Predictive models

- [Instructor] Marriage is a beautiful thing … where people come together and set out on a new path … full of hope and possibilities. … Then again, it's been suggested that half of the marriages … in the U.S. end up in divorce, … which is a huge challenge for everyone involved. … But 50 percent's just a flip of a coin. … If you were trying to predict whether a particular marriage … would last or whether it would end in divorce, … you could just predict that everybody would stay married … or maybe everybody would get divorced … and you'd be right 50% of the time without even trying. … In a lot of fields, being right 50% of the time … would be an astounding success. … For example, maybe only 5% of companies that receive … venture capital funding end up performing as projected … and there's billions of dollars at stake. … If you could be right 50% of the time … in your venture capital investments, you'd be on fire. … And that brings up the obvious question: … How can you tell which companies will succeed …