Books by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Taleb introduces the problem of how people, especially those in the trading profession, fail to understand how much their results are governed by random events, especially those events with surprisingly large consequences. He shows how past experience and history cannot be a predictor of such events, yet people keep trying to analyze and make sense of past results. The concepts in the book are really powerful, but Taleb's personal anger against people who don't understand his concepts undermines the book. It is unfortunate to see him revel in the misfortunes of traders who lost big during a market collapse, his excuse being that such traders were arrogant and full of hubris.

As with "The Black Swan", the book exposes too much of Taleb's insecurities and complexes. It would have been a much better book had he just stuck to explaining the principles involved and not treating the reader to his personal problems. Maybe he should just write another book of philosophy explaining why he is so angry at people who don't share his convictions and ideas.

Tags: finance statistics

The author expands upon a very important idea, which is that many human events are determined by events that are unpredictable and fall outside normal human expectations. He explains how the standard bell curve is insufficient to explain such anomalies. The book is very interesting, but unfortunately the author has a tendency to get very personal about his critics. For some reason, he assumes that his insight is supposed to be self-evident and anyone who does not understand it is a fool and infuriates him. There are better ways to address criticisms of one's theory than ranting and name-calling. If not for that, the book deserves a 5.

Tags: statistics finance