Paul Rhode's "skeptical perspective" on corporate prediction markets:
With internal prediction markets, key questions include who will set the agenda, who decides what questions will be answered and how? It seems authority matters in whether this is done in a top-down or bottom-up manner. If the question is what is the best forecast for demand growth, will this deadline be met, or how will the product rank in quality tests, it is clear that upper management, the “deciders,” would be happy to learn from the collective wisdom of employees in contact with customers or doing the design work. If the questions posed address how long before the company president is fired, whether this product is found defective and has to be recalled, or when the mass layoffs will begin, then upper management will be unhappy.
Prediction markets provide more information, but they do so in a public way. What prevents competitors from spying, from gaining access to company secrets? Besides making private information common knowledge, prediction markets undermined the mystique, the information monopoly of those in charge.
I agree completely and have said similar things many times. So why am I called a "hyperbolic" optimist? Today I speak at a corporate prediction markets summit in NYC.
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