Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Home Page

 

image017The Black Swan of Cairo (Foreign Affairs). FUKUSHIMA: I wrote all I have to say in Note 142. Associated scientific paper on error rates that have error rates.

image017 Fragility, Antifragility and Error Detection Heuristic.

 

VERY SHORT BIO (book jackets): Nassim Nicholas Taleb is interested in how to live in a world we don't understand (practically and ethically), & mapping a Black Swan robust society. He spends his time as a philosophical flâneur, taking long walks (slowly), thinking in cafés across the planet, and ordering a lot of books (a flâneur is the exact opposite of the tourist). Currently Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering at NYU 's Poly Institute, he is the author of Fooled by Randomness (2001-2005), The Black Swan(2007-2010), and The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical & Practical Aphorisms (works transl. into ar. 31 languages). OFFICIAL BIO (boring)

Works by Other Researchers

What I do (summary of my ideas): We don't understand the world as well as we think we do and tend to be fooled by false patterns, mistake luck for skills (the fooled by randomness effect), overestimate knowledge about rare events (Black Swans), as well as human understanding, something that has been getting worse with the increase in complexity. So I am interested in a systematic program of how to live in that opaque world, be less fragile to a certain class of errors ("robustification program"). In other words, while most human thought (particularly since the enlightenment) has focused us on how to turn knowledge into decisions, I focus on how to turn lack of information, lack of understanding, and lack of “knowledge” into decisions –how not to be a “turkey”.The Black Swan (2nd ed.) drew a map of what we don’t understand (an attempt to set a clear and systematic limit to what is both 1) unknown & 2) consequential); ongoing work Antifragility focuses on how to domesticate and exploit the unknown -with simple heuristics and rules of thumb, something ancient Mediterranean cultures --as conveyed by the ancient classical authors -- knew rather well.

image017Activism with Ralph Nader (against big government and big corporations)

Anti-Fragility Defined (Video). ANTIFRAGILITY (Edge Essay). I am on MEDIA blackout (except for publisher arranged events), completely fed up answering the same questions & repeating the ideas of The Black Swan and the 4th Quadrant--I now let others work on the problems: Current research using the ideas of The Black Swan and 4th Q as a starting point (includes a paper in Diseases of Column & Rectum). Seemingly thousands of books (sic) refer to the idea on uncertainty. Ideas presented at The Economist Buttonwood Conference Video 1, Video 2

Here is my new Technical Companion (includes a discussion Why Did the Crisis Happen) -for academic economists and other ethically-challenged people to read before addressing my central point ... So far, alas, no substantive criticism. Here is my point on statistical undecidability (why at its foundations, statistical knowledge cannot work for rare events, no matter how sophisticated it gets). Philosophical discussions here on Facebook.

MY ACTIVISM To "robustify" society against Black Swans across domains. Conversation with U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron on how to robustify society and Rahul Gandhi about farmers' fragility & suicides. In Congress discussing Bank Risk Management , Hyperinflation & Fiscal Stimulus(video), The U.K. Tories and The Black Swan (Video), The King of Sweden's Bonham declaration and begging for the termination of the economics "Nobel". On literature (conversation with Rolf Dobelli) . Best article (Guardian) on why Big Will Fail.


Philosophical Notebook (old-style footnotes for my work in progress) 

Public Lectures & Talks


Ten Principles for a Black Swan Proof World, Mr Taleb Goes to Washington, No tie, bored by empty suits , Kahneman-Taleb: Reflection on a Crisis (Video) , Positive Black Swans

Discussion with Mandelbrot;This keeps track of Press Articles (I stopped following).

QUOTES FROM THE BLACK SWAN THAT THE IMBECILES DID NOT WANT TO HEAR ;


 "The Fourth Quadrant", an EDGE (Third Culture) Essay on the Crisis, Portfolio Interview , Philosophical discussion on France Culture (en Francais), Philosophy Now ...

Homage to Benoit Mandelbrot, The Greek Among Romans. "He was the only teacher I ever had, the only person with whom I could discuss randomness without having anger fits".

You do something quite evil!” How I pull tricks on reviewers: BBC (Nikki Bedi).  Most representative overall profiles (nonfinance as I despise finance): Will Self in GQ & Bryan Appleyard in the Sunday Times Other:  Lunch with the FT, The Bloomberg profile.


 Literary Books

NEW BOOK: The Bed of Procrustes, Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms [NO MEDIA] "Contrasts the classical values of courage, elegance, and erudition against the modern diseases of nerdiness, philistinism, and phoniness." [Amaz], BN , Booksense; Book Reviews: NYT, New York Mag , TIME, FT, TIMES (London), BBC (radio), on taking showers, Motley Fool, Bloomberg, Someone who understands aphorisms, Compact (Independent), Bad Review (Guardian). (Warm thanks Dave Lull for updates)

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable:2007, 2nd Ed. 2010 Amazon (US), Barnes and Noble (US). Book Reviews. "One of the 12 most influential books since WWII" - London Times. ( >40 weeks on the print NYT Bestseller list, 90 weeks on the NYT extended bestsellers list, #1 Highest Selling Nonfiction book published in 2007 on Amazon (for all of 2007), plus London Sunday Times, Germany, Switzerland, China, Italy, Brazil, Israel, Spain etc. —whatever that means; not too glorious, given the other books). Languages so far (31, both books, but not certain). About 80% of the readers are outside the U.S. Had Nassim Taleb been born in any other period, he would have certainly been put to death”, Carine Chichereau, co-translator of TBS. “Brilliantly idiosyncratic” –Niall Ferguson....in a provocative, wide-ranging and amusing mode. A book that is both entertaining and difficult.”, Michael Crichton.  "One of the most important books of the century... I learned a lot ", Daniel Kahneman. I've added close to 100 page Poscript in 2010 (on robustness & fragility).The addition is published as a separate book Réflexions philosophiques in France (Les Belles Lettres) --as well as Italy, Russia,Germany, Finland, The Netherlands, Japan, etc.) Black Swan Glossary 

Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in the Markets and Life, 2001, 2nd Ed.2005 Amazon(US), Barnes and Noble (US), Amazon (UK). Paperback: Random House, 2005, Penguin (UK) 2007. Hardcover: New York, and London: Thomson Texere, April 2004 (1st Ed. November 2001). Published in 20+ languages. “One of the Smartest Books of all Time” (Fortune).

"This book is about luck perceived and disguised as nonluck (that is, skills), and randomness perceived and disguised as nonrandomness (that is, determinism). It manifests itself in the shape of the lucky fool, defined as a person who benefited from a disproportionate share of luck but attributes his success to some other, generally very precise, reason." FBR was initially written as short stories around series of fictional characters.  An irreverent introspective rumination on the deformations caused by randomness through literature, markets, philosophy, science, and mathematics, and a presentation of applied stoicism. It made many readers feel better about their comparative fate.


General Essays: Does Having a Job Make You a Phony? in Literary Magazine The Drawbridge;The World in 2036 The Economist; EDGE Essay on the Fourth Quadrant; Benoit Mandelbrot, TIME, History Written By the Losers;Forward to Pablo Triana's Book Lecturing Birds on Flying;My Op-Ed on Bystanders and Charlatans  , FT Op-Ed on the “Nobel” in economics (October 2007). Essay in The Banker on The Black Swan (written before the subprime crisis). 2007 Year-End Question on EdgeThe Black Swan and Optimism. General: * Edge Foundation Yearly Question 2005, in John Brockman (ed.) . Homo Ludens or Homo Oeconomicus.  Op-Ed on Pharma Pharma ; Manifesto with Benoit Mandelbrot in the FT page 1, page 2The Opiate of the Middle Class (no longer religion) Op-Ed on Terrorism in the New York Times (how the press distorts our mental probabilistic map) Also Op-Ed in the New York Times on the 9/11 Commission.  Op-Ed on Risk Gurus as Charlatans --  (with Benoît Mandelbrot). Article on Fractals and Roughness (in Italian, Il-Sole 24 Ore, with Mandelbrot). Op Ed in An-Nahar  (Arabic). Letters to the Editor (on a variety of subjects).


Technical Books & Works

image091Dynamic Hedging: Managing Vanilla and Exotic Options , New York : Wiley (c. 506 pp., released Jan 2 1997). The book is about my own bottom-up approach to quantitative finance & risk management. I am aggressively no-nonsense, suspicious of theories (particularly those concocted by economists). It is the first step in my plan of robustification, to help merge option "theory" and practice (which includes some non trivial modifications), leading to a clinical approach to stochastic processes. Here is a cartoon showing Dynamic Hedging as instrumental in the starting of a colorful and intense interoffice romance.  There is no scheduled second edition yet.

TECHNICAL BOOK COMPANION TO THE BLACK SWAN (Freely Available E-Book)

 

Research ( since 2004) 

I am interested in a general coherent complete corpus, not tenure-seeking milking of the system, so I have published papers in refereed journals as footnotes for by books and part of the corpus, in: Physica A Statistical Mechanics & Its Applications, Complexity, Harvard Business Review, The American Statistician, Journal of Portfolio Management, Critical Review, International Journal of Forecasting, Journal of Behavioral Finance, JEBO, Quantitative Finance (and another few under submissions under review), New Political Economy (WITHDREW) , Foreign Affairs, etc. 2010 Rank on the Social Science Research Network.

Mathematical and Quantitative Lectures and Discussions.


PROFESSIONAL

I will not discuss publicly my business activities (my current finance activities are not public). –only my philosophical and technical ideas on chance uncertainty, & probability.

Media Pictures

Academic & Teaching: Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering, NYU - Polytechnic Institute, Associate Member- Institut Jean Nicod (CNRS, Paris), Distinguished Research Scholar, Oxford Universit. Formerly, Visiting Professor, London Business School, Dean’s Professor in the Sciences of Uncertainty University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Fellow & Adjunct Professor of Mathematics at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University (since 1999). Member, King of Sweden transdisciplinary committee on Climate Change, 2009; (former) faculty, World Economic Forum (Davos); Honorary member, Edinburgh Generation Science Club; member, and ... lost track

Trading/Finance background: Was inducted in the Derivatives Strategy Derivatives Hall of Fame (Feb 2001). I was mostly a prop trader until 1993, then became more arbitrage oriented. I held positions of managing director and head trader at Union Bank of Switzerland, worldwide chief derivatives trader for currencies, commodities and non-dollar fixed income at CS-First Boston, chief currency derivatives trader for Banque Indosuez (age 25), Managing Director and worldwide head of financial option arbitrage at CIBC-Wood Gundy, derivatives arbitrage trader at Bankers Trust, proprietary trader at BNP-Paribas, as well as independent option market maker on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (...). Owned Empirica LLC a trading/hedging/protection operation (currently the business became the Black Swan Protection Protocol managed by the traders at UniversaI am an advisor). A prophetic novel by Viken Berberian about Empiricus Kapital. Other professional honors: Frost and Sullivan Visionary of the Year (2008), Bruno Leoni Prize 2009, Member top 50 "thought leaders" . Expert Witness: Admitted as an expert in the fields of risk management and derivatives by the United Stated Court of Federal Claims, Judge Mary Ellen Coster Williams (in order to prepare for discussions on models of quantitative finance).

Education: includes an MBA from Wharton, and a Ph.D. from the University of Paris (Paris 9 Dauphine, Management Science, thesis on option theory). The Ph.D. committee included: Hélyette Geman, Marco Avellaneda, Nicole Elkaroui, Dilip Madan, & Jacques Hamon.


Personal: I am originally from Amioun (Amyoun) (see photos) but, the family has not lived there since 1890 outside of vacations; it is in the Greek Orthodox Levantine heartland (we are what Cavafy calls ellenosuron or, what people call less poetically the Antiochans --and I am a native French speaking Ελληνοσύρος (Syrian-Lebanese blood, Arabic tongue,Greek heart ) son of Jesuit educated French citizens to confuse matters (though I am not myself a French citizen).

Photos of the inside of the Taleb Palazzo in Amioun (built 1860)

"My major hobby is teasing people who take themselves & the quality of their knowledge too seriously & those who don’t have the courage to sometimes say: I don’t know...." (You may not be able to change the world but can at least get some entertainment & make a living out of the epistemic arrogance of the human race).


You are welcome to send me a very brief email at gamma [at] fooledbyrandomness [dotcom]. You would do me a favor if you waited a while as I am not in an online mode and have 1500 neglected letters in my inbox (so please just send mail for pressing matters). Concise messages are much preferable (say a maximum < 40 words) as I will not be able to read long letters. Please do not 1) send me your papers or other “interesting material” to read, 2) ask finance questions (not my specialty, 3) make me to rewrite sections of my books (I write books, not emails), 4) ask for a list of “other interesting books to read”, 5) ask me to provide career or educational advice, 6) send me passages from Tolstoy or the Ecclesiast on luck and randomness, 7) send me the list of typos in my drafts. Note that I almost always reply (but ONLY to short messages), time permitting (but once) –even to nasty emails. Finally, note that, thanks to my new keyboard, I sometimes reply in Arabic, particularly to academics.

 [Also please please refrain from offering to “improve” my web site].