Why Crash Brief Started on September 11

My first forecast in Crash Brief was made on September 11, 2025.

And only after quite a long time did I realize that this was the day the Twin Towers fell and the September 11 terrorist attack happened.

But, as it later turned out, this is also a very significant date for forecasting.

Thanks to the book “Superforecasting” by Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner, I learned how actively government organizations use the services of forecasters, especially military and intelligence structures.

And September 11 became one of the most illustrative failures of such a forecasting system.

Much of it was literally lying in plain sight. After the fact, a huge number of people said that the attack could have been foreseen. But one way or another, it was not predicted well enough to take the necessary measures in time.

For me, there is a very interesting coincidence in this.

Crash Brief started exactly on the day that, in some sense, became a symbol of how incompetence, biases, personal interests and poor organization of information can distort even a very important forecast.

At first I even thought about moving the startup's beginning date. Making it September 10 or 12.

But then I looked at my Twitter post: the first forecast was published exactly on September 11. And on September 12, I was already writing publicly that this was Day 2.

So there is nothing left to change here.

And it turns out quite paradoxically: on one side, this is a tragic day. On the other, it is the day of one of the most famous forecasting fiascos.

I am now gradually approaching one year of my evidence-based forecasting system — based on numbers and data, clear measurement of results, work on mistakes and constant testing of my own hypotheses.

And the further I go, the more I understand that only such an approach can eventually lead to success at all.

All my previous nine years, when I made forecasts unsystematically, did not measure them precisely enough, did not set specific boundaries and did not conduct a careful review of every result, I now see more as a period of accumulating experience.

And I still have to become a real professional forecaster.

Soon it will be only one year since I started doing this in the way that, in my understanding, it really needs to be done.