Nuno, great stuff as always! I hope you don't stop writing this newsletter. Your attack on Bertelsmann come in way over the top, though. Bertelsmann's origins are unsavory to be sure. But the group and foundation are respected big business in Germany now. Their thousands of workers hail from all nations; I personally know someone with Persian roots who works there, and they would think this attack is odd. Most of their foundation money now comes from the Arvato dividend, and the company radically reinvented itself. That's true even if you look at the company since the 90s bookclub sect times.
There are players in the forecasting & betting space whose crumminess and money laundry connections are much more worrisome than Bertelsmann. Especially in crypto forecasting.
The media they publish may be very low brow (e.g. Antena 3 in Spain or M6 in France) but there isn't significant Nazism left in there.
Hey, thanks for your comment. I'm aware that it could come across as a bit bizarre. But I'm pretty sure it's not *wrong*. With that in mind:
Whether they are respected or not doesn't have bearing for me on whether they are illegitimate / unsavory / good / etc. Like, my core argument is that the origins of the money are illegitimate because of:
- The Nazi origins
- The tax evasion loophole
If they are doing some good work, that isn't logically contradictory, and in fact the good work can be used as a rethorical shield.
If the Foundation were now independent, e.g., like the Ford Foundation now is, this might be a point against. But in fact it isn't, as I mention the same person represents the interest of the family and of the foundation, which is incestuous & which I'd interpret as illegitimate.
> Most of their foundation money now comes from the Arvato dividend
> There are players in the forecasting & betting space whose crumminess and money laundry connections are much more worrisome than Bertelsmann. Especially in crypto forecasting.
Yep. I'm thinking of FTX, which was recently proven to be a scam. What are you thinking of?
Just looking at your own writings, not scams but potentially crummy business practice:
- Kalshi, with its move on Predictit
- Polymarket, using crypto to avoid regulation and taxes
- Infer, as you say with no transparency as to where the money went
- Augur, which got its early media attention as a conduit for "presidential assassination betting" (though note all "will leave office" IFP are potentially assassination markets)
I was initially thinking of a German brothel/crypto entrepreneur who I was told last year wanted to launch a crypto prediction market. But I can't remember the name any more and my internet research came to naught (those plans are likely scrapped now)
The foundation is the brainchild of Liz Mohn, who has a complex and fascinating history. She was a secretary at Bertelsmann, then married the Nazi's son in the 1980s after they could marry when his mother had died, and just then told her three teenage children that they were all sired by said son.
Massive tax evasion through charitable foundations isn't particularly related to ideology; endowments like the Harvard and Yale for-profit-universities also do that. As long as the tax authorities (i.e. the "people") refrain from walking back on the foundation's tax deductible status, tax evasion is not the fault of the foundation, but something sanctioned by law and society.
The reckoning Bertelsmann had in 2008 with its Nazi past involved a few independent historians and was pretty comprehensive as far as I can see. I don't want to sound like an apologist and am not involved with Bertelsmann in any way. But I still think you're being unfair singling out their Nazi books. Their subsidiary Penguin now publishes books of eyery color; I'm sure you will find support for any world view in their back catalog.
In the unfortunate event that you decide to stop writing the newsletter, you might be interested in an emotionally satisfying way of passing the torch. So you could consider creating a Manifold market about the identity of the person who, in your opinion, writes the best forecasting newsletter in 2023. Anyone writing a newsletter could add themselves as an option. Then, in a year's time, you would resolve in favor of whoever you think has most effectively filled the gap. (And in the fortunate event that you were to resume writing it, just resolve N/A, I suppose.)
Great post! I think you are definitely on to something with your questioning of what Infer has done with the $8mm grant. One thing they definitely aren't doing with the money is investing in writing good questions. For example, they only had three questions related to China's 20th Party Congress and they were the laziest questions possible, all three essentially the same since they ask about the future prospects of three individuals who all belong to the SAME FACTION. Another sketchy experience I have recently had with Infer was when they offered me $250/month bounties to start a team and recruit 10 forecasters to join it, but in order to get the monthly bounty all ten team members must make at least one forecast and if that minimum isn't met the team lead receives nothing. That means even if nine team members make 25 forecasts each generating a total of 225 unique forecasts, if the tenth team member fails to make a single forecast the team lead won't qualify for the bounty. So they would pay me for 10 forecasts, but not for 225? To me, that is exploitative. I would love to see how they report their spending because I would not be the least bit surprised if they report that they do pay the team leads even for months that they do not. It seems very clear that the grant they received was used to build products that are then reserved for their paying clients. It is very clear that basically none of that money has been invested in improving the public-facing forecasting tools or compensating the users of their platform. Infer has some 'splaining to do...
Great read, as always. I might add that my (lighthearted) annual forecasting contest just launched its 2023 edition tonight, and you are your readers are welcome to join. Link is below and it's free. (Feel free to delete this whole comment if there's some kind of rule or custom against self-linking.) https://braff.co/advice/f/announcing-the-2023-narcissist-forecasting-contest
Edit: Contrarian offers $500k bet should have linked to: <https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/1m-bet-rules>
Nice post! I appreciate all the research you put into combing through the developments of all the players.
Cheers!
Nuno, great stuff as always! I hope you don't stop writing this newsletter. Your attack on Bertelsmann come in way over the top, though. Bertelsmann's origins are unsavory to be sure. But the group and foundation are respected big business in Germany now. Their thousands of workers hail from all nations; I personally know someone with Persian roots who works there, and they would think this attack is odd. Most of their foundation money now comes from the Arvato dividend, and the company radically reinvented itself. That's true even if you look at the company since the 90s bookclub sect times.
There are players in the forecasting & betting space whose crumminess and money laundry connections are much more worrisome than Bertelsmann. Especially in crypto forecasting.
The media they publish may be very low brow (e.g. Antena 3 in Spain or M6 in France) but there isn't significant Nazism left in there.
Hey, thanks for your comment. I'm aware that it could come across as a bit bizarre. But I'm pretty sure it's not *wrong*. With that in mind:
Whether they are respected or not doesn't have bearing for me on whether they are illegitimate / unsavory / good / etc. Like, my core argument is that the origins of the money are illegitimate because of:
- The Nazi origins
- The tax evasion loophole
If they are doing some good work, that isn't logically contradictory, and in fact the good work can be used as a rethorical shield.
If the Foundation were now independent, e.g., like the Ford Foundation now is, this might be a point against. But in fact it isn't, as I mention the same person represents the interest of the family and of the foundation, which is incestuous & which I'd interpret as illegitimate.
> Most of their foundation money now comes from the Arvato dividend
Neat. But seems like Arvato has the same origins (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arvato).
> There are players in the forecasting & betting space whose crumminess and money laundry connections are much more worrisome than Bertelsmann. Especially in crypto forecasting.
Yep. I'm thinking of FTX, which was recently proven to be a scam. What are you thinking of?
Just looking at your own writings, not scams but potentially crummy business practice:
- Kalshi, with its move on Predictit
- Polymarket, using crypto to avoid regulation and taxes
- Infer, as you say with no transparency as to where the money went
- Augur, which got its early media attention as a conduit for "presidential assassination betting" (though note all "will leave office" IFP are potentially assassination markets)
I was initially thinking of a German brothel/crypto entrepreneur who I was told last year wanted to launch a crypto prediction market. But I can't remember the name any more and my internet research came to naught (those plans are likely scrapped now)
The foundation is the brainchild of Liz Mohn, who has a complex and fascinating history. She was a secretary at Bertelsmann, then married the Nazi's son in the 1980s after they could marry when his mother had died, and just then told her three teenage children that they were all sired by said son.
Massive tax evasion through charitable foundations isn't particularly related to ideology; endowments like the Harvard and Yale for-profit-universities also do that. As long as the tax authorities (i.e. the "people") refrain from walking back on the foundation's tax deductible status, tax evasion is not the fault of the foundation, but something sanctioned by law and society.
The reckoning Bertelsmann had in 2008 with its Nazi past involved a few independent historians and was pretty comprehensive as far as I can see. I don't want to sound like an apologist and am not involved with Bertelsmann in any way. But I still think you're being unfair singling out their Nazi books. Their subsidiary Penguin now publishes books of eyery color; I'm sure you will find support for any world view in their back catalog.
In the unfortunate event that you decide to stop writing the newsletter, you might be interested in an emotionally satisfying way of passing the torch. So you could consider creating a Manifold market about the identity of the person who, in your opinion, writes the best forecasting newsletter in 2023. Anyone writing a newsletter could add themselves as an option. Then, in a year's time, you would resolve in favor of whoever you think has most effectively filled the gap. (And in the fortunate event that you were to resume writing it, just resolve N/A, I suppose.)
Now done here: <https://manifold.markets/Nu%C3%B1oSempere/what-will-the-state-of-my-forecasti#GE5fWdaF9UzVnNvXtfCg>
Great post! I think you are definitely on to something with your questioning of what Infer has done with the $8mm grant. One thing they definitely aren't doing with the money is investing in writing good questions. For example, they only had three questions related to China's 20th Party Congress and they were the laziest questions possible, all three essentially the same since they ask about the future prospects of three individuals who all belong to the SAME FACTION. Another sketchy experience I have recently had with Infer was when they offered me $250/month bounties to start a team and recruit 10 forecasters to join it, but in order to get the monthly bounty all ten team members must make at least one forecast and if that minimum isn't met the team lead receives nothing. That means even if nine team members make 25 forecasts each generating a total of 225 unique forecasts, if the tenth team member fails to make a single forecast the team lead won't qualify for the bounty. So they would pay me for 10 forecasts, but not for 225? To me, that is exploitative. I would love to see how they report their spending because I would not be the least bit surprised if they report that they do pay the team leads even for months that they do not. It seems very clear that the grant they received was used to build products that are then reserved for their paying clients. It is very clear that basically none of that money has been invested in improving the public-facing forecasting tools or compensating the users of their platform. Infer has some 'splaining to do...
Cheers, I appreciate this perspective.
Great read, as always. I might add that my (lighthearted) annual forecasting contest just launched its 2023 edition tonight, and you are your readers are welcome to join. Link is below and it's free. (Feel free to delete this whole comment if there's some kind of rule or custom against self-linking.) https://braff.co/advice/f/announcing-the-2023-narcissist-forecasting-contest