Daniel Schwarz
Daniel Schwarz is the CEO and Cofounder of FutureSearch, an AI forecasting company building the world’s most advanced research platform for predicting future outcomes. He is a Software Engineer, Entrepreneur, and Forecasting Expert with over a decade of experience in predictive systems, AI development, and machine learning at companies including Google, Waymo, and Metaculus.
Dan is known for creating Gleangen, Google’s internal prediction market, which grew to over 15,000 users and sustained over 1,000 monthly traders, making it one of the largest corporate prediction markets ever operated. His work spans the intersection of artificial intelligence, collective intelligence, and probabilistic forecasting, with a focus on applying these technologies to understand AI development trajectories and support strategic decision-making.
Read Creating a prediction market on Google Cloud, Can Language Models Use Forecasting Strategies?, and The Death and Life of Prediction Markets at Google. Watch My Experience Running Gleangen: Google’s Internal Prediction Market.
In August 2023, Dan cofounded FutureSearch with Lawrence Phillips, who led Metaculus’ AI team. The company’s mission is to build AI capable of tackling complex, real-world analytical tasks that other AI systems cannot handle.
In 2024, FutureSearch became the first company to demonstrate an autonomous AI forecaster that was a net winner of bets against real humans on important geopolitical questions. In December 2024, the company raised $5.79 million in seed funding from Metaplanet Holdings and Polaris Ventures. Read FutureSearch Gives Odds of Runaway AI in New AI Futurism Report.
FutureSearch has collaborated on major forecasting initiatives, contributing core research to AI 2027, a report examining scenarios for AI development, including the potential arrival of superintelligence. The company’s contributions include forecasts on when software development may be fully automated and how much AI research progress may accelerate. Daniel Kokotajlo, a former OpenAI researcher known for AI predictions, contributed to the report. Read AI 2027: Forecasting the Arrival of Superintelligence.
Dan launched Stockfisher in 2024, a platform that enables value investors to screen the entire market for the highest long-term returns based on detailed 10-year cash flow forecasts. The system provides rigorous fundamental analysis for over 3,000 publicly traded companies, offering transparent research and forecasted returns that leverage FutureSearch’s forecasting methodology. Read Introducing Stockfisher.
Between October 2022 and August 2023, Dan served as Chief Technology Officer at Metaculus, the preeminent public forecasting platform. He hired and managed the engineering team building the world’s best public platform for human forecasting, where hundreds of thousands of forecasters make predictions on topics ranging from AI progress to global health. Metaculus has become a critical resource for researchers, policymakers, and the effective altruism community, who are seeking calibrated forecasts on important questions. Read The Rationale-Shaped Hole At The Heart Of Forecasting.
At Google, Dan served as a Senior Software Engineer from January 2020 to October 2022, where he built and operated Gleangen, the company’s internal prediction market. The platform became a valuable source of collective intelligence during the COVID-19 pandemic, accurately predicting workplace policies before they were enacted. He documented the history of prediction markets at Google in his article for Asterisk Magazine titled The Death and Life of Prediction Markets at Google.
Between January 2019 and January 2020, Dan was a Senior Software Engineer at Waymo, Alphabet’s autonomous vehicle company, where he worked in systems engineering and explored the use of prediction markets to forecast safety metrics. His earlier tenure at Google spanned from March 2014 to January 2019, progressing from Test Engineer to Software Engineer in Tools and Infrastructure, and then to Senior Software Engineer.
Dan began his career as a Trading Associate at Cutler Group, LP from January 2012 to July 2012. He was a Software Engineer at Twist Inc from 2012 to 2013 and a Product Quality Engineer at Palantir Technologies from July 2013 to October 2013. In the summer of 2011, he was a Summer Intern at the Institute For The Future in Palo Alto, where he designed an online game platform for the organization.
Dan earned his Bachelor’s Degree of Science in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University in 2011, where he studied an interdisciplinary program combining computer science, philosophy, linguistics, and psychology. At Stanford, he completed coursework including Artificial Intelligence: Principles and Techniques (CS 221) and Mathematical Foundations of Computing (CS 103). He was active in extracurricular activities, including the Stanford Chess Team, where he played first board in 2010, Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, the Stanford Ski Team, and Stanford Jazz Combos as a bassist.
Dan has emerged as a thought leader in AI forecasting and prediction markets, speaking at venues including The AI Conference. His research and commentary have been featured in publications including Astral Codex Ten and AIThority. Listen to The Secret Sauce of Accurate AI Forecasting with Dan Schwarz of FutureSearch.
Dan’s interests outside of work include chess, jazz music, biking, skiing, and continuous learning. He is based in San Bruno, California.
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