Search  for anything...
NA

On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything

    • Based on 670 reviews
Condition: New
Checking for product changes
$20.89 Why this price?
Save $18.10 was $38.99

Buy Now, Pay Later

As low as $5 / mo
  • – 4-month term
  • – No impact on credit
  • – Instant approval decision
  • – Secure and straightforward checkout

Ready to go? Add this product to your cart and select a plan during checkout. Payment plans are offered through our trusted finance partners Klarna, PayTomorrow, Affirm, Afterpay, Apple Pay, and PayPal. No-credit-needed leasing options through Acima may also be available at checkout.

Learn more about financing & leasing here.

Free shipping on this product

30-day refund/replacement

To qualify for a full refund, items must be returned in their original, unused condition. If an item is returned in a used, damaged, or materially different state, you may be granted a partial refund.

To initiate a return, please visit our Returns Center.

View our full returns policy here.

Availability: Only 1 left in stock, order soon!
Fulfilled by Amazon
Arrives Tuesday, Feb 11
Order within 14 hours and 55 minutes
Available payment plans shown during checkout

Description

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. Read more

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Press (August 13, 2024)


Language ‏ : ‎ English


Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 576 pages


ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1594204128


ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 28


Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds


Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.51 x 1.79 x 9.54 inches


Best Sellers Rank: #7,189 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #2 in Business Planning & Forecasting (Books) #36 in Behavioral Sciences (Books) #156 in Puzzles & Games


#2 in Business Planning & Forecasting (Books):


#36 in Behavioral Sciences (Books):


Frequently asked questions

If you place your order now, the estimated arrival date for this product is: Tuesday, Feb 11

Yes, absolutely! You may return this product for a full refund within 30 days of receiving it.

To initiate a return, please visit our Returns Center.

View our full returns policy here.

  • Klarna Financing
  • Affirm Pay in 4
  • Affirm Financing
  • Afterpay Financing
  • PayTomorrow Financing
  • Financing through Apple Pay
Leasing options through Acima may also be available during checkout.

Learn more about financing & leasing here.

Similar Products

Top Amazon Reviews

    • Best book I've read this year, by far. Informative, deeply-researched, and just fun to read.
This book is great. Informative, deeply-researched, and fun to read. It’s the kind of book that has something interesting on every page. This is, by far, the best book I've read this year. The book is about a group of people Silver calls Riverians, after a river analogy he uses to structure the book. These Riverians come from across the political spectrum and are prominent in a wide variety of career fields—on Wall Street, in Silicon Valley, playing professional poker, advising casinos in Vegas, running Effective Altruism charities, and building crypto businesses. What they have in common is a mindset about risk—they embrace it—and an analytical framework for thinking probabilistically about, well, everything. They live in the world of expected value, marginal utility, game theory, and abstract models. And, in Silver’s view, they are becoming increasingly powerful in society. As tech leaders. As thought leaders. And as political influencers. In contrast to the Riverians are those with a risk mindset Silver calls The Village. Composed of a wide variety of people but with concentrations in government, academia, and the media, the Villagers are skeptical of markets, more likely to adopt partisan identities (especially center-left politics), more likely to focus on equality as a value and seek to constrain capitalism and meritocracy, and more like to view risk as something to mitigate. Villagers see The River mindset as too much unbridled capitalism and too little moral concern for the public good. Riverians see The Village as conformist and paternalistic political ideologues whose risk-aversion and culture war obsession are stifling progress on everything from technology to anti-poverty efforts. On the Edge is structured as a tour through the various worlds of the Riverians. The first half of the book is about gambling—the quintessential downriver activity. There are chapters on poker, sports betting, and the casino industry itself—and the people who are increasingly dominating these worlds through ever-more-sophisticated analytical tools. Those familiar with Silver’s short-form work will find his usual analytical skills on display here. But Perhaps the most surprising aspect of On The Edge is just how deeply personal it feels. If you read Silver’s wonderful first book, The Signal and The Noise, the writing style and the argument have an air of journalistic detachment. Not so with On the Edge, which often reads like a memoir. As it turns out, Silver is more cardplayer than election analyst, much more at home with the gamblers than the political pundits. He also breaks the 4th wall often; early on it’s somewhat jarring. There’s a Hunter S. Thompson gonzo quality to the story, Silver an omniscient narrator but also a participant-observer in an increasingly fantastical wonderland of poker games, casinos, and sportsbooks. The second half of the book goes both upriver—to the more respectable world of Silicon Valley venture capitalist, prediction markets, and the philosophies of Effective Altruism and Rationalism—and further downriver, where unbridled risk and temptation await in the world of cryptocurrency and other gray-market endeavors. The most surprising takeaway from On the Edge is how concerned Silver is about the direction of much of the world of The River. Those familiar with his recent public writing might think that the main villain of the book would be a Village-mindset risk-averse pseudo-expert type, maybe a partisan journalist or academic. Instead, the recurring danger of the book is the one built directly into the River. What if a bunch of hyper-rational successful risk-takers don’t sum to a collective meta-rationality? And what happens when the game isn’t poker or startup funding, but a global existential threat? This is an absolutely sprawling book that covers an insane amount of ground in-depth. The kind of project you can’t really imagine an editor greenlighting. It clocks in at almost 500 pages, but the sheer amount of content across so many domains makes it feel like double that. There are explainers, analysis, profiles, and commentary galore. You are going to learn a ton. Luckily, Silver’s breezy writing and engaging style make it an easy and fun read, not unlike his short-form writing online. Every chapter is substantively enjoyable, and each works as a stand-alone examination of a distinct topic. At many points, I literally couldn’t put it down. Often, the through-line of risk and the larger themes of politics and society are only lightly present, with the focus kept on the inherently interesting characters and worlds they inhabit. The reporting and analysis are top-notch. On the Edge also unconsciously captures this cultural moment almost perfectly. The stated through-line of the book is risk and the Riverian mindset, but an unstated theme is just how much of society has been transformed into fertile grounds for the application of analytics, and how much analytics have taken over in so many domains. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on August 13, 2024 by Matt Glassman
    • Great content but long and self indulgent
- In general I liked the book and enjoyed both the gambling and societal aspects especially the treatment of sports betting, VCs and AI - The footnotes and grey boxes were excellent and I really enjoyed that style - Nate talks about himself a lot which was a surprise to me for a book vs his newsletter - The book is quite long and I think it could have more effectively covered it's main points with a tighter edit ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on December 27, 2024 by Scott
    • Nate Silver Writes a (Very Good) Worldview
Tldr; this is a good book and draws an incredibly diverse set of worldviews into an engaging read. Well done and I recommend! About halfway through this book, I began asking myself "why Nate Silver did write this?" And "what is this book really even about?" Nate starts with a meaningful (even if a bit simplistic) breakdown of people into camps of River and Village people and how they process information about the world. This breakdown does not align with political values; instead it's closer to how we reason, make decisions and take risk. Nate is in the "Riverian" group and demonstrates how he reasons about a variety of topics. These include gambling, technology, philosophy and artificial intelligence. If that sounds like a diverse set of relatively unrelated topics, they are. And it's refreshing! It's very different than virtually any nonfiction work I've read recently. It's much, much more wide-ranging than his first book The Signal and the Noise. Nate shows us that he's read a lot of great stuff and interviewed an incredibly diverse set of people. People like to typecast him as a poker player or election forecaster. While those roles deeply influence him, I'm pretty sure this book will disillusion any simple stereotype. I was impressed with the range of his readings and how he brings them into a cohesive whole. He references several fantastic books I love that are not well known. And he makes me want to read more! And even if you don't think like him (or like him), this book is pretty impressive. I genuinely believe that Nate wrote it because he wanted to get down his worldview (i.e. not just for money). And articulate some worldwide risks (I didn't expect to be reading about AI and p(doom)). Two minor critiques are 1) I had no idea where he was going and the transitions are brisk 2) there are too many footnotes to his writing style. I think a lot of the footnotes should have been in the text, since he often gives his color commentary there which most readers won't want to miss. Great work and beware if you ever have to play poker with Nate! ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on November 26, 2024 by John D. Damore
    • ups and downs?
I generally enjoyed this book. Some positives: 1) it tackles an essential issue of our time (risk) in a thoughtful way 2) there are tons of unique and interesting insights on everything from VC to politics to gambling 3) the writing style is easy to follow and compelling. Some negatives: 1) it's a bit rambling at times (prob could be 150 less pages). Honestly, I just don't care that much about Mr. Silver's random Poker experiences that he smatters into every aspect of the book. 2) It gets to the 'how is this useful' phase of the book quite late. It seems to focus a lot on some potentially innate traits on risk tolerance, which is interesting but I question how useful it can be. Overall it suffers from the same problem that every book does when it tries to divide the world into two groups: it's oversimplifying. Perhaps a useful heuristic, but as any Bi will tell you, sometimes people are more multifaceted than just being a Riverian or a Villager. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on November 20, 2024 by Bob from Michigan

Can't find a product?

Find it on Amazon first, then paste the link below.