In this podcast episode (recorded on 3/23/22) we spoke with Maxim Lott – the mind behind the Maximum Truth Substack and ElectionBettingOdds.com – to discuss the current military, political, and economic situation in Russia as it pertains to the Russo-Ukrainian crisis.

As a former journalist for organizations like ABC and Fox, Maxim has deep experience operating within mainstream media companies. And as a result of his time working for those institutions, he has focused his career on providing alternatives to mainstream media narratives, including the current war in Ukraine.

Maxim has been covering (and forecasting) the war in Ukraine throughout March, providing nuanced perspectives on the crisis. From casting doubt on the severity of the current sanctions regime impacting the Russian economy, to sharing sentiment polls from Russian citizens, Maxim consistently provides interesting vantage points on this conflict. Maxim also spent time in Eastern Europe before our conversation, and talks about his experience in the region and how that has impacted his analysis.

In this podcast episode, we sat down with Tom Chivers—author, journalist, and science writer for The i—to have a conversation on forecasting and the news media. We talked about his background in the media industry, his frustrations with mainstream news and its lack of nuance, his views on forecasting and prediction markets in media, and more.

Tom previously wrote for BuzzFeed UK, served as the science editor for UnHerd, and has bylines with New York Times, Guardian, New Scientist, and The Telegraph. He often writes data-driven rebuttals to topics that are being primarily depicted in one way in the media, interjecting nuance into the conversations. In many ways, the same exercise as distinguishing signals from noise. Conducting journalism with a forecaster’s mindset.

He's also written two books, The AI Does Not Hate You in 2019 and How to Read Numbers in 2021, and writes about similar topics discussed in our communities, including effective altruism, rationality, and forecasting. To our knowledge, Tom is one of the most prominent journalists writing about and covering quantified forecasts. In June of last year, Tom assembled a panel of superforecasters for an article on whether China will invade Taiwan and has started to make his own predictions too!

You can follow Tom on Twitter: @TomChivers.

And we’re back! In this year’s first podcast, we are speaking with Tina Fordham, Partner & Head of Global Political Strategy at Avonhurst, a London-based advisory business.

Tina is one of the most veteran players in the political risk industry, beginning her career at Eurasia Group where she launched Eurasia Group's financial markets business, including leading the Lehman Brothers-Eurasia Group index—the first political risk index on Wall Street. While there she also led the roll-out of Eurasia Group's European business.

Since then, Tina’s career has included roles as Managing Director, Chief Global Political Analyst at Citigroup (the first position of its kind on Wall Street), as well as Member of the High-Level Panel for Women's Economic Empowerment—the first-ever UN High-Level Panel dedicated to promoting Women's Economic Empowerment. She also created her own framework for processing political risk, Vox Populi, which was born in the post-Arab Spring era that we will talk about in-depth.

Today we will discuss Tina’s impressive career, her risk framework, and some specific forecasts she has made in her many roles as well as her thoughts on quantified forecasting and much more. We are very excited about this interview, and we think you will enjoy this one!