Nate Silver rose to prominence alongside Barack Obama in many ways — he’s most famous for developing the program that correctly predicted the outcomes in 49 of the 50 states in the 2008 Presidential election. As a result he was named to World’s 100 Most Influential People list by Time in 2009. He then went on to nail all 50 states in the 2012 election.
Before that he analyzed baseball, selling his PECOTA system to Baseball Prospectus in 2003. Now he’s the editor-in-chief of ESPN’s FiveThirtyEight blog and a special correspondent for ABC News.
For the past few years he’s predicted other big sporting events — the NFL Playoffs, World Cup soccer, and the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament — with varying degrees of success.