“Nate Silver in Conversation with NY1’s Pat Kiernan” on the YP Stage on Day 1 of Internet Week New York May 18, 2015. INSIDER IMAGES/Gary He (from Wikipedia)
Nate Silver, the famed statistician and founder of the political predictions and observations website FiveThirtyEight, is done at ABC television. His departure comes at a time when ABC’s parent company, Disney, is making thousands of job cuts.
On Tuesday Nate Silver tweeted, “Disney layoffs have substantially impacted FiveThirtyEight. I am sad and disappointed to a degree that’s kind of hard to express right now. We’ve been at Disney almost 10 years. My contract is up soon and I expect that I’ll be leaving at the end of it.”
This Tweet came just after another in which Nate Silver said, “I had been worried about an outcome like this and so have had some great initial conversations about opportunities elsewhere. Don’t hesitate to get in touch. I am so proud of the work of FiveThirtyEight staff. It has never been easy. I’m so sorry to the people impacted by this.”
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ABC News explained the need for cutbacks in a statement saying, “This streamlined structure will allow us to be more closely aligned with our priorities for the 2024 election and beyond, We are grateful for the invaluable contributions of the team members who will be departing the organization and know they will continue to make an important impact on the future of journalism.”
Nate Silver is a famed statistician and his FiveThirtyEight gained prominence by using statistics and in depth scientific research to accurately predict the results of elections. But in 2016, the site was criticized when it predicted a victory for Hilary Clinton in the 2016 Presidential elections. FiveThirtyEight, however, countered that the final results were all within its margins of error.
As Jewish Business News reported in January, at that time FiveThirtyEight has not even bothered to fill important positions that were left open after people exited the business. And Nate Silver himself has spoken about finding a buyer.
Nate Silver is still on the job, for now, as his current contract runs until this summer. What is still unclear, however, is what exactly will become of FiveThirtyEight after his departure. If the website continues to function Silver might continue to be paid something in the way of royalties by ABC since he still holds some of the company’s copyrights and so forth.
