What you'll learn

• 1 (03:17) **The Ancient Problem of Prediction** - The episode opens by framing humanity's long struggle with uncertainty, from Greek oracles and sheep livers to Pleiades-watching potato farmers, and asks whether modern prediction markets are an upgrade or a disaster.
• 2 (05:53) **Introducing Calci and Its CEO** - Steven Dubner sets the scene with the staggering valuations of Calci and Polymarket, then turns to Tarek Mansor, Calci’s CEO, who deflects talk of personal wealth.
• 3 (09:58) **The Slow, Regulated Path** - Mansor explains why Calci spent four years getting regulated before launching, a deliberate anti-pattern to the typical Silicon Valley "move fast and break things" ethos.
• 4 (14:44) **The Iowa Electronic Markets and Robin Hanson’s Vision** - The episode traces the intellectual history of prediction markets, from the University of Iowa’s 1980s experiment to economist Robin Hanson’s grand vision of "decision markets."
• 5 (21:55) **Why Internal Prediction Markets Failed to Take Off** - Despite successful experiments at Eli Lilly and Google, internal prediction markets never spread widely, and Hanson explains the political resistance.
• 6 (23:39) **Superforecasters and the Value of Non-Experts** - Mansor cites Philip Tetlock’s work to argue that domain expertise is less important than intellectual curiosity and self-calibration for accurate prediction.
• 7 (28:01) **How a Calci Contract Gets Written** - Nicole Kagan, head of research and chief contract writer, takes listeners through the meticulous process of creating a legally robust prediction market contract.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app