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Available
Call number
Series
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Publication
Random House Trade Paperbacks (2005), Edition: 2 Updated, Paperback, 368 pages
Description
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. Set against the backdrop of the most conspicuous forum in which luck is mistaken for skill, the world of trading, this audiobook is a captivating insight into one of the least understood factors of all our lives. In an entertaining narrative style, the author succeeds in tackling three major intellectual issues: the problem of induction, the survivorship biases, and our genetic unfitness to the modern word. Taleb uses stories and anecdotes to illustrate our overestimation of causality and the heuristics that make us view the world as far more explainable than it actually is. The audiobook is populated with an array of characters, some of whom have grasped, in their own way, the significance of chance: Yogi Berra, the baseball legend; Karl Popper, the philosopher of knowledge; Solon, the ancient world's wisest man; the modern financier George Soros; and the Greek voyager Ulysses. We also meet the fictional Nero, who seems to understand the role of randomness in his professional life, but who also falls victim to his own superstitious foolishness. But the most recognizable character remains unnamed, the lucky fool in the right place at the right time - the embodiment of the "Survival of the Least Fit". Such individuals attract devoted followers who believe in their guru's insights and methods. But no one can replicate what is obtained through chance. It may be impossible to guard against the vagaries of the Goddess Fortuna, but after listening to Fooled by Randomness we can be a little better prepared.… (more)
Media reviews
The lesson here for investors is powerful and frightening. How much can you rely on the track records of investment advisers, mutual fund managers, newspaper columnists, or even the market as a whole in making decisions about your investment portfolio? Not nearly as much as you probably think.
User reviews
LibraryThing member sthitha_pragjna
Sometimes fascinating and sometimes annoying, as one gets the feeling the famous author is a bit too full of himself.
LibraryThing member ashishg
I started the book with high expectations. Fooled By Randomness was supposedly one of the classics of investing, or so I heard. After reading it, I am not sure what it was. It appears to be philosophy about philosophy and science. Basic conclusions drawn can be summarized as such: (1) beware of
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rare event i.e. black swan (2) don't just rely on historical data purely (3) decision should be judged by circumstances when decision was made and not by outcome (4) luck plays a huge part in success/failure in random environment (5) we are emotional fool and we can do nothing about it. Book is not difficult, but neither easy read since it delves into meta philosophy quite often. And if I can say my learning from it: nothing significant. Show Less
LibraryThing member JollyContrarian
Amazon.com provides an interesting statistical commentary on this and all other products on its site: a graphic of the relative proportions of different star ratings assigned by customer reviews. If you flip this on its side it looks a lot more like what it is: a statistical representation of
Nassim Taleb's Fooled by Randomness has an unusual "curve": a short "head" of 5 star reviews and a long tail of lesser ratings which doesn't tail off. (it's even flatter on Amazon.co.uk!) A large standard deviation, then, against a mean of four stars, compared to Leonard Mlodinow's The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives- also a four star average, but a much more conventional distribution of grades with a tighter standard deviation (a consistent curve from 50% five star to 2% one star, against Taleb's 46% five star and 11% one star).
So I have learned something from this (or Mlodinow's) book.
Having being equally entertained and aggravated by Taleb's more recent The Black Swan, I was leery of picking up this earlier effort. While Taleb is undoubtedly stimulating literary company, he does verges on being a crashing bore, crossing the verge on and ramming your letterbox on many occasions. He seems also to harbours some unremedied professional grievances - the award of Nobel prizes is something in particular which irks him. Taleb's writing is constantly grandiose and egotistical - but he is self-aware enough to not only realise but celebrate that fact.
So a real vegemite, love-him-or-hate-him sort of writer. Fooled By Randomness is, if anything, *more* bombastic, and its content less interesting. Its first half comprises mainly anecdotes (possibly apocryphal) about colleagues unnamed, and Taleb's repeated efforts to persuade you just how well read and what a voracious reader he is. (Interestingly in Black Swan he places much store in his *anti-library* - the books he has not read). Taleb's early observations about probability are pat, and under explained and, as other reviewers point out, have been more thoroughly and less idiosyncratically expounded by others (my recommendation is Leonard Mlodinow's book cited above).
On probability itself, Taleb's love of anecdote sometimes contradicts his own preaching. At one point he recounts a bit of "anecdotal empiricism" as to "Anchoring" of expectation. "I asked the local hotel concierge how long it takes to go to the airport. "40 minutes?" I asked. "About 35" he answered. Then I asked the lady at the reception if the journey was 20 minutes. "No, about 25" she said. I timed the trip: 31 minutes.
Two paragraphs later, in his next anecdote, Taleb rails against the stupidity of a man who derives conclusions from a single observation.
There is a seam of useful information in the second half of this book, but you must wade through quite a lot of self-aggrandisement to find it, and none is unique: as mentioned, there are better presented and less irritating accounts of the same information elsewhere, so Mr Taleb may be disappointed to see yet another equivocal assessment of his book on this site.
Except, he tells us, he won't be: he doesn't read or care about "amateur" reviewers on Amazon anyway, so no harm done.
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customers' views of the book.Nassim Taleb's Fooled by Randomness has an unusual "curve": a short "head" of 5 star reviews and a long tail of lesser ratings which doesn't tail off. (it's even flatter on Amazon.co.uk!) A large standard deviation, then, against a mean of four stars, compared to Leonard Mlodinow's The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives- also a four star average, but a much more conventional distribution of grades with a tighter standard deviation (a consistent curve from 50% five star to 2% one star, against Taleb's 46% five star and 11% one star).
So I have learned something from this (or Mlodinow's) book.
Having being equally entertained and aggravated by Taleb's more recent The Black Swan, I was leery of picking up this earlier effort. While Taleb is undoubtedly stimulating literary company, he does verges on being a crashing bore, crossing the verge on and ramming your letterbox on many occasions. He seems also to harbours some unremedied professional grievances - the award of Nobel prizes is something in particular which irks him. Taleb's writing is constantly grandiose and egotistical - but he is self-aware enough to not only realise but celebrate that fact.
So a real vegemite, love-him-or-hate-him sort of writer. Fooled By Randomness is, if anything, *more* bombastic, and its content less interesting. Its first half comprises mainly anecdotes (possibly apocryphal) about colleagues unnamed, and Taleb's repeated efforts to persuade you just how well read and what a voracious reader he is. (Interestingly in Black Swan he places much store in his *anti-library* - the books he has not read). Taleb's early observations about probability are pat, and under explained and, as other reviewers point out, have been more thoroughly and less idiosyncratically expounded by others (my recommendation is Leonard Mlodinow's book cited above).
On probability itself, Taleb's love of anecdote sometimes contradicts his own preaching. At one point he recounts a bit of "anecdotal empiricism" as to "Anchoring" of expectation. "I asked the local hotel concierge how long it takes to go to the airport. "40 minutes?" I asked. "About 35" he answered. Then I asked the lady at the reception if the journey was 20 minutes. "No, about 25" she said. I timed the trip: 31 minutes.
Two paragraphs later, in his next anecdote, Taleb rails against the stupidity of a man who derives conclusions from a single observation.
There is a seam of useful information in the second half of this book, but you must wade through quite a lot of self-aggrandisement to find it, and none is unique: as mentioned, there are better presented and less irritating accounts of the same information elsewhere, so Mr Taleb may be disappointed to see yet another equivocal assessment of his book on this site.
Except, he tells us, he won't be: he doesn't read or care about "amateur" reviewers on Amazon anyway, so no harm done.
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LibraryThing member rivkat
Like The Black Swan, this is a book by/about a self-evidently nasty man with a message to send. We aren’t good at assessing risks, and we fool ourselves that we are. Though he doesn’t use the term “value at risk,” the concept that helped overleverage and then explode the economy, he
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viciously and presciently critiques the mentality that led to greater and greater risks for smaller and smaller percentages of return. Though published earlier, this book is shorter and contains less inside baseball score-settling than The Black Swan, though I might recommend just reading a couple of things from his website instead of either, especially if you’re already familiar with behavioral economics and the various heuristics that distort our decisionmaking. Show Less
LibraryThing member AmagiTDL
Very insightful book. Condenses a lot of philosophical and mathematical knowledge into an easily readable book. It goes against modern financial conventions, yet is aimed at a broader audience and is not intended as a book on finance or the markets (and is not a book on either, although they play a
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prominent role.) Show Less
LibraryThing member nbmars
Taleb's principal thesis is that humans in general, and financial journalists in particular, are remarkably blind to the random element in most events. They overemphasize results over process. They attribute great ability to great success. Taleb argues that success tends to be very non-linear:
Many human activities, particularly market-oriented businesses, are subject to much random fluctuation. Because of this, much success in such activities can be attributed only to luck. Taleb contrasts such businesses with dentistry, which has little or no random element to its successful practice.
People overemphasize frequency at the expense of total outcome. They prefer being right often, for small gain, than being occasionally very right about rare events ["black swans," in Taleb's shorthand] that allow very large gains. Maximizing the probability of winning [a little] does not maximizing the expectation from the game when one's strategy may include skewedness.
One of the greatest barriers to valid or even effective inference is survivorship bias. We tend to infer properties of an entire distribution of events [who made money; who didn't] from those left over after a shakeout process has eliminated some of the members of the distribution. The shape of our inferences can thereby be markedly different from that warranted by the original distribution.
Taleb's intellectual heroes include: 1. Solon--beware, King Croesus, your good fortune may not last; 2. Robert Shiller--financial markets overreact to late news; 3. Charles Pierce--infallibility is impossible; 4. George Soros--be aware of your own fallibility; 5. Karl Popper--real science consists in formulating principals that are inherently falsifiable: thus, it is invalid to infer the truth of any proposition from the fact it was correct any limited number of times; we can only infer its falsity [from one occurence]; history can not be not real science; 6. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky--peoples' perceptions are distorted by immediate facts that inhibit them from making rational generalizations; and 7. David Hume--great rigor in drawing inferences from data.
His bete noires include (1) journalists in general and George Will in particular, who infer much too general ideas from much too small samples and (2) mathematical economists, who believe their models genuinely mirror reality.
A trader's mental construction should direct him to do what other people do not do. He is acutely aware of egodicity, i.e., that very long random sample paths wind up resembling each other. Thus even though some high risk strategies prove radically successful in the short run, they may eventually "blow up" in the long run. Taleb himself has made a good living as a commodities option trader by being aware of the randomness of market moves, and trading to protect his positions in regard to that randomness. He does not say explicitly what kinds of trades or techniques he uses; he only talks about his general philosophy.
A very interesting debunking of some commonly held business lore.
(JAB)
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large successes often flow from slight differences, some of which are merely random. Many human activities, particularly market-oriented businesses, are subject to much random fluctuation. Because of this, much success in such activities can be attributed only to luck. Taleb contrasts such businesses with dentistry, which has little or no random element to its successful practice.
People overemphasize frequency at the expense of total outcome. They prefer being right often, for small gain, than being occasionally very right about rare events ["black swans," in Taleb's shorthand] that allow very large gains. Maximizing the probability of winning [a little] does not maximizing the expectation from the game when one's strategy may include skewedness.
One of the greatest barriers to valid or even effective inference is survivorship bias. We tend to infer properties of an entire distribution of events [who made money; who didn't] from those left over after a shakeout process has eliminated some of the members of the distribution. The shape of our inferences can thereby be markedly different from that warranted by the original distribution.
Taleb's intellectual heroes include: 1. Solon--beware, King Croesus, your good fortune may not last; 2. Robert Shiller--financial markets overreact to late news; 3. Charles Pierce--infallibility is impossible; 4. George Soros--be aware of your own fallibility; 5. Karl Popper--real science consists in formulating principals that are inherently falsifiable: thus, it is invalid to infer the truth of any proposition from the fact it was correct any limited number of times; we can only infer its falsity [from one occurence]; history can not be not real science; 6. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky--peoples' perceptions are distorted by immediate facts that inhibit them from making rational generalizations; and 7. David Hume--great rigor in drawing inferences from data.
His bete noires include (1) journalists in general and George Will in particular, who infer much too general ideas from much too small samples and (2) mathematical economists, who believe their models genuinely mirror reality.
A trader's mental construction should direct him to do what other people do not do. He is acutely aware of egodicity, i.e., that very long random sample paths wind up resembling each other. Thus even though some high risk strategies prove radically successful in the short run, they may eventually "blow up" in the long run. Taleb himself has made a good living as a commodities option trader by being aware of the randomness of market moves, and trading to protect his positions in regard to that randomness. He does not say explicitly what kinds of trades or techniques he uses; he only talks about his general philosophy.
A very interesting debunking of some commonly held business lore.
(JAB)
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LibraryThing member stevetempo
A most enlightening and entertaining reading experience. The author provides a collection of mini-essays (musings if you will) that collectively expanded my world view. Mr. Taleb is now a favorite auther.
LibraryThing member dickmanikowski
Though this was highly recommended by some bloggers I read, I found it to be pointless and meandering. I kept getting the feeling that the author had something to say . . . BUT HE JUST WOULDN'T GET AROUND TO SAYING IT. I gave up after 50 pages or so.
LibraryThing member jonsey17
One of the most insightful books that I have ever read about human behavior, statistics, and investments
LibraryThing member jjmcgaffey
Interesting but somehow not satisfying. I kept talking about it while I was reading it - this or that would remind me of something Taleb said - but by the time I was finished I was tired of it. Partly, I think, because he determinedly is not 'explaining' anything or giving any reasons or paths to
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follow; partly because my empirical experiences conflict with his; and partly because of the style of his writing and choice of illustrative incidents. A lot of the book is about how we, humans in general, are ill-equipped to properly consider probabilities - things like, we tend to be more worried about things we hear a lot about than less-publicized matters. So people are afraid of flying and not of driving, though in terms of miles traveled per death driving is several hundred times as dangerous (that's not one of Taleb's illustrations, it's one I've seen elsewhere). Taleb tends to use the stock market for his illustrations, which is another reason I found his book unsatisfying - I know very little about the stock market, and especially about the fancy variations of the stock market (selling short, selling and buying options, etc) that make up his life and to which he refers easily and with (apparent) full understanding. He does explain, a little, but few of his explanations conveyed much to me. Interesting book, and I want to read the Black Swan one too, but less fun to read than Stephen Jay Gould (who I started out thinking his style resembled). Show Less
LibraryThing member simonfarrell
A skewed, bonkers and enjoyable look at the role of randomness in success. This brought out some neat key points, such as that performance should be determined not (just) by outcome, but on the basis by which the decision was made in the first place, and the long-run performance of a strategy.
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Coming more from the psychology side of things I know very little about trading and economics, and struggled a bit with the lingo, but nonetheless found this readable. One of the books I've recently read to make me shout out loud "Yes! That is *exactly* spot on!" Show Less
LibraryThing member brett_in_nyc
Just getting into this. Will tell ya' later. So far so good, and very validating.
LibraryThing member abraxalito
Taleb isn't afraid to diss the pretenders in this field and hang them out to dry. I find his darkest black humour to be adorable though he does ramble rather. couldn't help chuckling at the various anecdotes: one memorable one, 'Now Yuri will have a word with you' when interviewing those MBA-ers
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who put chess skills on their resume - priceless! he's really too cynical though in the area of personal growth, so he'll never realise the detachment he seems to want ;-) Show Less
LibraryThing member cjjy999
Taleb tells as is in the markets and life in general. You can tell he has absolutely no tolerance for pretenders. I like the fact that he looks at things at a deeper level, at least he tries to but his style can be very blunt and sound arrogant at times.
LibraryThing member lawrence
Very interesting material by a great mind. Show how we can be fooled by others AND ourselves into false assumptions.
LibraryThing member jontseng
A rare example where the second book (Black Swans) is more interesting than the first (this one). Some good ideas buried in there, but the thread is sometimes hard to follow.
LibraryThing member jusi
read this and feel better about your job, whatever it is. people are not as clever as they think they are - luck plays a big part in success.
LibraryThing member Anome
I got hold of this book (at a great deal of effort and expense) because of an interview with Taleb in New Scientist. I found reference to the concept of "Black Swans" fascinating. However, I couldn't find anything on the web explaining exactly what he meant by the term, or even whether he knew that
From the book, he does point out the existence of actual black swans, but I think this doesn't quite fit in his usage of the term to mean statistical outliers.
The black swan issue is by no means the only content of the book, there are some interesting ideas relating to risk management, that are applicable beyond trading. Still, there is something in his approach that doesn't quite sit right with me.
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black swans (as in melanistic forms of the swan) existed.From the book, he does point out the existence of actual black swans, but I think this doesn't quite fit in his usage of the term to mean statistical outliers.
The black swan issue is by no means the only content of the book, there are some interesting ideas relating to risk management, that are applicable beyond trading. Still, there is something in his approach that doesn't quite sit right with me.
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LibraryThing member annbury
Interesting read about the unpredictability of events, and hence of markets. Market events that are supposed to be "Multiple Sigma" -- ie, less than once in several lifetimes -- have in fact occured several times within the lifetime of current market participants. The assumption that they happen
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less often than, in fact, they do, explains much of the instability of markets -- and much of our current economic pain. Show Less
LibraryThing member KateWa20
okay concept but I couldn't be bothered to read the book. Perhaps I should try again
LibraryThing member piefuchs
By no means a well written book and a definately a poorly organized one - "Fooled by Randomness" presents a necessary thesis - that much of what is promoted in the business world as genius is actually random and, hence, irreproducible. Finally - an honest book in the busniess section.
LibraryThing member Periodista
Interesting stuff, particularly re how the findings from the risk analysis aspects of behavioral economics (that people don't behave and perceive in the rational manner economists have traditionally said they so) can be applied to investing.
But what an obnoxious man. Who would want to meet him in
And for all his huffing and puffing, he barely addressed how to apply this knowledge to the market. OK, so he's betting against the odds, knowing such and such is actually much more like than most traders think and so on. But how does he know what the odds are? Vegas? Off-track-betting?
I don't I would have understood this at all if I hadn't just read Michael Lewis's The Big Short. Taleb must have made a killing there (though it seems to me he would have nosed his way into Lewis's book somehow if he did, despite his revulsion re journalists and journalism). But that was a pretty rare case in which, if you were willing to listen and read, the odds of the subprime mortgage bonds collapsing were readily apparent. But even the guys that Lewis profiled who did make the winning bets don't usually invest that way. They generally want to go long and look for solid companies that will grow. Taleb doesn't seem to ever look at companies that.
But what an obnoxious man. Who would want to meet him in
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person? If he's smarter then everyone else in the universe, why does he have to keep insisting on it?And for all his huffing and puffing, he barely addressed how to apply this knowledge to the market. OK, so he's betting against the odds, knowing such and such is actually much more like than most traders think and so on. But how does he know what the odds are? Vegas? Off-track-betting?
I don't I would have understood this at all if I hadn't just read Michael Lewis's The Big Short. Taleb must have made a killing there (though it seems to me he would have nosed his way into Lewis's book somehow if he did, despite his revulsion re journalists and journalism). But that was a pretty rare case in which, if you were willing to listen and read, the odds of the subprime mortgage bonds collapsing were readily apparent. But even the guys that Lewis profiled who did make the winning bets don't usually invest that way. They generally want to go long and look for solid companies that will grow. Taleb doesn't seem to ever look at companies that.
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LibraryThing member bevok
Probability and chance fascinate me. Many people believe in fate, or argue over the role of chance in the course they have taken in their lives. Those of us who operate in the world of financial speculation find ourselves at the 'cutting edge' of randomness, chance and the un-knowable future in a
This important book highlights the centrality of probabilistic outcome in almost everything we do. It emphasises our exaggerated tendency to claim or allocate credit to people (e.g. CEOs of successful or unsuccessful companies) on the basis of ability rather than luck. This tendency is not only myopic, it is also dangerous. Taleb particularly highlights the false sense of security that exists in distorted situations where a highly likely beneficial scenario is paired with an unlikely, but extremely dangerous outcome. The classic example is in the market, where naked option sellers are able to pursue a 'reliable' strategy with steady small profits, but place themselves in a situation where extreme market movements can erase years of profits in days. These 'hidden risks' are explored in more depth in Taleb's later book The Black Swan which was especially prescient as it was published immediately before the 2007-08 financial crisis. The Black Swan revealed massive hidden risks concealed behind commonly accepted but flawed risk calculation models such as VAR.
Taleb writes in a conversational style that at times is a little indulgent. It is a very personal book with many asides regarding artistic preferences, and which invokes some of his pet subjects such as philosophy and poetry. I enjoyed this however others might feel this detracts from the central argument. It is a very personal argument as well, with examples that appear to be based on individuals known by Taleb and largely based on his expertise in the financial markets. It will provoke contemplation about both the source of our own success and also about the risks that we may not have considered. As an example it would have been (and may still be) valuable for instance to many who have highly leveraged themselves in purchasing property but who have not thought through the consequences of unemployment.
Action on these ideas will encourage a more robust investment strategy, and indeed life in general. Perhaps Taleb could have given a few more 'real world' examples from outside the world of finance to help people considering these ideas in a wider sense. Certainly he has written an eloquent and colourful account highlighting important concepts which may influence philosophical thought in years to come, and will hopefully have a practical impact on risk management and regulation in financial markets.
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very tangible way day by day. It is odd then that humans seem to be poorly programmed to win at the probability game. In fact in most situations we usually make the mathematically irrational choice, often choosing a poorer but certain outcome rather than one which mathematically generates a better expected return or outcome.This important book highlights the centrality of probabilistic outcome in almost everything we do. It emphasises our exaggerated tendency to claim or allocate credit to people (e.g. CEOs of successful or unsuccessful companies) on the basis of ability rather than luck. This tendency is not only myopic, it is also dangerous. Taleb particularly highlights the false sense of security that exists in distorted situations where a highly likely beneficial scenario is paired with an unlikely, but extremely dangerous outcome. The classic example is in the market, where naked option sellers are able to pursue a 'reliable' strategy with steady small profits, but place themselves in a situation where extreme market movements can erase years of profits in days. These 'hidden risks' are explored in more depth in Taleb's later book The Black Swan which was especially prescient as it was published immediately before the 2007-08 financial crisis. The Black Swan revealed massive hidden risks concealed behind commonly accepted but flawed risk calculation models such as VAR.
Taleb writes in a conversational style that at times is a little indulgent. It is a very personal book with many asides regarding artistic preferences, and which invokes some of his pet subjects such as philosophy and poetry. I enjoyed this however others might feel this detracts from the central argument. It is a very personal argument as well, with examples that appear to be based on individuals known by Taleb and largely based on his expertise in the financial markets. It will provoke contemplation about both the source of our own success and also about the risks that we may not have considered. As an example it would have been (and may still be) valuable for instance to many who have highly leveraged themselves in purchasing property but who have not thought through the consequences of unemployment.
Action on these ideas will encourage a more robust investment strategy, and indeed life in general. Perhaps Taleb could have given a few more 'real world' examples from outside the world of finance to help people considering these ideas in a wider sense. Certainly he has written an eloquent and colourful account highlighting important concepts which may influence philosophical thought in years to come, and will hopefully have a practical impact on risk management and regulation in financial markets.
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LibraryThing member Davros-10
An excellent book that explains clearly how probability and statistics affects everyone, or rather how not understanding randomness causes most people to over or under-estimate the likelihood of events.
In particular he demonstrates how irrational human beings are when it comes to understanding:
-
- that events with (seemingly) positive correlations do not necessarily mean that one causes the other, and,
- that randomness and uncertainty (i.e. luck) have a greater influence on the outcomes of human activities than most people, even those who think they act rationally, care to believe.
While written fairly clearly, I will admit that I had to read some sections more than once before I understood exactly what the author was saying, even though I have, or thought I had, a better than average understanding of probability and statistics.
Now at least I have a good understanding of why I act irrationally even when I know the true probability of success in some activities, such as when buying lottery tickets.
In particular he demonstrates how irrational human beings are when it comes to understanding:
-
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black swan (rare) events and planning for them,- that events with (seemingly) positive correlations do not necessarily mean that one causes the other, and,
- that randomness and uncertainty (i.e. luck) have a greater influence on the outcomes of human activities than most people, even those who think they act rationally, care to believe.
While written fairly clearly, I will admit that I had to read some sections more than once before I understood exactly what the author was saying, even though I have, or thought I had, a better than average understanding of probability and statistics.
Now at least I have a good understanding of why I act irrationally even when I know the true probability of success in some activities, such as when buying lottery tickets.
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LibraryThing member ashergabbay
I read Nassim Taleb's "The Black Swan" a couple of years ago, and now I got around to reading his previous book, "Fooled by Randomness". This is the book that made Taleb famous for his theory about the role of chance in markets. Taleb says that humans tend to explain away random events by
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rationalising them, instead of accepting that life has an element of randomness in it. He examines biases such as causality, "survivorship" (learning only from winners) and skewed distributions. Fortune magazine named "Fooled" as one of the smartest books of all time. I'm not so sure. While I share Taleb's contempt for the inhabitants of Wall Street, I feel the pendulum has swung too much in the opposite direction. True, not everything can be explained and rationalised; but not everything in life is down to Lady Fortuna either. Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original publication date
2001
Physical description
368 p.; 8 inches
ISBN
0812975219 / 9780812975215