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
ideas fixing dose
Anything organic requires some dose of variability so it can adapt all the time, and fixing things is not a good idea.
ideas interesting scared
An idea starts to be interesting when you get scared of taking it to its logical conclusion.
mean writing ideas
Further, in writing, I feel corrupt and unethical if I have to look up a subject in a library as part of the writing itself. This acts as a filter--it is the only filter. If the subject is not interesting enough for me to look it up independently, for my own curiosity or purposes, and I have not done so before, then I should not be writing about it at all, period. It does not mean that libraries (physical and virtual) are not acceptable; it means that they should not be the source of any idea.
goodbye ideas care
I no longer care about the financial system. I gave them my roadmap. OK? Thanks, bye. I've no idea what's going on. I'm disconnected. I'm totally disengaged.
ideas stories black-swan
Ideas come and go, stories stay.
thinking ideas trying
The irony of the process of thought control: the more energy you put into trying to control your ideas and what you think about, the more your ideas end up controlling you.
ideas greek arrogance
I'm in favour of religion as a tamer of arrogance. For a Greek Orthodox, the idea of God as creator outside the human is not God in God's terms. My God isn't the God of George Bush.
ideas rare-events swans
The central idea in The Black Swan is that: rare events cannot be estimated from empirical observation since they are rare.
knowledge ideas ties
It's not a good idea to take a forecast from someone wearing a tie. If possible, tease people who take themselves and their knowledge too seriously.
intelligent ideas messages
An ad hominem attack against an individual, not against an idea, is highly flattering. It indicates that the person does not have anything intelligent to say about your message.
running ideas missing
Missing a train is only painful if you run after it! Likewise, not matching the idea of success others expect from you is only painful if that’s what you are seeking.
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.