Sion (@Sion_Smith) / X

Sion

23.4K posts

Sion

@Sion_Smith

Building data products that matter • Helping companies monetize real-time data across F1, aerospace & beyond • Writing about actionable data insights • CTO @oso

London

Joined August 2011

Pinned
Sion
@Sion_Smith
Apr 23, 2025
Matthew Benham made MILLIONS predicting football outcomes. Then applied those same algorithms to Brentford FC. Their system tracks 85,500 players to find hidden talent. Their most brilliant discovery? The ONE stat everyone else missed: 🧵
3M
Sion
@Sion_Smith
Mar 5, 2025
In 2016, Leicester pulled off the greatest heist in sports history. Their "cheap" £54M squad was supposed to get crushed by £500M+ rivals. So when they won, the world called it a "miracle." The truth? A secret hack football's elite are STILL trying to copy:
2.2M
Sion
@Sion_Smith
Apr 28, 2025
The Yankees spent $153M and lost to a team using Excel spreadsheets: In 2003, the Oakland A's had $40M but discovered a mathematical loophole. Every baseball scout in America called them crazy. It sparked the biggest revolution in sports history: 🧵
1M
Sion
@Sion_Smith
Apr 9, 2025
Jack the Ripper's identity has been hidden for 137 years. DNA just exposed him. A blood-soaked scarf points to a suspect from 1888. World-famous forensic experts are now at war over this evidence. The implications will change cold cases forever: 🧵
449K
Sion
@Sion_Smith
Apr 7, 2025
MH370 vanished without a trace 10 years ago. The $160M search failed to find the crash site despite massive efforts. In 2025, Ocean Infinity launched a new search using advanced technology and refined data analysis. The world's biggest plane mystery might finally be solved:🧵
714K
Sion
@Sion_Smith
Apr 4, 2025
The $17,000,000 card trick that terrifies casino owners. No card counting. No devices. No broken rules. Casinos refused to pay Phil Ivey, claiming it was cheating. The court's decision will leave you speechless: 🧵
761K
Sion
@Sion_Smith
Apr 18, 2025
Almost HALF of all football matches are decided by pure luck - not skill. UK's top statistician discovered this same randomness controls your entire life. Most fight this chaos. The elite weaponise it. Here's how to master uncertainty and win: 🧵
329K
Sion
@Sion_Smith
May 19, 2025
Tesla doesn't sell cars. They sell data harvesting machines with wheels. Each Tesla captures 40TB of data yearly—enough for 8,000 HD movies. That data is worth more than the vehicle itself. They've turned this hidden goldmine into three revenue streams:
206K
Sion
@Sion_Smith
Mar 21, 2025
Everest is NOT the tallest mountain in the world. Mauna Kea is (from floor to peak) Here are 12 "facts" that data has now fixed:
330K
Sion
@Sion_Smith
Feb 10, 2025
Britain faces a demographic timebomb. The population will surge to 72.5 million by 2032. Yet something else is happening that will change the UK forever. Here's what the numbers actually show:
318K
Sion
@Sion_Smith
Apr 28, 2025
Replying to @Sion_Smith
Billy Beane, the A's GM, saw what everyone missed. Baseball valued players on looks and "gut feel" rather than results. Scouts loved the "good face" over actual performance. This created an opportunity so obvious to Beane he couldn't believe it remained secret:
00:00
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Sion
@Sion_Smith
Apr 23, 2025
Replying to @Sion_Smith
In 2016, they closed their youth academy entirely. Data showed big clubs poached talents for minimal compensation. Their solution? A "B Team" targeting 17-21 year olds released from top academies. The establishment was outraged:
00:00
131K
Sion
@Sion_Smith
Mar 5, 2024
Interested in Apache Kafka? Come along to the community meetup the night before #kafkasummit meetup.com/apache-kafka-l…
46K
Sion
@Sion_Smith
Feb 5, 2025
Formula 1's most guarded secret: Teams aren't winning with better engines. They're using 1.1 million data points per second to do something unprecedented. Here's the technological secret that's making billions:
258K