The Instant New York Times Bestseller “Engaging and entertaining… a glimpse of the economy of
the future.” — Tim Wu New York Times Book Review From the New York Times bestselling author
of The Signal and the Noise the definitive guide to our era of risk—and the players raising
the stakes In the bestselling The Signal and the Noise Nate Silver showed how forecasting
would define the age of Big Data. Now in this timely and riveting new book Silver
investigates “the River ” the community of like-minded people whose mastery of risk allows them
to shape—and dominate—so much of modern life. These professional risk-takers—poker players
and hedge fund managers crypto true believers and blue-chip art collectors—can teach us much
about navigating the uncertainty of the twenty-first century. By immersing himself in the
worlds of Doyle Brunson Peter Thiel Sam Bankman-Fried Sam Altman and many others Silver
offers insight into a range of issues that affect us all from the frontiers of finance to the
future of AI. Most of us don’t have traits commonly found in the River: high tolerance for
risk appreciation of uncertainty affinity for numbers—paired with an instinctive distrust of
conventional wisdom and a competitive drive so intense it can border on irrational. For those
in the River complexity is baked in and the work is how to navigate it. People in the River
have increasing amounts of wealth and power in our society and understanding their mindset—and
the flaws in their thinking— is key to understanding what drives technology and the global
economy today. Taking us behind the scenes from casinos to venture capital firms and from
the FTX inner sanctum to meetings of the effective altruism movement On the Edge is a deeply
reported all-access journey into a hidden world of power brokers and risk-takers.
