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
accept false knowledge limits people
The people I go after are the false experts, those who do not accept the limits of their knowledge.
real book knowledge
Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market alow you to put there.
ignorance knowledge information
Information is bad for knowledge.
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.
ignorance knowledge together
It has been more profitable for us to bind together in the wrong direction than to be alone in the right one.
ignorance knowledge limits
Don't ask the barber whether you need a haircut, and don't ask an academic if what he does is relevant.
knowledge order littles
We tend to treat our knowledge as personal property to be protected and defended. It is an ornament that allows us to rise in the pecking order...we take what we know a little too seriously.
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.
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.