Michael Covel speaks with Spyros Makridakis on the show today. Makridakis is the Rector of the Neapolis University of Pafos NUP and an Emeritus Professor of Decision Sciences at INSEAD as well as the University of Piraeus and one of the world's leading experts on forecasting, with many journal articles and books on the subject. He is famous as the organizer of the Makridakis Competitions, known in the forecasting literature as the M-Competitions. His calling is to poke holes in the notion that we can forecast with accuracy. Covel and Makridakis discuss known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns; the two main types of uncertainty--“subway” and “coconut”; Jim Collins, one of the best-selling business book authors of all time, and why it might not have any use to us; medicine and chance; the placebo effect; acceptance of an uncertain world; and the illusion of control. Whitepapers mentioned in episode: http://www.michaelcovel.com/2015/04/23/spyros-makridakis-interview-followup. Want a free trend following DVD? Go to trendfollowing.com/win.