Get a free audiobook
-
The Black Swan, Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: With a new section: "On Robustness and Fragility"
- Incerto, Book 2
- Narrated by: Joe Ochman
- Length: 15 hrs and 48 mins
- Categories: Business & Careers, Small Business & Entrepreneurship
People who bought this also bought...
-
Antifragile
- Things That Gain from Disorder
- Written by: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Narrated by: Joe Ochman
- Length: 16 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Black Swan Taleb outlined a problem, and in Antifragile he offers a definitive solution: how to gain from disorder and chaos while being protected from fragilities and adverse events. For what Taleb calls the "antifragile" is actually beyond the robust, because it benefits from shocks, uncertainty, and stressors, just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension. The antifragile needs disorder in order to survive and flourish. Taleb stands uncertainty on its head, making it desirable, even necessary, and proposes that things be built in an antifragile manner.
-
-
Almost a 5
- By Marfew on 2019-04-03
-
Fooled by Randomness
- The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
- Written by: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This audiobook is about luck, or more precisely, how we perceive and deal with luck in life and business. It is already a landmark work, and its title has entered our vocabulary. In its second edition, Fooled by Randomness is now a cornerstone for anyone interested in random outcomes.
-
-
Harsh, brutal, but Brilliant and funny
- By Lululu on 2020-10-21
-
The Bed of Procrustes
- Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
- Written by: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 1 hr and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By the author of the modern classic The Black Swan, this collection of aphorisms and meditations expresses his major ideas in ways you least expect. The Bed of Procrustes takes its title from Greek mythology: the story of a man who made his visitors fit his bed to perfection by either stretching them or cutting their limbs. It represents Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s view of modern civilization’s hubristic side effects.
-
-
Surprising facts with interesting perspective
- By Sindy Li on 2019-07-05
-
What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars
- Written by: Jim Paul, Brendan Moynihan, Jack Schwager (foreword)
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jim Paul's meteoric rise took him from a small town in Northern Kentucky to governor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, yet he lost it all - his fortune, his reputation, and his job - in one fatal attack of excessive economic hubris. In this honest, frank analysis, Paul and Brendan Moynihan revisit the events that led to Paul's disastrous decision and examine the psychological factors behind bad financial practices in several economic sectors.
-
-
I am floored!
- By Amazon Customer on 2019-08-28
-
Thinking, Fast and Slow
- Written by: Daniel Kahneman
- Narrated by: Patrick Egan
- Length: 20 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The guru to the gurus at last shares his knowledge with the rest of us. Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman's seminal studies in behavioral psychology, behavioral economics, and happiness studies have influenced numerous other authors, including Steven Pinker and Malcolm Gladwell. In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman at last offers his own, first book for the general public. It is a lucid and enlightening summary of his life's work. It will change the way you think about thinking. Two systems drive the way we think and make choices, Kahneman explains....
-
-
Very difficult to follow in audio format
- By Amazon Customer on 2017-10-06
-
A Man for All Markets
- From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market
- Written by: Edward O. Thorp, Nassim Nicholas Taleb - foreword
- Narrated by: Edward O. Thorp
- Length: 16 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The incredible true story of the card-counting mathematics professor who taught the world how to beat the dealer and, as the first of the great quantitative investors, ushered in a revolution on Wall Street.
-
-
This is a great read!
- By Anonymous User on 2018-11-19
-
Antifragile
- Things That Gain from Disorder
- Written by: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Narrated by: Joe Ochman
- Length: 16 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Black Swan Taleb outlined a problem, and in Antifragile he offers a definitive solution: how to gain from disorder and chaos while being protected from fragilities and adverse events. For what Taleb calls the "antifragile" is actually beyond the robust, because it benefits from shocks, uncertainty, and stressors, just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension. The antifragile needs disorder in order to survive and flourish. Taleb stands uncertainty on its head, making it desirable, even necessary, and proposes that things be built in an antifragile manner.
-
-
Almost a 5
- By Marfew on 2019-04-03
-
Fooled by Randomness
- The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
- Written by: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This audiobook is about luck, or more precisely, how we perceive and deal with luck in life and business. It is already a landmark work, and its title has entered our vocabulary. In its second edition, Fooled by Randomness is now a cornerstone for anyone interested in random outcomes.
-
-
Harsh, brutal, but Brilliant and funny
- By Lululu on 2020-10-21
-
The Bed of Procrustes
- Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
- Written by: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 1 hr and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By the author of the modern classic The Black Swan, this collection of aphorisms and meditations expresses his major ideas in ways you least expect. The Bed of Procrustes takes its title from Greek mythology: the story of a man who made his visitors fit his bed to perfection by either stretching them or cutting their limbs. It represents Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s view of modern civilization’s hubristic side effects.
-
-
Surprising facts with interesting perspective
- By Sindy Li on 2019-07-05
-
What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars
- Written by: Jim Paul, Brendan Moynihan, Jack Schwager (foreword)
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jim Paul's meteoric rise took him from a small town in Northern Kentucky to governor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, yet he lost it all - his fortune, his reputation, and his job - in one fatal attack of excessive economic hubris. In this honest, frank analysis, Paul and Brendan Moynihan revisit the events that led to Paul's disastrous decision and examine the psychological factors behind bad financial practices in several economic sectors.
-
-
I am floored!
- By Amazon Customer on 2019-08-28
-
Thinking, Fast and Slow
- Written by: Daniel Kahneman
- Narrated by: Patrick Egan
- Length: 20 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The guru to the gurus at last shares his knowledge with the rest of us. Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman's seminal studies in behavioral psychology, behavioral economics, and happiness studies have influenced numerous other authors, including Steven Pinker and Malcolm Gladwell. In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman at last offers his own, first book for the general public. It is a lucid and enlightening summary of his life's work. It will change the way you think about thinking. Two systems drive the way we think and make choices, Kahneman explains....
-
-
Very difficult to follow in audio format
- By Amazon Customer on 2017-10-06
-
A Man for All Markets
- From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market
- Written by: Edward O. Thorp, Nassim Nicholas Taleb - foreword
- Narrated by: Edward O. Thorp
- Length: 16 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The incredible true story of the card-counting mathematics professor who taught the world how to beat the dealer and, as the first of the great quantitative investors, ushered in a revolution on Wall Street.
-
-
This is a great read!
- By Anonymous User on 2018-11-19
-
Nudge
- Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness [Expanded Edition]
- Written by: Richard H. Thaler, Cass R. Sunstein
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Every day, we make decisions on topics ranging from personal investments to schools for our children to the meals we eat to the causes we champion. Unfortunately, we often choose poorly. The reason, the authors explain, is that, being human, we are all susceptible to various biases that can lead us to blunder. Our mistakes make us poorer and less healthy; we often make bad decisions involving education, personal finance, health care, mortgages and credit cards, the family, and even the planet itself.
-
-
Not fresh if you're already into behavioral econ.
- By Pouria on 2017-11-06
-
Principles
- Life and Work
- Written by: Ray Dalio
- Narrated by: Ray Dalio, Jeremy Bobb
- Length: 16 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ray Dalio, one of the world's most successful investors and entrepreneurs, shares the unconventional principles that he's developed, refined, and used over the past 40 years to create unique results in both life and business - and which any person or organization can adopt to help achieve their goals.
-
-
I'm surprised this book has such great reviews
- By Exanime on 2017-12-15
-
The Misbehavior of Markets
- A Fractal View of Financial Turbulence
- Written by: Benoit Mandelbrot, Richard L. Hudson
- Narrated by: Jason Olazabal
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In his first book for a general audience, Mandelbrot, with co-author Richard L. Hudson, shows how the dominant way of thinking about the behavior of markets-a set of mathematical assumptions a century old and still learned by every MBA and financier in the world-simply does not work. As he did for the physical world in his classic The Fractal Geometry of Nature, Mandelbrot here uses fractal geometry to propose a new, more accurate way of describing market behavior.
-
-
Very Good
- By Cal on 2021-01-23
-
Value Investing (Second Edition)
- From Graham to Buffett and Beyond
- Written by: Bruce C. Greenwald, Judd Kahn, Erin Bellissimo, and others
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 18 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beat the market with the tips and techniques from the best value investors in the world. Value Investing, Second Edition is your guide to implementing value investing principles in your own portfolio, complete with a look at the approaches used by the best value investors past and present.
-
When Genius Failed
- The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management
- Written by: Roger Lowenstein
- Narrated by: Roger Lowenstein
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Genius Failed is the cautionary financial tale of our time, the gripping saga of what happened when an elite group of investors believed they could actually deconstruct risk and use virtually limitless leverage to create limitless wealth. In Roger Lowenstein's hands, it is a brilliant tale peppered with fast money, vivid characters, and high drama.
-
-
A bit too dry for my liking
- By Rupert on 2019-04-29
-
The Black Swan
- The Impact of the Highly Improbable
- Written by: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Narrated by: David Chandler
- Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Maverick thinker Nassim Nicholas Taleb had an illustrious career on Wall Street before turning his focus to his black swan theory. Not all swans are white, and not all events, no matter what the experts think, are predictable. Taleb shows that black swans, like 9/11, cannot be foreseen and have an immeasurable impact on the world.
-
-
A Must Read
- By Waseem Gharbieh on 2019-02-23
-
The Man Who Solved the Market
- How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution
- Written by: Gregory Zuckerman
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jim Simons is the greatest money maker in modern financial history. No other investor - Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch, Ray Dalio, Steve Cohen, or George Soros - can touch his record. Since 1988, Renaissance's signature Medallion fund has generated average annual returns of 66 percent. The firm has earned profits of more than $100 billion; Simons is worth 23 billion dollars.
-
-
Good book, can't get much details of the how to
- By Sean Arani on 2020-01-26
-
Unknown Market Wizards
- The Best Traders You've Never Heard Of
- Written by: Jack D. Schwager
- Narrated by: DJ Holte
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Unknown Market Wizards continues in the three-decade tradition of the hugely popular Market Wizards series, interviewing exceptionally successful traders to learn how they achieved their extraordinary performance results. The twist in Unknown Market Wizards is that the featured traders are individuals trading their own accounts. They are unknown to the investment world. Despite their anonymity, these traders have achieved performance records that rival, if not surpass, the best professional managers.
-
-
Schwager did it again
- By Iury Simas on 2021-01-24
-
The Intelligent Investor Rev Ed.
- Written by: Benjamin Graham
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 17 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The greatest investment advisor of the 20th century, Benjamin Graham taught and inspired people worldwide. Graham's philosophy of "value investing" - which shields investors from substantial error and teaches them to develop long-term strategies - has made The Intelligent Investor the stock market Bible ever since its original publication in 1949.
-
-
Great content but lots of numbers so needs focus
- By Sean Arani on 2018-01-19
-
Never Split the Difference
- Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It
- Written by: Chris Voss
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After a stint policing the rough streets of Kansas City, Missouri, Chris Voss joined the FBI, where his career as a hostage negotiator brought him face-to-face with a range of criminals, including bank robbers and terrorists. Reaching the pinnacle of his profession, he became the FBI's lead international kidnapping negotiator. Never Split the Difference takes you inside the world of high-stakes negotiations and into Voss' head.
-
-
Insightful and practical.
- By Anonymous User on 2017-12-31
-
Zero to One
- Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
- Written by: Peter Thiel, Blake Masters
- Narrated by: Blake Masters
- Length: 4 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. And the next Mark Zuckerberg won't create a social network. If you are copying these guys, you aren't learning from them. It's easier to copy a model than to make something new: doing what we already know how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. But every time we create something new, we go from 0 to 1.
-
-
Excellent book for Entrepreneurs
- By FibreHead on 2019-07-12
-
Thinking in Bets
- Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts
- Written by: Annie Duke
- Narrated by: Annie Duke
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Super Bowl XLIX, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll made one of the most controversial calls in football history: With 26 seconds remaining, and trailing by four at the Patriots' one-yard line, he called for a pass instead of a handing off to his star running back. The pass was intercepted, and the Seahawks lost. Critics called it the dumbest play in history. But was the call really that bad? Or did Carroll actually make a great move that was ruined by bad luck? Even the best decision doesn't yield the best outcome every time.
-
-
Good book
- By Anonymous User on 2020-06-15
Publisher's Summary
The Black Swan is a stand-alone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series, an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand. The other books in the series are Fooled by Randomness, Antifragile, Skin in the Game, and The Bed of Procrustes.
A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal lives.
Why do we not acknowledge the phenomenon of black swans until after they occur? Part of the answer, according to Taleb, is that humans are hardwired to learn specifics when they should be focused on generalities. We concentrate on things we already know and time and time again fail to take into consideration what we don’t know. We are, therefore, unable to truly estimate opportunities, too vulnerable to the impulse to simplify, narrate, and categorize, and not open enough to rewarding those who can imagine the “impossible”.
For years, Taleb has studied how we fool ourselves into thinking we know more than we actually do. We restrict our thinking to the irrelevant and inconsequential, while large events continue to surprise us and shape our world. In this revelatory book, Taleb explains everything we know about what we don’t know, and this second edition features a new philosophical and empirical essay, “On Robustness and Fragility”, which offers tools to navigate and exploit a Black Swan world.
Elegant, startling, and universal in its applications, The Black Swan will change the way you look at the world. Taleb is a vastly entertaining writer, with wit, irreverence, and unusual stories to tell. He has a polymathic command of subjects ranging from cognitive science to business to probability theory. The Black Swan is a landmark book - itself a black swan.
Includes a bonus pdf of tables and figures.
Praise for Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“The most prophetic voice of all.” (GQ)
Praise for The Black Swan:
“[A book] that altered modern thinking.” (The Times, London)
“A masterpiece.” (Chris Anderson, Editor-in-chief of Wired, author of The Long Tail)
“Hugely enjoyable - compelling...easy to dip into.” (Financial Times)
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
What the critics say
“Engaging.... The Black Swan has appealing cheek and admirable ambition.” (The New York Times Book Review)
“[Taleb writes] in a style that owes as much to Stephen Colbert as it does to Michel de Montaigne.... We eagerly romp with him through the follies of confirmation bias [and] narrative fallacy.” (The Wall Street Journal)
“The Black Swan changed my view of how the world works.” (Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Laureate)
“Idiosyncratically brilliant.” (Niall Ferguson, Los Angeles Times)
More from the same
What listeners say about The Black Swan, Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: With a new section: "On Robustness and Fragility"
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 2019-10-23
Prepare to be destroyed (and reborn)
At first it might seem walkey-talkey, but NNT walks his talk with rigorous math too.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 2019-03-16
Worthy of a reread
this was an excellent book, and a much-needed corrective 2 our overconfidence in our own knowledge. the exposition was exceptionally clear and his polemical Style was extremely entertaining.
parts of tellabs social critique we're weaker or misguided, but his Central thesis was highly persuasive. I especially appreciated the essay and Technical discussion at the end of the book. this essay was added to the second edition and was not present in the original text.
this book stands out as one of the few texts worthy of a reread. this is not because the ideas presented were especially difficult, but rather because the illusion of knowledge is particularly difficult to dispel.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- AH24
- 2019-10-06
Very disappointing
I heard great things about this book and I love business books so I was looking forward to it. It was billed as a new outlook that explained why the financial markets would be different after 2008 than before. It turns out that it is basically just a guy that made a lucky call on the markets falling by using options. He was able to market himself and hype the story but beyond that there was nothing of value in the book. It will not teach you anything about the financial markets or how you should think about investing. It just is a self-appreciating account of a guy who made a lucky guess.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Tony
- 2021-01-23
NNT is not for everyone
I have to re listen to this one and to read the physical book several times, because NNT's books are not easy to grasp on the first pass.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mohd Russel
- 2020-12-21
Very thought provoking
Great book. Gave me a whole new perspective of looking at the world. After listening to this, I ended up buying the Incerto box set that contains 5 books including this one. Brilliant writing by a brilliant thinker.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ron Santos
- 2020-09-27
Lots to recommend it
As someone in the business of research, I was of course interested in the technical bits. But it's a book with a story of sorts with some engaging characters (Fat Tony, Seneca) and anecdotes. Sometimes it's a history of philosophy and mathematics, other times it's a critique of the use of 'evidence-based' models in public policy development. (ouch, that kind of hit me where it hurts 😊). And then again, it describes a way of how to live your life, really ('Flaneur). It's a deep book, so I need to take a couple of aimless long walks, and read the PDF. 😊 On a more mundane note, really appreciated a text version.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 2020-09-16
amazing book
it was a fantastic experience listening to this book, although the first a few chapters were a little vague for me but once I understood the points Mr. Taleb making, I was blown away by them!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mohammad Hassan Rahmani
- 2020-09-05
Revolutionalizing
I had a general knoedge of the concelt and the book but this was nothing compared to what I actually learned through the book. The whole illusion of knowledge and ability to forecast plus so many intriguing philosophical ideas. the voice of the narrator was very good and consistent with the expected tone for this material.
Thanks Nassim. love to read more of your books!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 2019-08-08
Interesting, but over the top
The book has many great points and is thought provoking in many ways. However, is difficult to get past Taleb's abrasive style of writing. It's very clear he is trying to be intentionally agitating by being completely dismissive of the entire disciplines like social science, economics, and even sometimes biology. I generally prefer authors who are careful and thoughtful with their criticism, so this book annoyed me at times. Still, it has many good points, mainly that bell curves have important limitations in predicting important outliers (although he repeats this point ad nauseam). I have trouble believing, as he asserts, that many high level scientists and speculators don't know about power law distributions or think their methods are clairvoyant. Worth the read if you can get over a lot of straw manning of fields. Taleb is capable of making unique and powerful points.
20 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jared M. Short
- 2019-04-10
so cool!
I'm not a technical consumer but it was a fascinating read. I think I understood 50%.
13 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jussi Kari
- 2019-11-23
For some reason, this book was applauded
I was told this is an insightful book.
Turns out this book contains one thought: that gaussian probabilities do not contain everything and that you should be prepared for what they don’t tell you.
Other than that, this book only seems to contain Taleb telling how Nobel winners are ”fraudsters” and ”phonies” and only him and his close friends ”get it”.
When I was 10, my dad told me it’s okay to be proud of what you have - but that you should never be a braggard. Taleb clearly didn’t get the memo. While he probably is very intelligent, he also seems like an annoying, insufferable prick.
Would have otherwise given just one star but Taleb does raise some good points so two stars it is.
The performance is solid, though.
19 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jenna Weisz
- 2019-04-30
I regret listening to this audio.
so listening to this audio was quite a struggle for me. Not necessary because of the performance of The Voice narrator. Honestly I think he did a pretty good job dealing with the material he had. I found the author himself to be pompous and full of himself. Now not saying that some of the things that he was getting at wasn't useful. But this could have been summed up in a longer essay than a novel. I found the writing all over the place and made to be longer than necessary. I also felt that some of his examples where Cherry Picked at most. He seemed to attack everybody basically saying that they were all wrong and he was the only person right. So if you find yourself interested in some of the topic I would go ahead and get the book. Otherwise I would say stay away from this as much as possible. Also sorry for the novel I really just hated this book so much.
24 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Brandon K. Kirkham
- 2019-03-07
Anti-Statistics
The book poses a real challenge to the current paradigm of risk assessment and consequence prediction. The main idea is that most progress and catastrophes occur in unexpected leaps rather than small incremental changes. I’m still trying to figure out how this is useful to me beyond the awareness of this principle. I’ll get there...
15 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Claire St. Hilaire
- 2019-11-07
Unique, relevant, and perspective altering
This book is a must read for anyone who enjoys philosophy, is seeking greater self awareness, or is interested in understanding how to think about risk. Taleb has an incredible mind, a sharp wit, and a grounded approach to life. It is so refreshing to read a book rooted in complex thought and observation, that avoids the quagmire of insular academic thought.
The performance of Joe Ochman is well suited to the tone of the book. Between the writing style and the reading it really feels like you are on a long slow walk with Taleb as he passionately explains his life’s work to you.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- S. Hagmüller
- 2019-05-06
Messy and filled with redundancy
Never knew one could convey simple ideas in such a convoluted manner. 5 subtitles per chapter. Weird imaginary characters with stories going nowhere. No clear thread to follow throughout the book. Too bad.
7 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Riley Ostlund
- 2019-10-25
Very Interesting
Taleb introduces a completely new way of thinking and dealing with our not knowing and the unpredictability of the world. Great book.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Basem Aggad
- 2019-06-21
it'll change you..
though the book gets into boggling tangents at times, it'll definitely have you question the eventuality of things that occur to you and the world around you.. the narrator's cynicism dramatise the writers intent beautifully.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mira Krishnan
- 2019-06-13
He's right... annoying, but right
The narrator is very well suited for the over-the-top sarcasm bordering on insult comedy that is Mr. Taleb's style. At the core is how correct Mr. Taleb is. We make significantly erroneous assumptions about the normal distribution (chief among which is that it is not so normal at all), and these errors are at the heart of quite a bit of abuse of statistics. We politely ignore them when we wail and gnash our teeth when this process leads us astray. The second edition of this book has the virtue of discussing the actual way forward - unfortunately, too little of the book focuses on Mr. Taleb's theory of the fourth quadrant and understanding when the risk is the highest and most unmanageable in making erroneous Gaussian assumptions - this is really primarily just the topic of the epilogue. On the other hand it bears taking in mind the things that happened in between the original publication of this book and the present. They prove out Mr. Taleb's point. We know better, and it is beyond time we begin to act like it.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 2020-11-11
An amazing point of view
I loved the way the message is delivered through the historical events. This is a precautionary tale for everyone who thinks that we mastered the risk. Loved it thanks. I would even join a seminar from the author after reading this!