On the Edge

On the Edge is a leaf non-fiction book in social science and recent history. The author, Nate Silver, is a well know political forecaster who came to prominence during the 2016 election. Additionally, Silver is a professional poker player in gambler. The central thesis of the book is that there are two dominant cultural institutions in current America: the River and the Village. The River group captures risk takers: gamblers, Wall Street tycoons, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. The Village is the historical institutions of America, the old school media, the political class, academia.

David Karpf, a research at Columbia, wrote a blistering take down of this book.

Cite

Silver, N. On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything. (Penguin Press, 2024).

Metadata

Title:: On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything Year:: 2024 Publisher:: Penguin Press ISBN:: 978-1-59420-412-8

Abstract

The Instant New York Times Bestseller“Engaging and entertaining… a glimpse of the economy of the future.” —Tim Wu, New York Times Book ReviewFrom 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,” the community of like-minded people 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 twenty-first century. By immersing himself in the worlds of Doyle Brunson, Peter Thiel, Sam Bankman-Fried, Sam Altman, and many others, Silver offers insight into a range of issues that affect us all, from the frontiers of finance to the future of AI. Most of us don’t have traits commonly found in the River: high tolerance for risk, appreciation of uncertainty, affinity for numbers—paired with an instinctive distrust of conventional wisdom and a competitive drive so intense it can border on irrational. For those in the River, complexity is baked in, and the work is how to navigate it. People in the River have increasing amounts of wealth and power in our society, and understanding their mindset—and the flaws in their thinking— is key to understanding what drives technology and the global economy today. Taking us behind the scenes from casinos to venture capital firms, and from the FTX inner sanctum to meetings of the effective altruism movement, On the Edge is a deeply reported, all-access journey into a hidden world of power bro­kers and risk-takers. .