I just don’t care for Maria. I love Nate, but Maria doesn’t seem like the best partner for him this setting. Nate is one of the better good-faith debaters I’ve seen and Maria just kind of bullies and uses bad faith when she disagrees. Even when I agree with her she makes me cringe

I listened to the recent episode on Trump v Game Theory. I wish I could have that time back. Each host used the word “like” several times in each sentence (probably totaled hundreds of times during the pod). Similar to listening to a young teenager tell a rambling story. They also ended many sentences with the tired word “right?”. The subject would have been interesting should they have discussed it intelligently rather than in such a juvenile manner. I don’t recommend this podcast whatsoever

Maria spoke intelligently. She knows her stuff, informed and educated. I was impressed and could have kept listening. Nate was just unnecessary. It almost felt like he was there just to interrupt her and stop the flow of information. Dude, do you not hear yourself???

I like how they apply theory to current events. But I would like less poker talk.

Not as smart as they think they are. Done.

Despite it’s title, this show really isn’t about risk. Its two coastal elites talking about the topics of the day at a surface level. Maria is the more articulate of the two as Silver seems perpetually distracted. When they do talk about risk it’s usually at a high level peppered with jargon that’s never explained. Maria loves to say p-doom but never says what it is, how it’s calculated in a given situation, or why it’s relevant to the topic at hand. Phrases such as Bayesian and priors also come up but are also never explained in a way that’s useful to the audience. As for Silver, he is clearly using this to try to make his “Village/River” model happen. The fact that it is a simplistic model that is demonstrably inaccurate clearly hasn’t occurred to him. People and societies are more complex than a simple binary between risky edge lords or boring people who read the New York Times. All in all, a missed opportunity.

Dude how could anyone not love this?! People be so whinny and small. Will you guys be my parents?

Some of the early pod rundowns were filled with interesting ideas, but it was pretty rough listening. So I skipped a couple of months, then came back to see if these two had settled in at all. My conclusion remains the same. With someone else as host and Maria and Nate (and perhaps others) as expert guests this would very likely cross the threshold into listenable and interesting. But it’s just not there.

I tend to trust Michael Lewis so when he recommends something I’ll usually try it. This show is nothing more than two people who believe they are very smart telling you that they are very smart and then bashing other people who don’t agree with their very smart opinion. Please do not waste your time. Otherwise you will leave feeling less intelligent and slightly slimy. I’m not kidding.

Golly what is up with all the negative reviews? Maria’s rational, thoughtful assessments on politics makes Nate look like a silly drama queen and I’m here for it.

Love Maria and Nate! I find their views on the various topics very interesting based on their backgrounds and education. I listen to many podcasts and I enjoy the science, economic, and statistical analyses on these every day topics. Seriously don’t understand the negativity towards Maria. She’s allowed to talk about her credentials- she earned them and it informs her views so she actually should disclose them in order to provide context for her opinions. I’ve heard men do it all the time in these kinds of podcasts and no one bats an eye. People should disclose their backgrounds to uncover potential biases or what levels of experience they bring to a view. Keep up the great work Maria and Nate! Enjoying the podcast so far!

How many times did she need to tout her credentials and NameDrop? God, that was boring.

I’m having a flashback to when Clare Malone was dumped by ABC and the 538 podcast became an insufferable bore … I really want to hear Nate’s interesting, informed takes but he just needs a better partner or co-host … maybe track down Clare and reboot this podcast.

Maria had thoughtful books and a generally open and curious way of framing the world. These days, she is a paragon of nose-in-the-air sneering elitism and unable to control her scorn for “the other side”. I imagine her red faced and bursting at the seams when she goes on her tirades. Nate reads too much criticism about himself and has to work around Maria’s emotional outbursts. He ends up sharing half-baked insights (if you can call them that), laced with cowardice, trying I suspect to give a Twitter-safe stance balanced against Maria shrieking wide eyed at him. Speaking of Twitter, the topics usually are usually whatever is trending on that platform. These two huff that paint all day and it’s corrupted them. Avoid adding this to your podcast diet unless you really, really love Twitter and all discussion on its meta topics.

Nate, I’ve been a follower for over a decade and love the data and pragmatism you bring to the election discussion. Sadly your cohost does not share your intellectual rigor. I hardly hear her cite data and if I do you critique its validity. She claims Trumpism is a cult but recites the talking points verbatim of the elitist cult to which she belongs. What data does she have to make the claim that voters are sexist? The knee jerk compulsion to call everyone who disagrees with her sexist is the reason her cult is on a downward spiral. I’m all for contradicting opinions but hers is so predictable and tired. Please bring back data driven election analysis!!

Best, most hilarious episode ever. You guys can’t even get out of your own way. Why are Democrats so blind? no longer a party of the people, you’ll never win another election if you don’t figure it out

Happy to see that even though it has taken me weeks to get around to this others feel the same way about Maria being incapable of rational judgment with respect to DJT and I’m pretty sick of it and expect better from such an educated and capable person and from this podcast as a whole. I’m no apologist but the cold facts are in: dems lost on person policy and party and whoever is red when they go off the rails that badly will benefit and it’s a bad look to cling bitterly to what has been and I implore you to stop hiding behind a PHD when you cast your sneering judgment upon more than half the electorate and move onto rational reasonable cold sober realities and what next. I am literally fast forwarding chunks of your show these days when Maria starts talking politics and if it keeps up I’ll begrudgingly stop listening.

Really loved the show until recently - big fan of Nate and quickly became a big fan of Maria. I didn’t mind sharing her political opinions, almost all of which I share identically except for the mor extreme ones like all Trump Supporters are con victims. I appreciated the transparency in how she shared them. But it became a bit much and distracting. In particular, the episode immediately following the election was very off putting. It is clear emotions are high. It’s her podcast and she can say what she wants. But personally it’s hard to even continue with the episode when she says something like the reason Kamala lost was because people just hate women. A claim not supported by the data - Kamala underperformed with women against Hillary. And every indication is that Kamala did much better than Joe Biden would have in this election. No quantitative or a qualitative data supports this - in fact Kamala being a woman likely helped her as many report finally wanting a first female president. And of course Nate doesn’t push back. Just like the last year of the FiveThirtyEight politics podcast which became insufferable and Nate would just sit there pretending he didn’t hear what they were saying. Again Maria is entitled to her opinion. It is her podcast. Many of us share her values. But stuff like this takes me out of the show and doesn’t appeal to the data driven element which motivates me to follow this show.

Maria is a nut job. Dump her and this would be great.

It’s a shame because I love Nate, and am very interested in hearing what he has to say, but Maria is just not on the same playing field. In charisma, intellectual rigor, and original thinking, she’s just not bringing the same stuff to the table, and it drags the podcast down. Love Nate, love the idea for this podcast, but unfortunately, you need a different co-host

Love the show but I can’t stand the forced insistence that it’s about making better decisions. I just want to listen to Nate & Maria shoot the breeze, man. I’m more than happy enough with the Nate & Maria Show, which is generally what I think it sums out to anyways. Anyway, keep up the good work friends 🫡

I enjoyed the episode Daryl Morey. I feel that I understand why my Pacers always languish in the middle. We have stable local ownership that manages the franchise for survival. It was fun watching my team advance last season. Injuries played a big role so watching how Philly manages their stars. Gotta be healthy for the playoffs.

Was really enjoying this pod until Maria goes all Trump deranged in Conning with the Stars. I’m no fan of that guy but insulting half the country is pathetic. I didn’t realize that she knows so much more than everyone else and can lecture us on how we should think. Reminds me of the old saying about opinions and a holes. Congrats Maria. You just lost a pod listener and book reader

Nate can do better without Pushkin! No way I’ll pay Pushkin just for Nate. I read Nate’s books and follow his pods. I get Malcolm Gladwell cofounded Pushkin and wrote books, but his annoying voice doesn’t have to be this much in this pod. Pay someone else reads the ads.

Nate, as a long-time reader and listener, I really think you need to find a new co-host. I abhor Trump, and I suspect that I’m further to the left than you are on many issues. But listening to your most recent episode on whether Trump is a con man—where Maria claimed simultaneously that Trump voters were either con victims or cynical “pieces of” you know what AND, ironically, that reality is “so much more complicated”—I could tell you were at least as uncomfortable as I was. Maria was incredibly reductionist and intellectually immature. Too many more episodes like that, and she’s going to end up bringing you down. Frankly, she’s not that interesting or insightful on other topics to begin with.

Still consider myself a Nate Silver fan, but this moronic conversation about Trump only further convinced me that a ban on poker would be great. Sounds like drug that selectively targets smart people, redirecting their creative energies on the most pointless direction possible while emotionally destabilizing them and making them paranoid. I’m sure after rehab and counseling Nate will see it that way too.

One of the hosts is regularly antagonistic and prone to interrupting with hyperbolic straw man arguments. And it’s not the one I came to listen to.

I’m not a Trump supporter, and since I’m Canadian I’m not even a voter in the US elections. That being said it’s almost intolerable how tilted Maria is about Donald Trump. This is the most significant case of trump derangement syndrome we’ve ever seen. She’s completely delusional about Harris and is belligerent about any theoretical argument against Harris. I don’t support either candidate and definitely don’t like Trump but Jesus Maria is absolutely delusional. I’ve never seen anyone suspend their critical thinking to this degree. Nate, can you save her?

I’ve always enjoyed listening to what Nate Silver thinks, but wow! thanks for introducing me to Maria Konnikova - she’s a keeper too. Thanks for your thoughts, and keep up the great work!

Maria is fantastically entertaining, informative, and engaging. The show should just really be hers, tbh. Nate, especially in contrast, sounds strongly opinionated, interruptive, and annoying. He doesn’t add a whole lot of value to the podcast.

Nate is a great commentator: he is rigorous, analytical, and is excellent at explicitly recognizing his own biases. This level of rigor is what makes him stand out, and probably why he was not so successful on mainstream outlets. Maria, on the other hand, more often than not parrots widely held beliefs (like the proposition that women suffer a penalty when running for office), but not engaging in any kind of analytical reasoning. The September 25th show was the worst. Maria, at length, goes on about how Trump is a con artist, a loathsome man, and his voters are either a victim of his con or are cynics in a discussion about whether voters vote in their self interest. I don’t necessarily disagree with what Maria has to say, but this is not analysis. It’s just a low quality regurgitation Village opinions I can get from most political commentators. I urge Nate to search for a better co-host that builds on and compliments what he brings to the table.

This podcast is finding its sea legs and is a bit inconsistent at this point. It has a lot of promise and you can hear genuine emotion as well as rational and logical thought happening here. Interviews pop up from time to time and those are 10/10 excellent. I’d recommend they follow the “Prof G” podcast model where a different icon is used to visually highlight the interview episodes, vs the WSOP episodes, vs the political episodes which tend to be emotionally charged.

The podcast is at its best as Nate Silver demonstrates an astonishing ability to examine his own priors and biases, and a willingness to challenge Maria on hers too with an earnestness seldom seen. It gives a genuineness to conversation that is disarming, albeit frustrating at times—it feels like debating with friends in the best of ways.

I’ve been listening to this podcast for a while and struggling to get into it. The truth is Maria is not an informative or insightful co host. I honestly can’t tell why she’s there. She doesn’t really bring much to the conversation. The guests are good and Nate is interesting, but this show mostly just makes me nostalgic for the Clare, Galen, Nate, etc. days on the old 538 podcast. If Maria wasn’t idly filling up air space half the time it would be a much better listen.

Love the podcast, but not sure why Malcolm Gladwell has decided to make everyone equate his voice with long and stupid ads.

I’ve always enjoyed Nate S’s political commentary. He is very good at identifying his own biases explicitly, and considers himself a mainstream, center-left voter. He is also pretty aware that he is in the Acela corridor bubble, even with occasional trips to Las Vegas. This makes his political commentary useful, and occasionally insightful, about establishmentarian thought. (I’m personally an independent who has voted R, D and L in the past 16 years. I’ve also had a great deal of math and statistics, so numbers are why I’m here). Nate’s co-host, Maria, unfortunately does not recognize her own biases and is more than happy to move to “feelings over facts”, as this line from the August 1st podcast shows: Maria: “Even if there's no settled science, I think we can say that there is a penalty.” The context was whether women automatically suffer a penalty for running for office in the US. While I suspect that they do, this kind of an approach moves us out of “Just the facts” to “Just the opinions”. Well, guess what. That’s the sort of non-analytical approach Fox News or MSNBC will use. It makes the podcast weak, and I’ve de-prioritized my listening after that.

Hope the show continues to find itself and get better with each episode.

Nate SIlver was a great get for the podcast.

Good podcast except for the part where I have to hear Malcolm Gladwell’s voice at every ad break

Was interested bc of nate, and he has good insight. But his cohost is quick to argue in a way that seems combative and not constructive. It’s fine to disagree and get other angles of pov, but the way she goes about it comes off as unprofessional.

Really enjoy commentary, perspectives, and data-informed insights from Nate Silver. I’m a long-time fan of his balanced and knowledgeable analysis on politics and data analysis overall. Missed listening to him on 538, so tried this podcast. After listening to many episodes over the past few months, I think it’s time for the hosts to consider episodes that are either fully politics or fully poker/gambling and labeling them as such. The hosts admirably tried their best to blend those subjects into each episode as they are clearly their passions, but it has become more forced over time and not quite working (for me). Constructively, I think the hosts are at their best when they tackle one of those 2 subjects alone, rather than trying to blend them together.

This podcast needs to be labeled as MAGA leaning propaganda. There is no obejextovr analysis. I think I will stop listening now

it’s not consistently in evidence . The most recent episode (8/1/2024) is illustrative. Nate’s model doesn’t factor a variable that Maria insists is critically important, but she refuses to discuss its analytical significance and resorts to shaming Nate for not saying the right words. As a host of a show about using data to make good decisions shouldn’t she care about the predictive capacity of an opinion about the world that she thinks is super important? Twitter is already a great forum for observing Nate spar with rabid partisans, not sure we needed the podcast version where they pull punches.

I couldn’t care less about poker, I’ve never played a hand in my life, but I LOVE the headspace it puts Maria and Nate in. I’m happy to sit through a long winded setup when it results in expert discussion on practical decision making. I enjoy the discussion between Nate and Maria. I appreciate that they don’t agree on everything but remain civil; I’m not interested in listening to an echo chamber. There are a lot of ads, but I get that making this stuff ain’t free.

podcast has potential but nate would benefit from a co-host who doesn't run every episode into the ground

I like Nate’s “ums.” Makes me feel like I’m talking to a friend at a bar.

Nate, did you lose too much money playing poker? Honestly, Nate is still Nate, so that’s a known quantity. Now he is just mediated to us through an ad-filled haze.

I love their discussions but there or four minutes of ads three or four times in an episode is excessive.

I’ve always found Nate interesting and near the end of the 538 Podcast I was disappointed that he was not on every episode. Maira seems knowledgeable but I’m not enjoying them as pair. I hope there is a host shakeup and this show finds it’s footing.

Could whomever edits this podcast before it’s posted PLEASE edit out every time. Nate says, “um?” It’s extremely distracting 72 “um’s” by Nate in the first 27:25 minutes of the June 27 episode