Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Nassim Nicholas Talebis a Lebanese-American essayist, scholar, statistician, former trader, and risk analyst, whose work focuses on problems of randomness, probability, and uncertainty. His 2007 book The Black Swan was described in a review by the Sunday Times as one of the twelve most influential books since World War II...
NationalityLebanese
ProfessionScientist
CountryLebanon
matter imperfect foolish
Scepticism is effortful and costly. It is better to be sceptical about matters of large consequences, and be imperfect, foolish and human in the small and the aesthetic.
Only the autodidacts are free,
political suffering imbeciles
The only valid political system is one that can handle an imbecile in power without suffering from it
swans long black
In economic life and history more generally, just about everything of consequence comes from black swans; ordinary events have paltry effects in the long term.
america doe accepting
What America does best is produce the ability to accept failure.
thinking people entertainment
We have this culture of financialization. People think they need to make money with their savings rather with their own business. So you end up with dentists who are more traders than dentists. A dentist should drill teeth and use whatever he does in the stock market for entertainment.
blood brain biology
Janet Yellen at the FED is equivalent to having a biology schoolteacher who has never seen blood perform brain surgery.
hurt parent tragedy
This is the tragedy of modernity: as with neurotically overprotective parents, those trying to help are often hurting us the most.
law ethics modernity
Modernity has replaced ethics with legalese, and the law can be gamed with a good lawyer.
agency lines necks
When I trade, I don't have an agency problem; I have my neck on the line. When a bank or banker trades, it's not his neck on the line.
too-much comfort needs
Comfort makes you weaker. We need some variability, some stressors. Not too much, but just enough.
hate hate-me ifs
If my detractors knew me better they would hate me even more.
government worry risk
The government-sponsored institution Fannie Mae, when I look at its risks, seems to be sitting on a barrel of dynamite, vulnerable to the slightest hiccup. But not to worry: their large staff of scientists deemed these events "unlikely."
fear men modern
The classical man's worst fear was inglorious death; the modern man's worst fear is just death