Risky Business with Nate Silver and Maria Konnikova cover art

Risky Business with Nate Silver and Maria Konnikova

Risky Business with Nate Silver and Maria Konnikova

By: Pushkin Industries
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About this listen

Risky Business is a weekly podcast about making better decisions. The hosts, Maria Konnikova and Nate Silver, are both journalists who moonlight as high-stakes poker players. On Risky Business, they bring their analytical framework to everything from politics to poker to personal decisions.

Maria has a PhD 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. She is a PokerStars Team Pro.

Nate is the founder and former editor-in-chief of 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.

Risky Business is a co-production of iHeart Media and Pushkin Industries.

2025 Pushkin Industries & iHeartMedia, Inc. 2025 Political Science Politics & Government Social Sciences
Episodes
  • What Jane Goodall Teaches Us About Outsider Thought

    What Jane Goodall Teaches Us About Outsider Thought
    Oct 11 2025

    Pioneering primatologist and anthropologist Jane Goodall died last week at 91. Nate and Maria talk about Jane’s career path and how her research influenced the fields of both animal and human cognition. They also discuss the significance of the outsider status she held when she began her research, and what everyone can learn from outsiders.

    For more from Nate and Maria, subscribe to their newsletters:

    The Leap from Maria Konnikova

    Silver Bulletin from Nate Silver

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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    42 mins
  • With Sora 2, We’re Climbing Higher on the Dystopia Scale

    With Sora 2, We’re Climbing Higher on the Dystopia Scale
    Oct 8 2025

    Nate and Maria discuss how and when the government shutdown is most likely to end. Then, they turn to OpenAI’s newest release: Sora 2, an AI video generation app that allows users to create a video from a text prompt. As Maria struggles to think of some possible positive uses for this app, Nate considers what its release tells us about Open AI's goals for the future.

    From The Information: Why OpenAI Offered to Pay $500 Million For A Startup With Videogame Data

    For more from Nate and Maria, subscribe to their newsletters:

    The Leap from Maria Konnikova

    Silver Bulletin from Nate Silver

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
    Show More Show Less
    45 mins
  • Sleep, Track, Don’t Multitask: How To Succeed In Online Poker

    Sleep, Track, Don’t Multitask: How To Succeed In Online Poker
    Oct 4 2025

    Nate and Maria discuss their favorite topic: poker! In this episode, they dive into the nuanced strategy of online poker: how to manage your schedule, how to prioritize information, and whether quantity trumps quality as you strive to improve.

    For more from Nate and Maria, subscribe to their newsletters:

    The Leap from Maria Konnikova

    Silver Bulletin from Nate Silver

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
    Show More Show Less
    36 mins
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