No one is going to read this. It's the new "A Brief History of Time," you know, the Steven Hawking book everybody bought in the eighties and then found out it was too dense to comprehend, never mind put in the time and effort to make headway.
The bottom line is Nate Silver loves to play poker. And that's what the first third of this book is all about. If you can get over that hump, you find analyses of Silicon Valley, venture capital, crypto, even an analysis of Vegas itself, but you start off with poker.
I don't play poker. I don't even know how to play poker. Cards are not my thing. And to win at poker you've got to bluff, and that's the antithesis of who I am, I'm straight up and straightforward 24/7, deviousness is not in my personality. I'll say what no one else will, but there's no hidden agenda.
But what stuns me about "On the Edge" is how the media, along with Nate himself, have been hyping this book to high heaven, and no one talks about actually reading it. I mean if you're a poker afficionado, go for it, you'll be in heaven. But if you're looking for...
Exactly what?
The bottom line is Silver wanted to write a book about poker, and then imposed a framework upon it, coming up with the concept of the River and the Village, two monikers that do not really convey what these groups are about.
But it's really pretty simple. The risk takers and the establishment. The east coast and the west.
I've never seen such a takedown of the east coast academic establishment in a book by someone with education and status who has a name in popular culture.
Like the woman who invented mRNA vaccines, ultimately winning the Nobel Prize. She lost her gig at the big university, she had to sleep in her lab to avoid getting deported, no one believed in her, no one supported her, and it took her a damn long time to get to the destination.
Silver makes the point that institutions just want to get the next grant, they're much less interested in breakthroughs.
But his skewering of the high and mighty, the east coast educated elite, makes me so proud I escaped, moved to Los Angeles, which everybody who is not here decries.
It's about the freedom. Not Elon Musk's b.s. freedom of speech, but the freedom to be yourself, to not conform, to have ideas outside the mainstream.
So that's the battle, between the east coast elites and the west coast techies who are revolutionizing the world.
Now I'm not down with the techies who want to cast off regulations, who want to work completely unfettered, who lobbied Kamala Harris to get rid of Lina Khan.
But I'm really not down with the so-called Village, where the goal is to move up the ladder in D.C., from campaign worker to lobbyist to...a cushy life.
Those on the west coast want to change the world.
Those on the east coast want the system to never change, while they use their blue chip upbringings to start in the middle and make their way to the top.
But first you have to start with poker.
Huh?
One thing about "On the Edge," you will never ever drop a penny in Vegas ever again. At least if you read it. The odds are stacked against you. Literally. You can't win. Maybe momentarily, but definitely not in the long run.
As for those sports books, all that online gambling you read about?
Bottom line, if you're any good, they cut you off. They limit your bets. So you can't get rich.
As for making a living playing poker... Good luck. It's like being a touring golf pro, or a traveling musician, the costs are insane, but in poker there's no guaranteed income whatsoever.
Read this book and you'll want to live a straight life. Like the poker star who left the game to work at Bridgewater.
And if you don't know what that is...
Ain't that America.
Almost all information is hiding in plain sight. All you've got to do is read. But that's too tough for most people.
Wow, that sounds like a put-down. But my ultimate point here is if you see "On the Edge" as a self-help book, you've got it all wrong. You're born with the amount of risk you're willing to take. Maybe influenced by your upbringing. You can't change along the way, you'll get too anxious.
And that's one reason the record business is moribund. There's no risk involved. Everybody's on salary, looking to get their bonus. The business was started by indies, whether it be Ahmet at Atlantic or Jac Holzman at Elektra. One of Jac's big breakthroughs was budget classical, i.e. the Nonesuch label. The majors missed this completely. What are the majors doing now?
The reason to read "On the Edge" is to learn about this world you're not a part of.
And if you're part of this world, you'll learn almost nothing new.
But you've got to wade through all the poker b.s. first.
Which I think most people are unwilling to do.
Could you sit in the library reading and comprehending a bunch of math gobbledygook in college? Well, think about doing it for fun.
Meanwhile, "On the Edge" is being purveyed as a mainstream book.
There are obvious truths in "On the Edge," how crypto is being lifted up by the bros left out of the mainstream world, speculators who could never get a gig at the bank, the same people cheering Musk and Trump on on X. It's obvious if you're paying attention, but even big media misses this.
But Silver lays it out. Assuming you can wade through.
This is fascinating to me. It's the Emperor's New Clothes. Since it's Nate Silver, since he's the foremost election prognosticator, he's getting a complete pass in the media. He's on all these podcasts...did these hosts bother to read the book? I almost guarantee you not. Because it's a schlepp, to a great degree in the wilderness, with very few cups of water. And it's very in-depth, as well as long.
This is the modern world. Tons of people talking about that which they know nothing about while building up that which is unfit for mainstream consumption.
Which is analogous to the music business selling tripe that everybody says is great.
Believe me, we used to have risk-takers in the music business, on the creative side especially. But that required being broke and not complaining about the money, waiting for the audience to catch up with you.
No one's doing this anymore. The first thing they want is to get paid.
They're inhabitants of the Village, and they're not going anywhere.
Hell, one man revolutionized music distribution, Daniel Ek. And became a billionaire in the process. And this is what musicians hate most about him, how rich he got. But he probably struggled more than you do. You're looking at the end result, not the process.
You'll ask yourself all these questions if you read "On the Edge."
But, once again, first you have to wade through the poker section. And the poker analogies that pop up throughout the book.
Are you ready for that?
I believe very few are.
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