I would argue that the "prevailing culture" in the workplace is very much to value data over intuition. I'm biased, however, as I do enterprise analytics consul

I would argue that the "prevailing culture" in the workplace is very much to value data over intuition. I'm biased, however, as I do enterprise analytics consulting for a living. That being said, companies like Visa, MasterCard, and most banks have been using automated fraud detection for decades. This stuff is old hat in the world of business. Three years ago, I built a system that helped predict for craft brewers what packaging they should put their beer into for a month (bottle, kegs, etc). They were eager to get it. I've implemented systems which detect fraud, predict inventory levels, warn of stockouts, and bubble up data for business leaders to act upon. I've done it for years. This isn't a new phenomenon, nor is Silver's prediction a watershed moment. Polls have been used since Gallup showed they were viable, and campaigns almost entirely become slaves to them. How is politics not driven by data? Hell, Competing on Analytics has been around for five years. Ralph Kimball has been touting data warehouses and analytics since the mid-80's. Obviously, our predictions will get better as processing power improves, but decision makers in businesses have been thinking in terms of data for quite awhile.