Show HN: Fatebook – Superforecasting in your Slack
fatebook.io
I see forecasting as anti-bullshit technology:
- It gives you truthseeking incentives
- You communicate your uncertainty as a probability, which is way clearer (70% is better than “probably”)
- You can aggregate forecasts to get wisdom of the crowd effects
- You can see everyone’s track record, and pay more attention to people who are consistently accurate
I’m a fan of prediction markets [0] and forecasting platforms [1]. But predictions on existing platforms are public - and the questions that are most important to you are normally about your work, which are often best to keep private by default, so you can give your true credence.
So I decided to make a slack bot to make forecasting privately and with your team as easy and fast as possible.
How it works:
1. Make a prediction in slack: `/forecast Will we ship v0.1 in two weeks?`
2. Everyone in the channel can add their forecast (0% - 100%)
3. In two weeks, Fatebook reminds you to resolve it as YES, NO, or AMBIGUOUS
4. Over time, you see your track record - your Brier score [2], relative Brier, and a graph of your calibration
I think it’s a good fit for startups who are dealing with lots of uncertainty and making bets - good to be explicit and track how your expectations do or don’t match with reality, so you can pivot early.
I also think programmers might get value from forecasting how long it’ll take them to build stuff - accurately predicting this lets you prioritise better and ship faster.
Let me know if you have any thoughts or suggestions!
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