There are moments in life where it seems as though everything is riding on one important decision. If only we had a crystal ball to see the future, we could make those decisions with greater confidence. Fortune-telling aside, there are actually methods to improve our predictions—and our decisions.
In this episode of Choiceology with Katy Milkman ( , we look at what makes some people “superforecasters.”
In 2010, the United States government had been looking for Al Qaeda leader and perpetrator of the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden, for nearly a decade. Years of intelligence gathering all over the world had come up short. It seemed every new tip was a dead end. But one small group of CIA analysts uncovered a tantalizing clue that led them to a compound in Pakistan. Soon, the president of the United States would be faced with a difficult choice: to approve the top-secret mission or not.
We will hear this story from two perspectives.
Peter Bergen ( is a national security commentator and author of the book The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden ( . He interviewed Osama bin Laden in 1997.
Former CIA director Leon Panetta ( led the United States government’s hunt for bin Laden and describes the night his mission came to a dramatic conclusion.
Next, Katy speaks with Barbara Mellers ( about research that shows how so-called superforecasters make more accurate predictions despite facing uncertainty and conflicting information.
You can read more in the paper titled “Identifying and Cultivating Superforecasters as a Method of Improving Probabilistic Predictions ( .”
Barabara Mellers is the I. George Heyman University Professor of both marketing at the Wharton School ( and of psychology at the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania ( .
Choiceology is an original podcast from Charles Schwab ( . For more on the series, visit schwab.com/podcast ( .
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