nassim nicholas taleb Archives

Skin in the Game: The Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Nassim is a mathematical statistician, and risk analyst. Today he is a Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering at New York University.

He is a co-editor-in-chief of the academic journal Risk and Decision Analysis since September 2014. Nassim has also been a practitioner of mathematical finance, a hedge fund manager, and a derivatives trader.

His previous book The Black Swan is via The Sunday Times (London) one of the 12 most influential books since World War II. Simply cannot believe it has been 14 years since I read this book. In addition, it would appear that having The Black Swan under your belt helps keep his messaging here accurate.

He has written a five volume set regarding uncertainty called Incerto. In Skin in the Game, Talib mixes a series of ancient fables and maps them to modern subjects. In the age of iPhones and COVID however, these stories seem out of the ordinary in standing up a fable from 2,500 years ago.

However, attempts to apply Wall Street commissions seems like a phish out of water today. As an example, Robert Rubin, the former US Secretary of the Treasury accepted $120 million in compensation from Citibank as the bank was trading at $0.97/share. Rubin’s position was declaring a ‘Black Swan’ event.

I have been a fan of Malcolm Gladwell’s writing. Joining The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking and Outliers: The Story of Success comes his latest work What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures which is a collection of his writings with the New Yorker. I have enjoyed all of his books and this new release is no exception.

And to prove life again is all about timing the NYTimes has it’s book review hitting tomorrow’s Sunday paper. The book’s title is from his writing about Cesar Millan, the noted animal trainer with the hit cable show The Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan.

Gladwell breaks the book into three parts: Minor Geniuses, Theories – or ways of organizing experience and Predictions we make about people. From these points Gladwell shares those articles that have stuck with him long after the New Yorker articles were published.

I was pretty amused in reading What the Dog Saw right after finishing SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance

To say the data and stories by Gladwell and Dubner & Levitt may overlap, it was nevertheless a lesson in looking beyond the regular story to take the opportunity to learn hidden lessons.