperation tit-for-tat functional than egalitarianism
I'd maybe summarize the ideology and the social cluster with:
1) Competitiveness & meritocracy
2) Disagreeableness and independence
3) Individualism
June 26, 2025
should this book have been two books? does it have any coherence for a someone who isn't buying silver's "the river" metaphor? are there too many analogies? did he basically admit that the analogies are chatgpt?!?!?!!?
FOR ME, however, great book! i learned so much about the utility function representation of preferences and goddamn von neumann morganstern and never ever had it impounded into me why 1) the expected utility/value outlook of the world is interesting and heterodox or contrary or whatever - worthwhile of attention outside of a more commonsense intutiive expression 2) how this theory/philosophy of conceiving risk can be traced into the nonsensical and seemingly unrelated phenomena of our late stage capitalist world re: sports betting, the ai philosophers, vc chicanery, etc. like i get it. i'm buying the supertheory, i am tracing the red string on the bulletin board. i have seen the lord (the pod people - contrarian conformism) and like yet. i guess - i guess it's all true. that there is a schism between two powerful groups traditionally granted public trust and an increasingly embittered distrustful and marginalized proletariate torn between them. if i was writing historical fantasy i would write about the nobles and the clergy fighting. both think themselves endowed to higher moral power (providing and shepherding materially and militarily vs. spiritually) and yet by whatever twist and turn of incentives, at philosophical odds. anyways. it doesn't matter - it added color to my world. glad i didn't return it to the library yet even though it was overdue - i will do so today! forgive me for i have sinned.
FOR ME, however, great book! i learned so much about the utility function representation of preferences and goddamn von neumann morganstern and never ever had it impounded into me why 1) the expected utility/value outlook of the world is interesting and heterodox or contrary or whatever - worthwhile of attention outside of a more commonsense intutiive expression 2) how this theory/philosophy of conceiving risk can be traced into the nonsensical and seemingly unrelated phenomena of our late stage capitalist world re: sports betting, the ai philosophers, vc chicanery, etc. like i get it. i'm buying the supertheory, i am tracing the red string on the bulletin board. i have seen the lord (the pod people - contrarian conformism) and like yet. i guess - i guess it's all true. that there is a schism between two powerful groups traditionally granted public trust and an increasingly embittered distrustful and marginalized proletariate torn between them. if i was writing historical fantasy i would write about the nobles and the clergy fighting. both think themselves endowed to higher moral power (providing and shepherding materially and militarily vs. spiritually) and yet by whatever twist and turn of incentives, at philosophical odds. anyways. it doesn't matter - it added color to my world. glad i didn't return it to the library yet even though it was overdue - i will do so today! forgive me for i have sinned.
September 17, 2024
my initial impression picking this up from the library was that it is way too long. then, i started reading and realized it was indeed way too long. after a bit more, i confirmed this book was over written by a magnitude of several hundred pages because this man wanted to have his “you work on commission, right?” moment to all the political pundits who were mean to him. :(
overall, this book gave my PTSD flashbacks to being at my liberal arts college where in every class there was that one guy who let you know he thinks you’re stupid and just don’t get what he is saying when you disagree or point out a flaw in an argument.
overall, this book gave my PTSD flashbacks to being at my liberal arts college where in every class there was that one guy who let you know he thinks you’re stupid and just don’t get what he is saying when you disagree or point out a flaw in an argument.
April 12, 2025
This was a really interesting book from the perspective of just understanding people who think very differently than me. But the premise of the book that there is The River and The Village, and those people are in conflict seemed to not be a strong argument, and one Silver stopped emphasizing pretty quickly in the book. this felt more like a collection of interesting interviews and short stories. I think if you just take it from that perspective, along with not taking Silver too seriously, you can enjoy this book.
September 4, 2024
I really enjoyed most of this book. The beginning portions about poker were fascinating and made me pick up some online poker for a night (not for actual money, as I'm firmly in the "Village" and definitely not a Riverian!). It reminded me of college when I was surrounded by math majors/potential Riverians. Some parts of the book were slow, and I'm not sure whether the overall theme or message had much cohesion. And as a member of the Village, I do object to the idea that AI is worthwhile despite probability of doom being some range bigger than I would like to stomach, though I feel slightly more receptive after reading some of the arguments here. (Not that I'm against AI definitely, as I have no idea what the correct p(doom) is, but to the extent that it is a significant number, I'm not in favor!) Overall, it started strong and fizzled out some, and it was very very long.
March 19, 2025
This book had me with the gambling, lost me with the never ending information about Sam Bankman-Fried, and got me back with the topic of AI. Pretty good book though.
June 17, 2025
Took a while but I learned so much
May 3, 2025
I’d give it 3.5 if I could. First half was really interesting, parts of the second half dragged on - I really don’t care that much about billionaires and venture capitalists. The stuff on AI at the end was at least thought provoking and played both sides well. Also the authors narration style came off a bit cocky sometimes.
August 19, 2024
Really good! Great stories on risk takers both in venture and in poker. Much different than the signal and the noise, but if you like one you will like the other. I listened to the audiobook
August 27, 2024
Part one is written by a Slytherin who thinks he’s a Gryffindor. Part two is written by a Slytherin who thinks he’s a Ravenclaw. The author clearly still carries a chip on his shoulder about 2016 and those of us who think he “got it wrong” are just ignorant. A tedious book—and who is it for? Mocking voice impressions of all people he quotes = the worst and only made me find him more Slytherin-like (audiobook). Mildly interesting at times; does demonstrate some effort to cite women, but overall the book is intensely male-centric.
October 2, 2024
Five stars for ambition, maybe take a star away for some uneven execution (more on that later, who knows), but add another star for some delightfully weird digressions and meditations on Nate's grab-bag of interests. "Your goal in life is to be able to say on the day before you die that you have fully become yourself.”— Kevin Kelly; On the Edge is Fully Nate, in a good way.
I should go back and re-read (listen lol) to Signal and the Noise, but based on my faulty recollections, 2012 Nate was Statistics-pilled, ready for the advance of Models and the Insights (maybe even Truths?) they'd reveal. 2024 Nate is, in some ways, more confident -- his shit works for baseball and polls and poker and sports gambling, etc, etc -- but in other ways less certain, more probabilistic, less confident in Truths yet to be revealed. 2024 Nate is Markets-pilled; he's returned victorious from the NBA gambling mines, and he knows both that Edges are real and that Edges are vanishingly narrow.
Still forming some ... critiques? reactions? the short versions are
1) hasn't the River basically won? does On The Edge really grapple with the quantification of anything? might it lead you astray by presenting the River as a series of misfits?
2) +EV makes sense for large institutions, but is it
- correct? (many times the right play for an individual is to minimize risk of ruin, not maximize median returns --https://www.econtalk.org/luca-dellann...)
- meaningful, fulfilling, real? (is optimization any way to live?)
maybe more later!
I should go back and re-read (listen lol) to Signal and the Noise, but based on my faulty recollections, 2012 Nate was Statistics-pilled, ready for the advance of Models and the Insights (maybe even Truths?) they'd reveal. 2024 Nate is, in some ways, more confident -- his shit works for baseball and polls and poker and sports gambling, etc, etc -- but in other ways less certain, more probabilistic, less confident in Truths yet to be revealed. 2024 Nate is Markets-pilled; he's returned victorious from the NBA gambling mines, and he knows both that Edges are real and that Edges are vanishingly narrow.
Still forming some ... critiques? reactions? the short versions are
1) hasn't the River basically won? does On The Edge really grapple with the quantification of anything? might it lead you astray by presenting the River as a series of misfits?
2) +EV makes sense for large institutions, but is it
- correct? (many times the right play for an individual is to minimize risk of ruin, not maximize median returns --https://www.econtalk.org/luca-dellann...)
- meaningful, fulfilling, real? (is optimization any way to live?)
maybe more later!
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