David Morris

Nate Silver is a leading statistician and best-selling author known for his unique brand of creativity, journalism and statistical analysis. He is the founder of the award-winning website FiveThirtyEight, which was acquired by ESPN in 2013. The site relaunched as an ESPN entity on March 17, 2014, and expanded its coverage to include topics such as sports, economics, culture, science and technology, among others. FiveThirtyEight continues to provide data-driven coverage of politics, including forecasts of upcoming elections.

Silver has established himself as today’s leading statistician through his innovative analyses of political polling. He first gained national attention during the 2008 presidential election, when he correctly predicted the results of the presidential election in 49 of 50 states, along with all 35 U.S. Senate races. In 2012, FiveThirtyEight predicted the election outcome in all 50 states. FiveThirtyEight has made Nate the public face of statistical analysis and political forecasting.

His most recent book, The Signal and The Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail – But Some Don’t, is a New York Times bestseller. Before he came to politics, Nate established his credentials as an analyst of baseball statistics. He developed a widely acclaimed system called PECOTA (Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm), which predicts player performance, career development, and seasonal winners and losers. He is a co-author of a series of books on baseball statistics, which include Mind Game, Baseball Between the Numbers, and It Ain’t Over ’til It’s Over. Nate has written for ESPN.com, Sports Illustrated, Slate, Baseball Prospectus, Newsweek, The New York Post, and The Los Angeles Times.

Silver has earned a series of accolades. Fast Company chose Nate as No. 1 on their list of the 100 Most Creative People in Business 2013. He was among TIME’s 100 Most Influential People of 2009 and Rolling Stone’s 100 Agents of Change. In 2012 and 2013, FiveThirtyEight won Webby Awards as the “Best Political Blog.”