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
pain mistake desire
A Stoic is someone who transforms fear into prudence, pain into transformation, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking.
motivational work creativity
The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.
visionaries slave employee
Karl Marx, a visionary, figured out that you can control a slave much better by convincing him he is an employee.
motivational use impossible
Avoid losers. If you hear someone use the words 'impossible', 'never', 'too difficult' too often, drop him or her from your social network.
long way logic
Don't disturb complicated systems that have been around for a very long time. We don't understand their logic. Don't pollute the planet. Leave it the way we found it, regardless of scientific 'evidence'.
reputation
Your reputation is harmed the most by what you say to defend it.
trying busy incompetence
Someone who says "I am busy" is either declaring incompetence (and lack of control of his life) or trying to get rid of you.
independent wealthy harder
It is much harder to become independent if you are wealthy than to become wealthy if you are independent.
imagination genius academic
The imagination of the genius vastly surpasses his intellect; the intellect of the academic vastly surpasses his imagination
party serendipity suffering
Go to parties. You can't even start to know what you may find on the envelope of serendipity. If you suffer from agoraphobia, send colleagues.
growing-up good-life role-models
People focus on role models; it is more effective to find antimodels - people you don't want to resemble when you grow up
inability outliers courses
The inability to predict outliers implies the inability to predict the course of history
banking outcomes negative
If you are in banking and lending, surprise outcomes are likely to be negative for you.
procrastination fighting exercise
Few understand that procrastination is our natural defense, letting things take care of themselves and exercise their antifragility; it results from some ecological or naturalistic wisdom, and is not always bad -- at an existential level, it is my body rebelling against its entrapment. It is my soul fighting the Procrustean bed of modernity.