“The payoff of a human venture is, in general, inversely proportional to what it is expected to be.”

Nassim Taleb is one of the most interesting and unique modern philosophers. I learned A LOT from this book. If I could lodge a complaint, it is that he is not very good at making concepts easily understandable to the layperson. Taleb is clearly very smart, a polymath, worldly, and more. He likes to make sure you know this by using overly complex language and cosmopolitan anecdotes from his own life.

That said, I can tolerate mild arrogance in exchange for uniquely useful ideas. His heterodox thinking led him to foresee in some respects both the financial crisis of 2008 and the pandemic of 2020.

Continue reading “The Black Swan”