Words of Wisdom

"My major hobby is teasing people who take themselves & the quality of their knowledge too seriously & those who don’t have the courage to sometimes say: I don’t know...."

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, post trader


Taleb wrote the best non-fiction seller on Amazon in 2007. "The Black Swan" was preceded by Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in the Markets and Life. Basically, Taleb explains a lot of 'successes' that we envy to randomness. In one of the most counter-intuitive example, he would rather invest his money with a fund manager who has outperformed from the population of 3 managers than one who has outperformed in the total population of 300.

Taleb also argues that the world has under-estimated fat-tails. His real idea is that the more remote the event, the less we know about its probability.


Down in Wall Street, it is perhaps impossible to find a person who can see how the turmoil would unfold. Quants, MBAs, CFOs are all lost. If they are not, we would not be here in this state in the first place. Taleb shows incredible humility and appreciation of risk and uncertainty, far more than the highly paided CEOs running Corporate America.

If you have time, do check out the two books.