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
school bus please
Please, don’t drive a school bus blindfolded.
business punishment want
I want them poor and they deserve to be poor. You can't have capitalism without punishment.
business finance reason
Private equity has absolutely no reason to exist. The private equity holder has all the upside and the banks all the downside.
business gestures finance
Never ask a trader if he is profitable: you can easily see it in his gesture and gait.
business want derivatives
We should probably stop trading derivatives, anything more complex than regular options ... I am an options trader, and I don't understand options. How do you want a regulator to understand them?
trying busy incompetence
Someone who says "I am busy" is either declaring incompetence (and lack of control of his life) or trying to get rid of you.
serendipity luck
...maximize the serendipity around you.
weakness
It is a sign of weakness to avoid showing signs of weakness.
callous designed people provide social turn
In social policy, when we provide a safety net, it should be designed to help people take more entrepreneurial risks, not to turn them into dependents. This doesn't mean that we should be callous to the underprivileged.
functions home human run textbook understood victims view
We are victims of the post-Enlightenment view that the world functions like a sophisticated machine, to be understood like a textbook engineering problem and run by wonks. In other words, like a home appliance, not like the human body.
noticed
Years ago, I noticed one thing about economics, and that is that economists didn't get anything right.
drop except local
I don't go to the doctor except when I'm very ill, and when I go to India, I drink a drop of local water.
accept false knowledge limits people
The people I go after are the false experts, those who do not accept the limits of their knowledge.
experience looking next recognize solace time
The next time you experience a blackout, take some solace by looking at the sky. You will not recognize it.