> BTW, I approached ABC about buying back the former FiveThirtyEight IP*, and they said they wouldn't sell at any price because I'd criticized their management of the brand.
So Nate & Co sell out to a big corporation then are upset that it does big corporation stuff? I'm more mad at Nate here because 538 was my go-to for political coverage pre-sellout, and because of his greed it went away.
538 had some decent years through its various sellout phases and imo hit its peak after Nate Silver left - he'd long since exposed himself more as a contrarian than a serious analyst and had become a real detriment to the brand.
It was definitely sad to lose 538 how we did, but G Elliott Morris has really stepped up to continue the spirit on his Strength in Numbers blog. It's the best data-driven US politics reporting out there right now imo. He also contributes to Fifty Plus One with Mary Radcliffe, and that's excellent too, reminiscent of the old 538 polling roundup stuff that went beyond just core US politics. Recently he started a podcast with David Nir of The Downballot, which is another solid resource for lower level races.
IIRC, he got to keep all of the models and etc from 538 which is kinda all that mattered about it. Like anybody is really going to lookup the 2016 election in 2030 but they're definitely want the model's output in 2030 for 2030.
Management seems to be clearly inept and if somebody wants to give you a wheelbarrow of cash for something worthless you're generally foolish to not accept.
It's petty even for a corporation. It's not exactly maximizing shareholder value. But yeah, it's the sort of stuff corporations (especially media corporations) can be expected to do.
I think Nate has become better at this sort of stuff in recent years. But still, he said that Disney "hardly ever" interfered in their editorial process, oblivious to the implication.
(What it means is that Disney/ABC were perfectly willing to interfere in their editorial process, but rarely needed to since Nate said what they wanted him to say anyway).
538 has basically always been a licensed product, first with the NYT in 2010, and then with ESPN/ABC/Disney since they left the NYT in 2013. There were only 2 years where it was an independent blog
538 got one election right a decade and a half ago with a contrarian alternative data source, and hooked a bunch of partisan gamblers since
now you can actually bet on your beliefs and dont need to debate with anyone on whether the koolaid colored wave of choice will actually happen, or whether you are a slave to an algorithm induced hall of mirrors. note, the senate has been 50-50 for over a decade, its probably the latter
so the only intervention necessary here is on yourself, focusing on things you cant control while delusionally thinking this time will be different, over and over and over again
extracting value from partisan gullibility and pathetic power struggles is unironically the move
There's no "getting elections right"; these models just estimate probability. They gave Trump a 29% change in 2016 -- that's almost 1 in 3!
A better way to assess accuracy would be to bin predictions (0-10% chance, 10-20% chance, etc.) and see if the observed frequency aligns with the predictions.
They don't really 'call' elections since they only publish probabilities. If you'd bet on the candidate 538/Silver was more bullish than the bookies, then the only election year you wouldn't have made money would have been 2024.
That's a funny response in the context of "Now he’s more interested in profiting off of gamblers" given I remember posting with him on the 2+2 forums in the early aughts poker boom days where he was a popular poster teaching a lot of people how to profit off gamblers.
Your annoyance is understandable, but it's worth remembering: he is not your slave. He does not exist to do things for you. His providing you with something good for a time does not obligate him to provide it to you forever. Because he is not your slave.
If they feel it's damaging to have it public, then it could be argued that selling it would be irresponsible. I'm not arguing it is or it isn't, but reputation has value and management of it is part of what shareholders expect.
I think he's just saying the case they would make to avoid being sued for breaching their fiduciary responsibility. Not that it's the actual reason. But Idk.
ABC's shareholders are Disney. Whatever Nate offered them isn't even a rounding error in Disney's $36 billion dollars in profits last year. The shareholders aren't going to care.
It's not that a shareholder won't care, but that the modern US company is such a large basket of businesses, it's impossible to put any pressure on a random business unit throwing money away. So, in practice, there's very little pressure to do things right, and a lot of pressure to do what your boss prefers, whether it actually helps the company's profitability or not. There can be negatives if you are doing massive damage to the company's image, but even then, ABC has done more than a little bit of that over the last couple of years to no ill effects. Just ask Kimmel.
>impossible to put any pressure on a random business unit throwing money away ... very little pressure to do things right ... pressure to do what your boss prefers, whether it [helps] profitability
This is frustrating as a consumer. Any further insight, on the solution side?
Is it? What is the reason to assume an arbitrary number of a currency is "obscene", without taking into account changes in purchasing power of the currency, number of employees, number of customers, amount of expenses, volatility of the business, time horizon of investment, and myriad other factors?
The concept of fiduciary duty is an economic professors fantasy. When the shareholders of WB voted against David Zaslovs extraordinary 800m pay package the board ignored it. That's the "owners" voting to not give a crazy gift to the guy who was CEO for like 3 years and incredibly well paid.
No, what insulates them from fiduciary responsibility is the fact that there is no fiduciary responsibility to shareholders. I’ll say that again: members and/or managers of an LLC, and officers and directors of a corporation owe no fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders to make them money. The fiduciary duties owed under US law are as follows: 1) the duty to be informed; 2) the duty not to usurp corporate opportunities.
As far as I can tell the fiduciary duty to make money for the shareholders is something that Jack Welsh of GE said enough times that people remembered it. However, I’m always interested in additional details concerning the history of this meme, and happy to learn more.
I'm not defending them or this behaviour but it sounds to me like they may think the message/threat this sends to silence future criticism from other people, outweighs the immediate sum.
(Internally I'm sure they could probably phrase it some other less negative way such as chance of people confusing the brand as still owned by them, etc) association
No. People have weird beliefs about what fiduciary duty means. It does not mean that companies are required at all intervals to maximize revenue or profit.
You must not have spent much time looking at derivative lawsuits if you think this is weird. Anyway if ABC could convincingly classify this as a business decision, e.g., a question of the maintaining goodwill, maybe they're OK. If this came down to some exec feeling personally insulted, like the quote hints, a classic breach of fiduciary duty.
Dunno - is protecting yourself from high-profile criticism by doing whatever you want with assets you 100% own and are under no contractual obligation to share ... also in fiduciary duty?
Why? Even if the common myth that public company executives must maximize profits at all costs were true, it's easy to construct a plausible explanation for why one might believe in good faith that destroying 538 rather than selling it is the best strategy to maximize profits. For example, because they think the profit they'd lose from 538 competing with their own politics offerings outweighs the amount Silver would pay for it.
the easy argument otherwise would be that if they sold the IP, they wouldnt be able to revive it in the future, and also they would have nate silver as a competitor in the space