{"id":741220,"date":"2013-03-10T18:45:52","date_gmt":"2013-03-10T22:45:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/?p=618977"},"modified":"2013-03-10T18:45:52","modified_gmt":"2013-03-10T22:45:52","slug":"how-a-bad-fantasy-baseball-team-turned-nate-silver-into-americas-top-data-nerd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/741220","title":{"rendered":"How a bad fantasy baseball team turned Nate Silver into America\u2019s top data nerd"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nate Silver, writer for the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0and America’s favorite nerd, took the stage in Austin at SXSW on Sunday to talk about his favorite topic: data. Needless to say,\u00a0Silver’s had a few wins<\/a>\u00a0this year in that department.<\/p>

He recently published a book called\u00a0The Signal and the Noise<\/em><\/a>\u00a0that looks at the role data plays in our daily lives and the way we can use it to better understand the world around us. But speaking at a breakneck speed in front of a large audience in Austin on Sunday, Silver addressed\u00a0some fairly random topics and questions:<\/p>

1. Why the competition matters<\/strong><\/p>

“I\u2019ve tried to work in fields like\u00a0politics\u00a0and baseball where the competition is not very good.” Silver said the lesson is important for startups, too: if you’re doing the same service that 98 percent of your competitors provide, there’s less room for growth.<\/p>

2. On moving<\/strong><\/p>

“There were too many cool people moving to Brooklyn, so I had to move back to Manhattan.”<\/p>

3. Who would play Nate Silver if they make a FiveThirtyEight movie<\/strong><\/p>

“I really hope they don\u2019t make a movie about me. But I would think Brad Pitt. In terms of appearances.”<\/p>

4. How he got his start<\/strong><\/p>

“Initially\u00a0when I was a ten-year old I really wanted to build my fantasy baseball league. And I kept drafting … really crappy players and I didn\u2019t understand why I couldn\u2019t win. So with me it\u2019s often been about\u00a0competition, about wanting to win my NCAA tournament pool or my fantasy league.”<\/p>

5. On fame<\/strong><\/p>

“Ironically I think I\u2019m getting way too much credit now,” Silver says. “We\u2019re very results-oriented as a society.” Silver said he’ll become uncomfortable if FiveThirtyEight ever discourages people from voting as the predictions improve, something he’s discussed before.<\/p>

6. On the best way to pick a March Madness bracket:<\/strong><\/p>

“Travel distance matters a lot to performance.” Silver said that FiveThirtyEight does March Madness bracket predictions, but noted that people filling out their own should remember the\u00a0correlation\u00a0between travel distance and performance.<\/p>

7. On one of the hardest things to predict:<\/strong><\/p>

“We had a formula that tries to predict the numbers and it\u2019s only about 70 percent right,” Silver said of the Oscars. “That\u2019s a field where you don\u2019t have very good data available.”<\/p>

8.\u00a0Why he’s misunderstood by critics<\/strong><\/p>

“I think sometimes people mistake what I do as someone who’s saying everything we do is predicable\u2026. Whereas really I\u2019m more of a skeptic of prediction,” he said. “What I\u2019m actually doing is taking polls and averaging them and the fact that it\u2019s so\u00a0surprising\u00a0says a lot about where we have to go in terms of science\u00a0and\u00a0math.”<\/p>

9. The strangest model he’s ever been pitched on<\/strong><\/p>

“I got pitched one time by a guy who works for a cricket team in India and thinks there can be like a Moneyball revolution in Indian cricket. I wasn\u2019t too psyched about that.”<\/p>

10. One piece of data he uses to make decisions in everyday life<\/strong><\/p>

“Don\u2019t fly out of JFK in New York in the evening in the summer. If you fly out in the morning, and I\u2019m not a morning person, but you probably have a much better chance of not having delays cascade across the system.”<\/p>
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