Nathaniel Read Silver (born January 13, 1978) is an American statistician, writer, and poker player who analyzes baseball (see sabermetrics), basketball, and elections (see psephology). He is the founder of FiveThirtyEight, and held the position of editor-in-chief there, along with being a special correspondent for ABC News, until May 2023.
Silver was named one of the world's 100 most influential people by Time in 2009 after an election forecasting system he developed successfully predicted the outcomes in forty-nine of the fifty states in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. His subsequent election forecasting systems predicted the outcome of the 2012 and 2020 presidential elections with a high degree of accuracy. His model failed to forecast Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 presidential election, but provided a higher chance for Trump than many other forecasting competitors.
Much of Silver's approach can be characterized by using probabilistic and statistical modelling to try and understand complex social systems, such as professional sports, the popularity of political platforms, and elections.
Early life and education
Silver was born in East Lansing, Michigan, the son of Sally (née Thrun), a community activist, and Brian David Silver, a former chair of the political science department at Michigan State University. Silver's mother's family was of English and German descent. His maternal great-grandfather, Harmon Lewis, was president of the Alcoa Steamship Company, Inc. Silver's father's family includes two uncles—Leon Silver and Caswell Silver—who were distinguished geologists. Silver has described himself as "half-Jewish".
Silver showed a proficiency in math from a young age. According to journalist William Hageman, "Silver caught the baseball bug when he was 6.... It was 1984, the year the Detroit Tigers won the World Series. The Tigers became his team and baseball his sport. And if there's anything that goes hand in glove with baseball, it's numbers, another of Silver's childhood interests ("It's always more interesting to apply it to batting averages than algebra class")".
As a student at East Lansing High School, Silver won first place in the State of Michigan in the 49th annual John S. Knight Scholarship Contest for senior high school debaters in 1996. Silver first showed his journalism skills as a writer and opinion page editor for The Portrait, East Lansing High School's student newspaper, from 1993–1996.
In 2000, Silver graduated with honors with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from the University of Chicago. He also wrote for the Chicago Weekly News and the Chicago Maroon. He spent his third year at the London School of Economics.
Career
Economic consultant: 2000–2004
After college graduation in 2000, Silver worked for three and a half years as a transfer pricing consultant with KPMG in Chicago. When asked in 2009, "What is your biggest regret in life?" Silver responded, "Spending four years of my life at a job I didn't like". While employed at KPMG, Silver continued to nurture his lifelong interest in baseball and statistics, and on the side he began to work on his PECOTA system for projecting player performance and careers. He quit his job at KPMG in April 2004 and for a time earned his living mainly by playing online poker. According to Sports Illustrated writer Alexander Wolff, over a three-year period Silver earned $400,000 from online poker.
Baseball analyst: 2003–2008
In 2003, Silver became a writer for Baseball Prospectus (BP), after having sold PECOTA to BP in return for a partnership interest. After resigning from KPMG in 2004, he took the position of Executive Vice-President, later renamed Managing Partner of BP. Silver further developed PECOTA and wrote a weekly column under the heading "Lies, Damned Lies". He applied sabermetric techniques to a broad range of topics including forecasting the performance of individual players, the economics of baseball, metrics for the valuation of players, and developing an Elo rating system for Major League baseball.
Between 2003 and 2009, Silver co-authored the Baseball Prospectus annual book of Major League Baseball forecasts, as well as other books, including Mind Game: How the Boston Red Sox Got Smart, Won a World Series, and Created a New Blueprint for Winning, Baseball Between the Numbers, and It Ain't Over 'til It's Over: The Baseball Prospectus Pennant Race Book.
He contributed articles about baseball to ESPN.com, Sports Illustrated, Slate, the New York Sun, and The New York Times.
Silver wrote more than 200 articles for Baseball Prospectus.