March Madness Bracket Extravaganza
This week, Nate and Maria talk college basketball. Nate explains how he made his recently-released March Madness model. Then, they compare their tournament brackets. Maria gets some help from Sacramen...
19 Mar 202542min
China’s Best Moves, and How to React to a Dealer’s Mistake
Last week, Nate and Maria talked about the game theory of American diplomacy right now. This week, they look at it from the perspective of America’s biggest rival: China. How should China respond as t...
13 Mar 202539min
How Trump is Getting the Game Theory Wrong
This week, Nate and Maria discuss Trump’s tariffs and analyze his strategy from a game theory perspective. They get into the difference between zero-sum and cooperative games, speculate on how Trump w...
6 Mar 202540min
Thinking Smart About Low-Probability Events
This week, Nate and Maria discuss the asteroid that had a 3% chance of colliding with Earth. That risk is now closer to 0%—but, what does this example reveal about how to consider extremely costly eve...
27 Feb 202543min
Trust and Facing the Unknown (with Rachel Botsman)
This week, Maria speaks with trust expert Rachel Botsman about her new audiobook How To Trust and Be Trusted. What is trust? Why, even in the face of overwhelming evidence, do we sometimes trust the w...
20 Feb 202542min
Trump’s First Three Weeks: What Actually Matters?
Amid a maelstrom of executive orders and other presidential actions, Nate and Maria discuss best practices for staying focused on the important things. They also give their takes on what those importa...
13 Feb 202541min
Air Travel, Alcohol, and How to Bet On a Coin Toss
Our intuitive risk assessments can be way off–we’re too scared of hijackings, and not scared enough of crossing the street. This week, Nate and Maria discuss the real risks of plane travel, and of dri...
6 Feb 202543min
Should You Learn Poker from ChatGPT? And Other AI Questions
In the wake of DeepSeek’s explosive entrance into the AI chatbot world, Nate and Maria talk AI strategy. At the national level and the personal level, what benefits does this technology actually have ...
30 Jan 202546min
