A weekly show about making good decisions — in poker, in politics, and in your everyday life — from two people who have won and lost on the biggest stages
Listen to the to the official trailer now, HERE
NEW YORK – May 1, 2024 – Maria Konnikova and Nate Silver are both journalists who moonlight as high-stakes poker players. On their new weekly podcast "Risky Business" — out May 16, 2024 from Pushkin Industries and iHeartPodcasts — they will bring their analytical framework to everything from politics to poker to everyday decisions. Put simply: "Risky Business" is a show about making good decisions. Listeners can hear the official trailer now, here, and follow the show for new episode alerts.
“When you play high-stakes poker you don’t just learn how to play cards, you learn how to think about the world,” Konnikova explains. “You learn a clear, useful framework for making all kinds of hard decisions. In 'Risky Business' we’ll help listeners understand this framework and learn to apply it to the decisions in their own lives.”
The two friends bring a wealth of experience to the podcast. Maria has a doctorate in psychology and is the author of several books including, most recently, "The Biggest Bluff." While researching the book, she inadvertently became a professional poker player with over $500,000 in tournament winnings. Nate is the founder and former editor-in-chief of political and statistical analysis site FiveThirtyEight, and one of the country’s leading election forecasters. He has over $800,000 in lifetime poker tournament winnings and his forthcoming book, "On the Edge," is about gambling and risk.
Both Nate and Maria will be competing at the World Series of Poker this year. But, "Risky Business" isn’t just about poker, of course. Nate will also bring his expertise as a statistician and forecaster to the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
“We'll talk about the probabilities as well as tactics and strategy around politics and current events,” he adds. “How do things like expected value or game theory affect the decisions that impact all of our lives?”
Plus, listeners will learn how to apply the very same concepts to making good decisions in their everyday lives — from which car to buy or college to attend to what time to leave for the airport.
"Risky Business with Nate Silver & Maria Konnikova" is produced by Pushkin Industries and distributed by iHeartPodcasts. New episodes will be released each Thursday starting May 16, 2024 on the iHeartRadio app and everywhere podcasts are available.
ABOUT NATE SILVER
Nate Silver is the founder and former editor-in-chief (2008-2023) of FiveThirtyEight, which was published by The New York Times, ESPN and ABC News. FiveThirtyEight first gained national attention during the 2008 presidential election, when Nate correctly predicted the results of the presidential election in 49 states. In 2012, he called 50 of 50 states. He is the author of "The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — But Some Don’t," which reached #2 on the Amazon bestseller list and won the 2013 Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science. He is now at work on a new book, "On The Edge," about gambling and risk, to be published in 2024. Nate has over $800,000 in lifetime poker tournament earnings and in 2022-2023 ranked in the top 300 players in the world in the Global Poker Index. He has several honorary degrees, has been in the Time 100, and ranked as Fast Company’s #1 of the 100 Most Creative People in Business 2013. He recently launched the newsletter Silver Bulletin.
ABOUT MARIA KONNIKOVA
Maria Konnikova is the author, most recently, of "The Biggest Bluff," a New York Times bestseller, one of the Times’ 100 Notable Books of 2020 and a finalist for the Telegraph Best Sports Writing Awards for 2021. Her previous books are the bestsellers "The Confidence Game," winner of the 2016 Robert P. Balles Prize in Critical Thinking, and "Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes," an Anthony and Agatha Award finalist. Maria is a regularly contributing writer for The New Yorker whose writing has won numerous awards, including the 2019 Excellence in Science Journalism Award from the Society of Personality and Social Psychology. While researching The Biggest Bluff, Maria became an international poker champion and the winner of over half a million in tournament earnings—and inadvertently turned into a professional poker player. She is currently a member of PokerStars Team Pro. Maria’s writing has been featured in Best American Science and Nature Writing and has been translated into over twenty languages. Maria formerly hosted the podcast "The Grift" from Panoply Media, a show that explored con artists and the lives they ruin. Her podcasting work earned her a National Magazine Award nomination in 2019. She graduated from Harvard University and received her PhD in psychology from Columbia University.
ABOUT PUSHKIN INDUSTRIES
Pushkin Industries is dedicated to producing audio in any format that challenges listeners, encourages their curiosity, and inspires joy. Or, in other words: Good, Smart, Fun. Founded in 2018, Pushkin has produced numerous podcasts that have broken into the top 10 on the Apple Podcasts chart, including Malcolm Gladwell’s hugely successful Revisionist History, as well as Against the Rules from Michael Lewis, Paul McCartney’s A Life in Lyrics, The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos, Broken Record, Tim Harford’s Cautionary Tales, The Last Archive, Deep Cover, Lost Hills and Apple’s Best Show of 2021, A Slight Change of Plans. Pushkin’s audiobook catalog includes Steve Martin’s So Many Steves, Inside Voice by Lake Bell, the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen, Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis, Fauci and Higher Animals by Michael Specter, Heartbreak by Florence Williams, and Malcolm Gladwell’s Miracle and Wonder: Conversations with Paul Simon, The Bomber Mafia, and Talking to Strangers. Follow us @pushkinpods.
