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Book · How to decide

Superforecasting

Philip Tetlock & Dan Gardner · 2015

What research on forecasting tournaments found about who predicts well, and the habits that turn out to distinguish them.

Why it is here

Where Kahneman diagnoses and Taleb warns, this book attempts something more constructive: identifying what the people who forecast measurably better than average actually do. The answers are unglamorous — break questions into parts, start from base rates, update in small increments, keep score.

The keeping-score element is the one most worth importing. Angel investing gives feedback so slowly that almost nobody records what they believed at the time, which means almost nobody can learn from being wrong. Writing down your thesis and your expected outcome at the point of investing is the cheapest improvement available.

It is also a useful antidote to the confident forecasting that fills the podcasts on our listening list. The best forecasters are notably tentative, and the correlation between confidence and accuracy is not the one you would hope for.

Read it if

You want to get measurably better at judgement rather than just aware of its limits.

Skip it if

You will not actually keep records — the central recommendation requires the work.

Pair it withThinking, Fast and SlowDaniel KahnemanThe foundational account of how human judgement systematically fails, by the psychologist who did more than anyone to demonstrate it.

Superforecasting: common questions

What is the single practice to take from this book?
Write down what you believe at the point of investing — the thesis, what would have to be true, and what you expect. Angel feedback arrives years later, and without a contemporaneous record you will remember having believed whatever the outcome implies.
Does forecasting research apply to something as uncertain as startups?
Partly. Nobody can forecast an individual company's outcome, but the habits — base rates before specifics, small updates, kept records — improve judgement in exactly the conditions angel investing creates.