Hour 2: Charles Barkey, Nate Silver, Dan, and Stewie
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Look at how good and healthy this man looks. Look at him drinking his healthy drinks. How good do you feel, Charles? Like, you're looking skinny again. You're looking healthy. How good do you feel, buddy? Hey, brother. Dr. Andrews told me no fat old people. Got to get my ass in shape, damn.

You've struggled with that, though, right? That's gone up and down over the years. Dr. Andrew's been telling you that for a long time. Yeah, but it didn't bother me when I was young. It bothered me now that I'm old.

It's nice to see you, buddy. It has been too long. Thank you for being on with us. I was going to say, I miss Charles Barkley. He used to join us all the time. He's not around as much as he used to be. I see him in Lake Tahoe. He gives me a hug, but I miss you, Charles. Hey, listen, all Dan got to do is call me. Oh.

That's all you got to do. You don't miss me, though. Dude, I always got love here. You know that. How did you react to the events of the weekend? Will there ever be a shooter like Steph Curry again? I know there hasn't been a shooter like Steph Curry, but will there ever be a shooter like Steph Curry again? That's a great question. I doubt it. Number one, his range.

Like, we've never had a player that once he steps across half courts, you have to guard him. I mean, that's the thing that's remarkable to me. Like, most guys, you're like, yeah, you can take that shot. We don't give a damn. You're going to shoot from three-quarter courts. It's good. But he makes them consistently. So, no, I don't know what the range. No. Because, number one, I don't think you would teach anybody that, Dan. Yeah.

Well, I don't even understand what I'm watching when I see him shoot with that kind of proficiency from that range. But how do you experience the game on Saturday? Like, where are you watching it and what is your reaction to, oh, Steph's got the ball and all of the best players in the world are going to make sure to get him the ball wherever it is that he is because everyone understands what they're watching and he needs to be the one shooting.

Yeah, you know, actually the last two games, I was actually visiting my grandkids. It was pretty cool. Shout out to little Henry and little Charlie, man. What a great weekend. But I made sure I wanted to watch both games. Because I told people when I was on the NBC last week, I said, Serbia is a dangerous game, man, because they played possum the first two games. They didn't care because they wouldn't melt around games. And I said, they got the best player in the world.

So they got to be ready to play because they didn't even care in that preseason game. And then the early round games, that those didn't matter. And I thought they'd be like, let's get the USA overconfident. And then we're going to punch him in the mouth when the game starts. And that's exactly what happened. And then obviously Steph took over down the stretch. And, and obviously yesterday, that was a heck of a game. Um,

They needed it all. But when he put on those displays the last couple of minutes, man, it was beautiful to watch. You know, I don't think the game should be that close personally because they waited for Serbia to play defense in the last quarter. They had to start the game like that. It would have been a much easier game. And I think, you know, France is not good enough to beat them. And so it was a great thing. And I've said this many times.

The Olympics are the greatest sporting event in the world. There's nothing comparable to it. Not the Super Bowl, not the World Championship. The Stanley Cup Finals is amazing. That's probably my favorite event, the Stanley Cup playoffs. But as far as the Olympics, Dan, Stu, it's the best thing I've ever been a part of.

You said you were critical of Kerr, and you said that they should not, that team should not be tested. And Kendrick Perkins said that was an asinine take, that of course they should be tested. Well, first of all, listen, don't bring up a guy who averaged five points a game. I'm not going to stoop to his level. You averaged five points a game. Shut the hell up.

Dan, let me ask you a question. Who was the second best player on Serbia? No, buddy. Look, I don't think they should have been tested either. No, my question was, number one, they got Joker, but the second best player on their team was Bogdanovic. Does Bogdanovic make the United States Olympic team under no circumstances did he make the Olympic team? I think they played too slow.

Because you could see what Joker was doing. He was milking the clock. He would take the ball out of bounds and roll it up the court. They turned a 40-minute game, basically, into like a 35, a 37-minute game. So they let him play slow. I think they should have played a lot faster. And, you know, every time we say something now, people go crazy. There's no reason for him not to play Jason Tatum.

Jason Tatum would have been the second best player on Serbia. Probably would have been the best player on France. For him not to get any minutes in two games, come on, man, that wasn't right. That wasn't fair. If you go into the Olympics, you want to play. You want to play. So I was disappointed Jason didn't get to play. I was disappointed in Halliburton, especially early. Like, if you want to shorten your rotation in the last couple of games, that's fine.

Them guys dedicated their summer to the United States to go over there and not get to play. I didn't like that at all. I'm curious what your take will be on something that Juju threw out there a couple of weeks ago, because I think you'd agree that you playing in the 90s, that you were a lot better than the people playing in the 50s. And Juju threw out a theory on our show that

You want to share this with Charles Juju or do I put you in a bad spot throwing this at Charles because he's not going to like this theory of yours. Never in a bad place. Chuck, you are a legend and you are one of my heroes. I live in Atlanta. Be easy on me. But I think that the South Sudan, the Sudanese basketball team will take

the dream team they would give y'all a long night I think they would beat y'all if we just go and compare it to these times because these people had to play against LeBron Steph Curry all these folks and took them to one point I understand y'all had Clyde to Clyde with the cul-de-sac but I just think that the roster winning Gabriel might have given Clyde a long night bro what you think oh boy

Winging Gabriel? Is he playing in the NBA? Answer the question, B-Bro. Don't deflect. Oh, no! No, no, no. I'm asking a question. You said a guy who's not even playing in the NBA. He's allowed? You know, we do have the best players in the NBA.

So you want me to say we would have trouble against a guy who's not even good enough to play in the NBA? Is that your question? No, I don't have a question. I'm making a statement, and I'm letting you know, brother, that... No, no, I'm just asking a question, and I'm not shooting you down, but I'm saying you're saying we would have had...

with a guy who's not even good enough to play in the NBA? Yes, sir. A long night. Long night. A long night. Okay. You know what? Hey, listen. I ain't going to shoot you down like that, but I think my question is fair.

If this guy was a really, really good player, wouldn't he be playing actually in the NBA for millions and millions and millions of dollars? But at some point, Charles, when we talk about athlete evolution, you agree with me, right? Everybody in the 90s would kick the ass of everybody in the 50s. So at some point in 2030, somebody's going to be able to say, well, I would have kicked Barkley's ass. Not Sudanese, though. Yeah, like a great, great player. But are you telling me

Somebody on the dream team this year was more athletic than Michael Jordan? No. Come on, man. Are you telling me somebody, like, you might say maybe LeBron, but there's nobody more athletic on this team here than Clyde. Like your boy just said, Clyde Drexler. Clyde Drexler's one of the best athletes we've ever had in the NBA. So this notion that these guys are more athletic is,

I don't. Come on, man. Michael Jordan. Are there five more athletic players than Michael Jordan in the NBA? No, no.

Come on, man. Let me ask you a question. Are there five more athletic players on the dream team here than Scottie Pippen from an athletic standpoint? Charles, athleticism, I don't understand Jokic being the best player in your sport. Because that's why Larry Bird was great. You can be smart and technically amazing.

Wait, Tom Brady was the most athletic quarterback ever. He's the greatest quarterback ever. Dan, I'm so glad you brought this up because you got that young fella there. These guys get so enamored by people who can run and jump. And my favorite thing is, so can a deer.

That doesn't mean you're going to be good at basketball. Hey, I love ESPN, but they break a two-hour masterpiece down to guys running and jumping and dunking and doing stuff like that. Joker is the best player. He cannot run anybody. He cannot jump anybody. But he might be the smartest. He's the best big man shooter ever for a center.

He's the best big man passer ever. He don't ever let you get away with these mismatches. Every time they put a little guy on him, he go right down in the post. The rest of these NBA players, they just jack up threes. I'm like, yo, man, if they're going to play defense where we switch everything, there's got to be mismatches all over the place. But these guys don't take advantage of it today. But like I say, Tom Brady,

He's the greatest quarterback ever. Please don't tell me you think he's the most athletic quarterback ever. Brains matter in sports, guys. Brains matter in sports. I tell people all the time, Charles, that you're not that much taller than I am, but you led the league in rebounding, at least in part, because your ass is where my shoulders are. And I can jump. I can jump, Dan. I was explosive.

Like I say, you know, everybody tells me, Dennis Rodman, who I really admire and respect. They say, Dennis Rodman's a great rebounder. I say, yeah, if he come out of retirement and get some more, he'll catch me. So it has way more to do. You got to have brains. You got to have a great work ethic. So don't be fooled by Drew Holliday's one of the best players in the NBA. Is he one of the most athletic guys in the NBA? No. But I think Drew Holliday's

He can play with me anytime, anywhere. But to say he's one of the more athletic players in the world would be a disservice. But he's one of the best in the world.

Can you explain to me, because I've been wanting to talk to you a while about this, I assumed as your friend that you were just emotional, bothered, hurt, and that's the reason that you retired publicly on television in the middle of the night when you deserve better than that. I don't think you were even on TNT. I think you were on another network. I assumed it's, oh, Charles is pissed off and he's just tired of how this hurts and so he's telling people that he's going to quit. What happened there? Uh,

It's about going to another network, Dan. I was mad because we lost the package. Let's get that out the way. But the notion that I got to go and break in another crew and go to another network, that wasn't in my DNA. Next year will be 25 years. And I talked to all the networks. I talked to all my friends. And the only thing they said to me, Dan, man, that's a lot of money.

That's a lot of money. And I was like, I've never did a job for money in my life, Dan. And I'm not going to start at 62. And to go to another network, breaking another crew, that's why I was, because like I say, I don't even know what the hell is going to happen after next year, Dan. I'm not even going to lie. I don't think anybody, we all lost the package. I'm mad we're suing.

If the girl want to break up with you and you got to file a lawsuit to keep her, it's time to move on. Okay. It's time to move on. So I think we've lost the package. I think everybody knows that Adam Silver, who's a great commissioner. I don't think he would have put himself in an awkward situation where he would lose a lawsuit. And I love Adam. I think he's awesome, but I think we've lost the package. I wasn't emotional. I was mad because we lost the package and,

But my anger was like, damn, man, do you want to go to ESPN? Do you want to go to Amazon? Do you want to go to NBC? And all my friends kept saying money, money, money. And then I never did a job in my entire life where money mattered to me, plain and simple. That's 100% truth. How about Metal Ark Media, Charles? What do you think? Since money doesn't matter.

Well, how much do you want me to work? Whatever you want, Charles. Wait, you guys every day? Just because Sugat has that deal doesn't mean Charles gets it. Unlimited vacation time, Charles. Hey, y'all work every day?

Monday through Friday. Dan does. That's every day, fool. That's every day. I have a couple of questions about the recruitment. Can you tell me, because you've got a 10-year deal with TNT, were any of the entities, ESPN, NBC, Amazon, offering more than that? Yes. But, so, Dan, the way my deal was structured was,

The way I structured it, I might add, I said, because they fought me for a minute. They're like, well, we don't want people to think y'all are leaving, so we want to sign you to a new deal. Because we want people to think y'all are going to be around. And I said, guys, there ain't no way in the hell. Me and Ernie agree. There's no way in the hell we're going to be here in 10 years. They're like, let's announce it so people think y'all are going to be around. I said, that's fine. But I said, what happens if y'all lose the NBA? They're like,

Well, we're not going to lose the NBA. I said, hey, I've seen worse. I've seen dumber decisions. I said, well, I want to be a free agent if we lose the NBA. They're like, we can't let you do that. And I said, no, no, I'm not signing a deal then. So we came to a compromise. And they said, what if we make you an offer to take a pay cut and you

That'll be fair. I said, that'll be fair. And I said, I don't know. Would that be fair? That would be the shortest conversation in the history of civilization. Number one, that would be a hundred percent fair. And that'll be a hundred percent shortest conversation in the history of mass media. Yeah.

So you've made some decisions because of money. So the money is not irrelevant. Well, I mean, why should I take a pay cut because they screwed up, Dan? Yep. You tell them, Charles. They messed up. They messed up. Why should I go way back down to the bottom because they screwed up? That's not fair. Especially if I knew other networks wanted me. So they came up to Philadelphia last week.

And they says, "Okay, let's talk." I says, "I'm listening." And they says, "We want to continue to do the show." I says, "What?" And the first thing I said, "We're going to keep all these people employed." They say, "Yes." I said, "What are we going to show?" They're like, "We don't know yet." And I said, "Wait a minute. What do you mean?" They says, "We got to be honest with you. We have no idea what we're going to show.

But we want to keep doing the show. And I said, hey, you know what? As long as I keep my friends employed, I'm good with it. I'm good with it. Now, it brings up another dilemma for me in my life, to be honest with you guys. I told him, I said, yo, man, I'm just not going to keep damn working. I love the people at TNT behind the scenes. But this don't mean I'm going to just keep working until I kill over on TV.

I said, it's going to be a year-to-year thing. Because, like I say, my number one priority was keeping people employed. Because, man, we got a couple hundred people who are going to lose their job because of the show. That sucks. I've got to know these people. I've been working with these people for 24 years. Some of these people have had kids who have graduated from college who I've known. They bought a man as newborns.

We always have the kids come in and meet me, Kenny, and Ernie, and Shaq before they go to the prom. Then they come back when they go to college and graduate away from college. So these people are my family, Dan and Stewie. So as long as I can keep these people employed, I was happy to stay another year. But like I say, it puts me in a really tricky situation because...

This is the third time we've actually had this conversation because I was originally supposed to retire at 60. But that was my magic number in my life because I know I'm on the back nine. Now, I'm hoping I'm on the 12th hole. But you never know, Dan. Hey, I could be on 17, 18. That's all good. Hey, that's all good. I've had a good run. That's a good run. Hell of a run. So then...

I told them, me and Ernie, like, okay, we'll stay till the new deal get done. And so that was my original plan all along. But I thought we were going to keep the NBA. So, Dan, you know, I'll never lie to you guys. That's exactly what happened verbatim. I had planned on retiring at 60. They asked me to stay till the end of the new deal. And I said, I'll do that. Me and Ernie both, we'll stay till the end of the deal.

And then when I found out all those people were going to get fired, I've been pissed for the last six months to a year because, you know, Dan and Stewie, man, I know these people so well. To have people say to you, you know, man, I got a wife and kids and a mortgage and I'm getting ready to get fired and I don't know what to do.

And let's be honest, I've never been in that situation before. But I will tell you some of the most heartbreaking conversations that I've had the last six months. I mean, I could say, man, I've had a great run. I've been so truly blessed. But to have your friends, we'll be out drinking, having a good time. And they're like bearing their soul like, you know, I don't know what I'm going to do. And to say, like I say, to say you got a wife and kids and a mortgage and

and you don't have a job, that's got to be terrifying. And so I'm glad I'm able to help them for at least one more year. Like I said,

I got no idea what we, you know, we just got the French Open. Maybe I got to learn something about tennis. I don't know. The red clay. I think, Charles, would you be willing to take our recommendation that you change the name of the show from Inside the NBA to Outside of the NBA? Yes. Outside of the NBA. Do it, Charles. Hey, Dan, how about...

Not NBA. Not the NBA. You really have no idea. You're going to try and do the same show, but you have no idea what you're going to be talking about. I'm so there for that, man. Hey, Dan, 100%. You know, and what's crazy, I think we're going to have to pay for highlights.

What? Yeah, for highlights of things that you don't have the rights to. Yeah, you will have to pay for video there to have video. I was explaining to them last week that that would be a very difficult show for you guys to do without video of the NBA. So I think we're going to have to buy NBA highlights.

I mean, Dan, it is such a fluid situation. The thing that's going to be interesting is we got the NBA all next year no matter what, and it's going to be interesting what crazy ideas they come to us with going forward. That's what's going to be fascinating. Like, what do you guys think about doing this next year? And we're going to look at each other like,

Okay. So, like I say, man, it's a very fascinating situation. But the number one thing for me is my people at tourniquet to keep their jobs for at least another year. That's all I was concerned with. Charles, how much money do you think that you left on the table in making that decision concerned about others? A minimum of $100 million. Jeez.

A minimum. Yeah, because I imagine it was a lot of fun to be you recently, right? And free agency, that had to feel good even as you're thinking to yourself in these meetings, because I talked to you a little bit at least. You're like, I'm not... Yeah, 100%. It was a great feeling. And I want to thank all those networks for reaching out to me. It was really humbling and cool. It was humbling and cool. And so I really... It was really humbling and cool, to be honest with you. But...

I wasn't even thinking, like I said, Dan, even though they were throwing crazy numbers, I was like, damn. But as long as I got my people safe at TNT, man, I feel really good. Like I say, they're going to pay me to go and talk about nothing so I can't look a give horse in the mouth.

Before we let... Hey, Dan, I probably would have had to do an Honest Day's work if I went to one or another network. Not here, though, Charles. Not at Metal Ark Media. You would not have to do an Honest Day's work. We will let you go on this note. I'm concerned for Charles because I feel like he's never going to quit. Because every year, Turner will send a new employee in there and say, hey, wife,

kids, mortgage, and Charles is back. That's what I would do if I were Turner. I would just keep sending employees with kids in to talk about their mortgages. It's a good move. They know now how to sucker him. Hey, Dan. Hey, Stu.

I'll be coming into work with a cane and a walker. I'll be coming to work with a cane and a walker like, welcome to outside, well, no NBA. Outside the NBA is good, Charles. You've got it too young, Charles. They are going to have your coffin up there in a chair, in a chair, and they're going to open it up and mic it up. Your coffin seven years after your death. Hey, I'll be like...

Shaq, you got any more of that Icy Hot? I'm barely making it right now. I'm going to be putting Icy Hot on every part of my body. Be barred from Shaq. Last thing before we let you go, Charles, your take on what is happening here three months outside of the election. What have you found interesting as someone who is always interested in race in America and just the

the politics of America. What are you thinking here over the next three months? Yeah, I was hoping she took Shapiro, to be honest with you, the governor of Pennsylvania, and Mark Kelly. I don't know a lot about her running mate, but I really am a big Josh Shapiro fan. And I'm a really good, I'm actually casual friends with Mark Kelly. I'm a big Kelly fan, him and Gabby. I love those two.

I'm trying to learn. She's going to have to address the border situation because the border is a mess. The inflation thing, I don't blame inflation on whoever the president is, but she's going to have to address the border situation. The border is a mess. The woman dynamic is very interesting because America is still sexist. Well, we can throw race in there, too. They're racist, too.

So, man, it's a lot of moving parts. I'm not a Trump guy. I'm not because I just think if you're going to be the president, you need to act a certain way. Even if I disagree with your politics, you're the president of the United States. You should be a gentleman and act a certain way. But I've got to learn more about her policies. Like I say, the border thing is a big deal to me, man, because.

We can't just let people come. And not only that, you know, like in some of these cities, they're getting benefits that Americans don't get. That cannot happen under any circumstances. Now, I'm all for immigration if it's done the right way, but we just can't have people jumping over here

and giving them health care, putting them up, giving them stipends and things like that, that cannot happen, man. We got so many amazing people who bust their hump all the time. We need to be taking care of those people. So she's going to have to address the immigration thing for me. But like I say, I would have felt a lot better if she had taken Shapiro or Kelly. I don't know a lot about this governor, but, man, I just hope it's civil.

I just hope it's civil because whether you're a Democrat, Republican, independent, conservative, liberal, whatever, man, we're all Americans. We all want the same things. So I'm just hoping it's civil because, man, we live in a—you know, Dan, we're such assholes here. These politicians, both parties are awful.

And we're kind of like pawns in a chess game. We don't even know we're pawns in a chess game. They're just moving us all over the place to piss us off and make us mad and vote one way. But, man, we're all from the United States. We're in the best country in the world. And we don't appreciate it. And that's probably the thing that frustrates me the most. Love you, buddy. Good catching up with you. Thank you for making the time. Hey, Stu. Uh-oh, uh-oh. Here we go. Here we go. Dan's an asshole, okay? Yep.

Your words, not mine. Have you? Yeah, okay. Well, okay. I'll worry about the DM you sent me. Dan, have you ever asked me to be on your show? And I didn't be on your show. No, no. Okay. So don't act like I haven't been on your damn show. I didn't say it. He did. I didn't say that. He hasn't asked you in a while. I just said I missed you. That's all. It was just me saying I missed you, Charles. Hey, man. Dan, Dan.

I've told Dan Stewart, no disrespect to you, Dan. I love you like a brother, man. Your mom, your mom is one of my favorite people in the world. I love sending her pictures of my grandkids. Now, you know, I want to punch your dad in the head. Okay. I'm trying to get, I'm trying to get Dana white to do an MMA fight between me and your dad. Cause I want to, I don't want to come to your house.

I don't want to come to your house and see you. I want the America to see me beat his ass. I want the whole wide world to see me kicking his ass. He's Biden's age, Charles. What is the appeal on pay-per-view of you kicking my dad's ass? Oh, I'm there. So what? We going to get him to run for president, too?

See you later, Charles. I'll send my father your regards. Hey, hey, send your dad this. Okay, there it is. See you later. That's the oldest you've ever loved. See you later, Charles. Love y'all. Love you, Charles. See you.

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Stugatz, this guy is a real pioneer. I remember the first time I noticed him. I just couldn't believe that he was getting everything right in election coverage. Nate Silver, it's been 20 years since he helped make sports nerds cool again with Baseball Prospectus.

14 years since he moved his data blog to the New York Times, 10 years since FiveThirtyEight moved to ESPN, and now it's been a year since he broke out on his own again from Disney with a newsletter called Silver Bulletin. He's got a new book out I'm eager to read, On the Edge, The Art of Risking Everything. Nate, thank you for making time for us and with us. Let's start with some election stuff because...

In November of 2016, the data or the nerds were wrong. I'm sure you're tired of explaining this one. Of course, yeah. It's something that you get beaten up with all the time. You gave Trump a higher chance of beating Clinton than most forecasters did, but even that was only 28.6%. And since then, I think people don't trust polling anymore. So what can you tell me about what happened there? Well, I'd say that I see the world as...

a sports better might or a gambler might, because before I ever actually made an election forecast, I played poker professionally during the Chris moneymaker poker boom years of mid 2000s. So to me, if you have a forecast saying the real odds are three to one or two to one and the betting line is six to one, then you take that bet every time, right? It's expected value is positive over the long run. Now I'm very aware, like that's not a typical mindset for people in the politics world where you're

you know, where they think, and the stakes are very high, obviously. People think every election's unique and is existentially important, but we're trying to be arm's length neutral forecasters. And that means thinking in terms of probabilities and not in terms of hard predictions. In your book, you have a chapter on sports betting and in 2022 and 2023, you bet close to $2 million on the NBA. Yeah. Explain.

Yeah, I thought I'm a big believer in having skin in the game. And I've always I have an NBA model called Raptor. I've always liked gambling. And so I thought, how can I actually do if I try to, like, beat the market myself? And the answer is I can make less minimum wage. Right. If you if you make five thousand bucks spending probably five hundred hours of this quarter of my time over the course of a year and you make out a profit, which is hard.

Hard to do, actually. But you have a realistic sense for like, it really is a grind. And the guys who are the best at it are very, very good. How'd you do?

So I made about 5K out of the $2 million in total wagers. I'm not counting like... Not worth it, I mean. Yeah, no, not worth it. I did have one futures bets on the Nuggets that turned out well. So that made it a better year. That brings me above minimum wage, basically. But yeah, like a lot of people, I start off on a huge heater. I'm like, wow, I'm like God's gift to sports betting, it turns out. And then give all of it back. Another heater, give almost all of it back. And you're like, you know what?

But there's one round of the playoffs. Yeah, I'm going to take my $5,000 profit and pocket it and say that was a fun experience. But I'm not sure if I want to be on the roller coaster again. If you're data obsessed, as I imagine you are, do you have a hard time getting your brain to stop? Yeah, no. Look, I was thinking the other day, like how many hours a week do I work? I mean, maybe only 50 hours. I'm like at my computer, quote unquote, doing work. But I'm always in the back of my head.

Thinking about the probabilities of something, thinking about how to write an article that's going to get more subscribers or things like that. And so, yeah, I always have a lot of RAM, I guess, that's trying to figure out how to strategize something. Mike Ryan has been having a hierarchy of fame around here for a long time, Stugatz. He says there's Taylor Swift.

fame and then just slightly above that is Nate Silver at the Sloan Analytic Conference in 2012 fame rockstar you knew when he walked into a room it was it was total lunacy back then is that the greatest time that there's ever been to be Nate Silver not just 2012 but walking into the Sloan Conference

No, because first of all, I'm like somewhat extroverted, but no, it's terrifying actually for me to be, me being a celebrity is inherently terrifying on every level. And look, I, anytime some like nerd becomes successful, right? Anytime there's like a Jeopardy champion, for example, or the guy who made Wordle, I'm like fame is very much a mixed blessing. I think a lot of people, I made the mistake, I think, of trying to like build a whole brand around it at Disney, ESPN, and

And I'm not sure it worked because in some ways you are the brand. And also there are lots of ways in which Disney is very risk averse and wasn't really able to monetize the company. But, but no, I'm having, I'm,

Much more fun now than any election since 2008 when it was all getting started. It feels a lot fresher. The incentives when you're totally on your own and you capture, you know, you capture your business yourself or with your other employees. I mean, that it's just much more my speed. And it's like the right level of minor celebrity, I suppose now. Yeah.

Two months ago, I want to get back to something here. And yes, you're right. It is a great blessing. Self-employment is also very difficult. It's invigorating. But to get to share it with the people that you care about and not have to be encumbered by the principles of others is liberating. But two months ago, Monmouth University found that 32 percent of Americans still believe that Biden only won the presidency because

because of voter fraud. Can you please explain to my audience, our audience, the difficulties of misinformation, the danger of misinformation? Yeah, look, and I'm not too much of a partisan. I say lots of things that annoy Democrats from time to time. But the election system in the United States is one of the most decentralized processes anywhere in the world, where it's a lot of local volunteers at local polling stations. And there are lots and lots and lots of checks and balances. And by the way, it shouldn't have been surprising that

you know trump lost this election during covid when things were going haywire people were upset at him and biden at that time i think was kind of a responsible choice um but no look um there's lots of things where i agree with people who might be skeptical of the establishment like on some of the covet stuff for example but no the the election was not was not stolen i'm sure i'll get some hate mail for that but um but that's not in touch with reality

But what about the dangers of misinformation? Because I would guess, Nate, and I know that you are thorough and qualified and you're about facts, but I'm guessing that you're perpetually easily dismissed in this age as just the thing that people associate with you as, ah, he was wrong in 2016 because the pollers don't know shit.

Look, part of what the model does is it provides uncertainty because the polls are sometimes wrong, right? We're trying to quantify if you have a, you know, 17 to 14 lead going into the fourth quarter, you haven't won the game yet, obviously. But look, I think there is, I think misinformation is a category that maybe needs to be recalibrated a bit. I mean, sometimes people thought that like talking about Biden's age was misinformation when 80% of voters were

thought it was a big deal and it's objectively reasonable to think a guy shouldn't be president until he's 86. Trump could be 82, by the way. And so I think that has become a partisan label sometimes, which lessens its power into cases where it really needs to be applied and is deserved, like the election fraud stuff, like the QAnon stuff. People need to think more about their credibility and that should be

reserved for rare cases that it's overwhelmingly true that it's misinformation and it gets applied too widely sometimes, I think. Well, you were very critical of the mainstream media's, quote, reality distortion and ignoring Biden's decline. How badly do you think Biden would have lost if he'd stayed in?

I mean, he was down by four points in national polls at the time he dropped out and losing by four points to Donald Trump in a popular vote is hard, right? He lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by a pretty good margin, lost to Biden by four and a half points four years ago. Look, in some ways, it's amazing that he was only four points behind and it speaks to the limitations of Trump's campaign and him as a candidate, because, you know, at that debate and at half of his public appearances, he was

I think there were questions about was he fit for office right now and asking for four more years. We probably all had older relatives or friends who were in a phase where they were not themselves very consistently. And so they were kind of trying to put the will over people's eyes when every American has experience with this nonlinear decline in people's capabilities that you can experience when they get into their 70s.

early 80s. And so they, but look, they ultimately came to their senses and made a decision that, you know, took their odds of winning from quite remote to somewhere in the neighborhood of 50-50. Hey, Nate, fan of yours. In 2016, a lot of the shock that came with that was because

social media was a bit of an echo chamber and it kind of magnified Hillary's chances in ways that I think we're kind of seeing play out a little bit now. What do you make of X being kind of overtly used as a political weapon? And are we going to see a replay of 2016, but just the exact opposite?

Yeah, look, I like some things that Elon's done with X, but I would like to see a more kind of balanced culture there when different sides can have their fight, not putting on the same scale, putting a thumb on the scale. But yeah, look, I worry about a little bit of irrational exuberance right now about Kamala Harris. She has gained in the polls, it's been a steady trajectory up. However, she's going to have at least one debate of her own.

There is inflation that's still a memory for people. There's the fact that Biden himself is a little bit of a liability and remains very unpopular. There's things like immigration and the border. There's the fact that Harris ran pretty far to her left in 2020. So if I were Trump, I would think, okay, we've lost our lead. We're in a real race now, but we have plenty of ammunition that doesn't rely on misinformation, et cetera. But they seem to have, I'm not sure whether I'm allowed to swear or not, but they seem to like have been very, very flat footed

after the candidate was switched. I think they thought that Democrats would behave like them, which means that, you know, Trump is a personality cult and Trump always wins his internal battles against Republicans, whereas Biden does not. Biden was kind of chosen by the party to be Barack Obama's running mate and then chosen by the party. You had basically a four-way tie with him and Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders, and he was elevated by the party in 2020. And so if the party wanted him in, then the party can...

can knock him out of the race. And they did. And the Trump campaign was surprised by that. They should have been spending half their bandwidth on their Harris messaging. But instead, they've let J.D. Vance get defined in a very negative way. Tim Walz get defined in a positive way. Kamala Harris, who was very unpopular, get defined in at least a neutral way. And so they have lost a lot of really valuable time.

You can curse, you're allowed. The latest New York Times poll shows Kamala Harris up by 4% in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Are those numbers inflated? Can she keep that up?

I don't think they're inflated right now. I think they'll probably revert to the long-term mean a little bit, right? We know that under Biden, under Clinton, these states were very close, coming down to about one point either way. And that's probably the still safest guess. Our model assumes that Harris is on a little bit of a sugar high right now and might come down to earth. And remember, Democrats can win the popular vote and lose the electoral college like Clinton did in 2016.

But certainly the trajectory has been positive. And frankly, you know, I thought she'd be a league average candidate at best. And I think she's she's you know, she has performed well in the clutch so far. We'll see if that continues. But but she is a much better candidate than she was four years ago to a degree that I have to admit I'm.

I'm surprised by it. Let's move to something interesting. On your patented Vibe score, you have Magic and Steph. You have them in a three-way tie with Shaq for second best all time. Behind only Bill Russell. And my question for you is, has Vibe score, which you own, you patented, have they ever heard of Michael Jordan?

I guess Michael Jordan's a little bit polarizing. You know, I grew up a Detroit Pistons fan, so we had very ambivalent feelings about Michael Jordan, later moved to Chicago. But no, which athletes are... It's hard to be truly beloved in an era like this one. And Steph, especially after the gold medal game, really pulls it off. He's the only contemporary player who's up there. I mean, Magic is kind of a little bit more, obviously, you know, still doing well. But Steph is like... Maybe he's like the...

last universally well-liked athlete in America. More people are more like LeBron, who's amazing, but polarizing. Whereas just everybody loves Steph. Everyone roots for the Warriors. Everyone roots for Team USA. And I don't know. And I think he's now assuming correctly his role. That article is about how Steph is now in the inner circle of all-time greats, right? Not...

not MJ, not LeBron, not Kareem. But then you start to get in the Magic Johnson discussions and the Larry Bird discussions. And his career kind of has a lot of parallels as far as career length and MVPs and hardware. And just how, like Magic Johnson, totally changed how the game was played forever in a way that's very watchable and very appealing and did wonders for the sport. Let's talk a little bit about your career. FiveThirtyEight started at ESPN in 2014. In between, you had Trump going after

Jamel Hill tweeting, quote, ESPN is paying a really big price for its politics. You had my stuff. You had Jimmy Pataro named president in March of 2018 with his mantra of, quote, serving sports fans. And then a month later, Disney transfers your site to ABC News. What happened there? Look, I think

that timing is half coincidental. I think more of it has to do with the fact that we always got more traffic from our news and politics stuff than from our sports stuff. But yeah, look, when you sign up with a giant corporate entity, then you are, you know, you're like a barnacle on a blue whale is the analogy I use, that you're governed by forces that have little or nothing to do with you. You know, we're a site about politics, 538 we were, but like, we weren't very political, I don't think. I'm, you know, a pretty centrist guy myself.

and we're very numbers-driven ourself. But yeah, I mean, look, the bigger problem at ESPN is they think so much in terms of gigantic scale, right? These gigantic rights fees with leagues, and Disney thinks about theme parks and movies, which have nine-figure price tags, and

And 538 was a small little business and could have been a very good business, it turned out. I mean, the subscriber numbers on my newsletter suggest that a lot of money was left on the table by Disney. And I guess I'm lucky that now I can capture some of that myself.

But we were trying to make it like a big mass brand instead of like a quirky niche brand. And look, if you look at like ESPN from 15 years ago, where you have page two, when you have, you know, quirky personalities like yourself who are smart and opinionated, but not towing the party line necessarily. I mean, most of that stuff has been lost. I mean, there are ESPN contributors I still really love. I mean, Zach Lowe is my absolute first.

podcast list if I'm going for a run or something like that. But they've removed some of the things that made it different and fun. And they've lost some brand differentiation and become like just very mass market, which is fine. But I don't think I'm a mass market brand. I think I'm kind of like a specialty, if you will. Is that why you left during layoffs last year? Or is there another reason that you left?

I mean, the immediate cause was that they laid off about three quarters of the staff at 538. My contract was up, was not looking great. I'm not going to pretend we had some amazing deal on the table. So that's half of it. But also, I knew from the start that the Substack thing, my newsletter is called Silver Bulletin, it's at Substack.

fit my skillset really well. I have the gift of like writing really fast. I just don't know where that comes from, but like I can write good copy pretty quickly. I've spent a lot of time in the business, been through a lot of cycles. So I know what headlines work, what images work. I know, I

You know, when you put a hard sell on something or a soft sell or how to promote something or take a boring post to make it interesting. And like so like that really plays to my strengths and like and dictating my own schedule. I have at the moment one employee will do some more hiring, I'm sure, when we come up for oxygen from the election. But and the incentives, it just I don't know, I work so much harder.

when you capture the growth in the business yourself, and it's not some giant rounding error on a spreadsheet in Burbank somewhere. We'll get back to your life and career in just a second, or Dan will, but according to your shooting stats, Steph and Byrd are basically tied. Luckily for you, Nate, I have a way of settling this, okay?

Shop for your life. The ball needs to go in, right? You need to decide between one of these two guys. If it goes in, you're living. If it doesn't, you die. Sorry. That's the game. Shop for your life. Steph Curry, Larry Bird. Steph Curry. Not even close. You're dead. Yeah, you're dead. Okay. What? What do you mean he's dead? The answer's always Larry Bird. What do you mean the answer's always Larry Bird? He's like not only the best...

he's like better at that one skill shooting a basketball than like any athlete

is at anything almost, maybe individual sports like gymnastics, Simone Biles or tennis or something. But he is just so amazingly good at the skill that happens to be the most important skill. It's an offensive game. It's mostly, you know, half of it is shooting roughly. And he is so uncannily good at that where you can be watching that gold medal game and you're like, that shot might go in, right? You never, I mean, I didn't say I didn't have doubts, but like, you're like, that might actually work because it's Steph and no other player in the world in the history of the NBA knows

could take that shot and you'd say, oh, I'll take it.

Mike, do you find it as funny as I do that Nate Silver, with all of his data, bet nearly $2 million on the NBA and ended up making $5,000 and then reverse engineers it to, like, well, it was sort of like minimum wage. As a wise man once said, you never feel more alive than when they're raking the chips away. It's amazing, Nate. At the end of that, did you like, because you're pouring all...

of your data into it and you know so much about things and you think you're finding like these secret wins in the margins because your information is better than everyone else and then it is great that you didn't lose money but making $5,000 on a two million dollar bet I could have

put it in government bonds and gotten more than that. No, look, I mean, you're pressing refresh on the, on the NBA injury report, right? You're scrolling like, Oh, here's a bam out of IO injury update. He looks like pretty good and shoot around. Right. And like becoming a total degenerate, it's kind of fun to see how that life is experienced. So it is a grind. It's not easy money. Um,

But I wanted to have some skin in the game. If I'm going to write about this material, then I want to know what it feels like to go on a winning streak and a losing streak. And you can say in the abstract, oh, it's just random. But trust me, when you experience an $80,000 upward swing and then a $75,000 downswing, basically, it doesn't feel like luck. It feels like the fate of the world has been decided for you somehow. All right, Nate, who wins this thing? If you were a poker player...

Then we have Harris like a 54-46 edge. So, you know, look, if you're a poker player, you know what that means. We know that 54% is just slightly better than 50%. But we also know that you're going to lose almost half the time. I would rather have her hand to play, especially given how Trump has played his hand recently. But it's a long way from over and it's not a cliche to say it's a toss up. So we have pocket jacks and they have ace king offsuit. Yeah, if you really know the detail, you know that pocket jacks actually...

wins a majority of the time. It beats ace-king offsuit 55, 56% of the time. So that's a range we're in. But even poker players call that a race or a flip or a coin flip because...

We've experienced a long run where that 46% comes up 40% of the time, which is quite a bit. Again, I will tell you, Stu Gantz, that this person came into my life as a name because he got everything right and everything right before 2016. His expertise, his data is very good. And he just gave us the profound wisdom of 54% is slightly better than 50%.

Which is totally true. Yeah. But it's like in some ways I feel like I'm spending a lot of time like pointing out the obvious, right? Like, oh, yeah, Clinton's ahead in the polls. Most of the polls are wrong sometimes. This isn't like any act of genius exactly. You're like, oh, yeah, Biden's really old and people really care about that. Maybe you should try a different candidate if you want to win. It's like not like rocket science exactly. Yeah.

But for some reason, people's circuits go a little bit haywire when it comes to politics versus sports. I think sports fans understand there's some luck involved if a pass is tipped and the strong safety intercepts it or something like that when it was a good pass. They understand that there's some luck involved, whereas people in politics don't want to think that way, even though, I mean, there are contingencies that are also essentially random in politics. Think of that afternoon in...

in Pennsylvania where Trump, just in the nick of time, turned his head so the bullet just nicked his ear. I mean, that could have been a tragic and very different twist of fate in American politics that came down to kind of the way the wind was blowing and what Trump was doing with the slide he was looking at. And so, you know, the fact that the Biden people thought it would be smart to move the debate up

And Trump said, yes, of course, we want to debate because I'm going to crush him. And Trump did crush him, but crushed him so bad that they replaced him. I mean, this isn't all. As you start to meet people, and in the book, you know, I talk to billionaires and people like that. These are still vulnerable human beings who sometimes make dumb decisions and get lucky or unlucky for the right or the wrong reasons. The name of the book, again, is On the Edge, The Art of Risking Everything. And you have a chapter in the book called 13 Habits of Highly Successful

risk takers, what would you tell the audience before they've seen the book are the most important habits for correctly taking risk? Because most people are aversive to change. Yeah, look, I think most people don't take enough risk, at least when it comes to like changes they make in their career and their professional life. I'm not saying you should go skydiving or anything like that.

So I know it's a cliche, but one of the most important things is the importance of being cool under pressure. In poker, you're making decisions sometimes for thousands of times more than in your Tuesday night beer league game. And are you possessed at the moment? So I talked to actually some people who are not quants, but I talked to an astronaut

for the book, one of the first women in space. And I talked to a guy who was a former fighter pilot and now is a explorer. I talked to a former NFL player and they're like, yeah, if you don't, if you understand that when you're under extreme stress, that your body acts differently, your heart rate goes up, your perception of time goes way down. You're operating on a different system, on different software. If you can master that. And I mean, this is what Michael Jordan called being in the zone where some people

really relish that feeling. It's a different feeling. I mean, in politics, you saw this moment where Trump was in the zone after the attempt in Pennsylvania, and Biden was not a capable political athlete at the debate. He choked, I think is one way to put it. I mean, he isn't necessarily fantastic on his best day, but he's okay. But in that environment with the pressure on, he choked. The good news, though, is that you can learn...

How to adopt these situations a bit. I mean, most of the candidates we think of as being these great political athletes had some failures at some point along the way. Barack Obama lost his first congressional primary in 2000. I think it was Bill Clinton gave a terrible speech in 1988 at the Democratic Convention, where he was basically booed off the stage, came back to win the nomination four years later. And so, you know, if Harris is

has learned to deal with the stress and everything more capably the second time around and is having fun with it, then maybe it shouldn't be surprising that like a former number one pick who takes a few years to get going, then maybe she actually is living up to her original talent when she's facing high stakes circumstances.

Nate, a pleasure, sir. Thank you for the work that you do. It is appreciated, even though it might not always feel like it is appreciated. Sorry about your death, too. Yeah, sorry that Stugatz killed you as well for daring to take Steph Curry over Larry Bird. He did it to himself. Yeah, he did do it to himself. I'll take my chances. Thank you so much, Dan. Thank you, Nate.

Summer's the best time to run the way you want. Dial it up with new challenges and programs and bring your workouts with you to make the most of outside sunny days. Stugatz, guess what? What? You know what you can do with Peloton? What? Get the app, go outside, ride a bike. Well, I thought you ride Peloton inside. Well, you do, you can ride Peloton inside if it's a rainy day or if it's cloudy or you just don't want to get outside, maybe it's too hot.

summertime, go outside. I record a lot from my office with you and you've noticed it's sitting there yet. It hasn't been used. Well, now's the time. Summer's the best time to start that push. Right. Can we do it together? Not on the same bike, but we could join a class together. I used to do that. We used to have Guillermo Tan. I'd invite people. We'd all take a class together. Okay. So I think you're starting to get concerned about my health and my age, Billy. I,

I sense that with you. We're beyond starting. Okay. Whatever road lies ahead, your training starts here with Peloton Tread and Tread Plus. It's not just a bike, a treadmill too. I'm going to go outside. I'm going to get in shape. I'm going to do it with Billy Gill. I want to be in your class. I want you to be my instructor. You know what? I won't be your instructor. You don't want to spend more time with me. No, I can schedule a class and we can ride together. I won't be the instructor of the class. We can have Camila could be our instructor. I like the Grateful Dead class. My daughter, she uses the Peloton. Mm-hmm.

She was on it once and an instructor who was playing Grateful Dead tunes. Let's do that. Okay. Why don't we go for a run outside? Guided run. Peloton. Me and you. That's something we can do together. Okay. Turn on the app. Me and you go outside. Enjoy the summer. Call yourself a runner with Peloton at onepeloton.com slash running. All right. A musician with technical knowledge can play all the right notes, but one who cares enough to play from the heart gives music soul.

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