On the Edge
The Art of Risking Everything
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- USD 12.99
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- USD 12.99
Descripción editorial
AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
WITH A NEW PREFACE
'Masterly... Utterly compelling... A highly readable and engaging tour' Sam Freedman, The Times
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 group: 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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this free-wheeling outing, statistician and professional poker player Silver (The Signal and the Noise) explores what he calls "the River": people who make a living taking risks, from professional gamblers to venture capitalists. He pegs this group as a potent socioeconomic type—risk-tolerant, market-oriented, individualistic, contrarian—in opposition to "the Village," the risk-averse realm of government bureaucrats and academics. Silver opens with a cognitive analysis of poker, which requires both computer-like calculation and empathic perceptiveness; then he moves on to a dissection of the mentalities of risk-taking Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. Silver aims not just to serve as a "tour guide to the River" for outsiders but as a sage counselor to fellow "Riverians," whose triumphs Silver cautions are at risk from too much risk; FTX fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried is presented here as a cautionary tale against a recklessness that shades too far into nihilism (he once said he would wager the destruction of the world on a coin toss). While colorful and enlightening, Silver's narrative disconcerts with its blitheness about the system it's describing—a society built on gambling, for gamblers ("Those of us who understand the algorithms hold the trump cards"). It's eye-opening, but not quite as intended.
