Nate Silver shares the secrets of accurate predictions

Statistician extraordinaire Nate Silver won fame for correctly predicting the outcome of the 2008 U.S. presidential election in 49 out of 50 states. And he followed that up in 2012 by nailing the winner in all 50 states.

How did he do in 2016? Well, let’s just say he wasn’t as wrong as most statisticians, as he gave Clinton a little more than a 70 percent chance of winning (not far from the Trump campaign’s own predictions), while others gave her odds of up to 99 percent.

So, in the wake of a continually surprising election season, what did the founder and editor-in-chief of FiveThirtyEight.com have to say to an audience of software and analytics professionals at New Relic’s FutureStack16 conference in San Francisco last week? Plenty, as it turns out. (Disclosure: My day job is editor-in-chief for New Relic, where I also wrote about Silver’s presentation.)

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