The Black Swan
The Impact of the Highly Improbable
by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, David Chandler · first published 2007
39% recommend50% neutral10% critical
Why HN recommends it
Shows how humans misjudge prediction, luck and rare high-impact events, with ideas like Extremistan versus Mediocristan. Suits investors, founders and engineers who want a skeptical lens on risk and forecasting.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
From the critically acclaimed author of Fooled by Randomness, a book about the impact of improbable events on every aspect of life.
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…read later that were loosely related to this one in the way that they all refer to the way people think. Barry Schwartz - The Paradox of Choice Steven Pinker - How the Mind Works Nassim Taleb - The Black Swan; and Fooled by Randomness Leonard Mlodinov - The Drunkard's Walk (quite similar to Fooled by Randomness) Carol Dweck - Mindset: The New Psychology of Success Neil Postman / Andrew Postman - Amusing…
on “Ask HN: What book changed your life in 2013?” ↗I really appreciate his books, The Black Swan and Antifragile particularly, though it does seem to me he's set up something of a cottage industry churning the same general idea into a sequence of very similar books. Then again, as long as he has…
on “What Nassim Taleb can teach us” ↗…Interest and Money Marx - Capital Benjamin Graham - The Intelligent Investor Galbraith - The Affluent Society Galbraith - The Great Crash Milton Friedman - Capitalism and Freedom Nassim Taleb - Black Swan Ron Suskind - Confidence Men Scott Patterson - Dark Pools If you want to delve into heterodox economics afterward, start with the following: Hayek - Individualism and Economic Order Mises - Human…
on “Ask HN: What are the must-read books about economics/finance?” ↗…Jerry's books have had a tremendous amount of impact on my thinking in the past couple years. I highly recommend reading everything you can get your hands on. --- Author: Nassim Taleb Books: * The Black Swan * Fooled by Randomness Taleb has changed my way of looking at the world. His books are enjoyable to read, and his ideas thought provoking. I will continue to read the rest of his books over the next…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2018?” ↗…Science of Prediction by Tetlock, Philip E. A study on people with above average ability to forecast feature events (mostly geo-political). Talks about measuring predictions and improving them. - The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Brilliant book about overlooking rare events which have dramatic consequences because 'it's unlikely to happen'.
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?” ↗…dangerous slope(looking at the news over the last few years). And with that in mind, "Factfulness" by Hans Rosling is a __MUST__ imo. Once you wrap your head around the facts, a next good choice is "The Black Swan" and "Antifragile" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, despite some (to a certain extent justified) bashing on tech people. Note to self: need to pick up "Skin in the Game". Completely with you about Spivak, as…
on “Ask HN: What, in your opinion, are the greatest and most useful textbooks?” ↗Read Taleb's book, "The Black Swan." Very timely these days. http://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Impact-Highly-Improbable/dp...
on “Black Swans - unexpected movements in financial markets.” ↗…Food, Michael Pollan 2012 - Born to Run, Christopher McDougall 2013 - Four Hour Work Week, Tim Ferriss 2014 - Nourishing Traditions, Sally Fallon 2015 - Awaken the Giant Within, Tony Robbins 2016 - Black Swan, Nicolas Taleb 2017 - Surely You’re Joking Mr Feynman, Richard Feynman 2018 - The Prophet, Khalil Gibran 2019 - Three Body Problem (series), Liu Cixin These aren’t publishing years, just the year…
on “Ask HN: Best books you read in the past decade?” ↗I wish more people would read Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb Just as we could not predict in 1968 what the world would look like in 2009 - similarly we can't predict what the world will look like in 2050 today. I've heard some crazy predictions...…
on “What the World Will Look Like by 2050” ↗Nassim Nicholas Taleb -- The Black Swan Sun Tzu -- The Art of War Lao Tzu -- Tao Te Ching
on “Ask HN: Please name two of your most favorite books.” ↗…finance/trading is http://wilmott.com/. Check out the articles, peruse the forums. http://tickerforum.org is also superb, no-bs. I'd also recommend reading Nassim Taleb's books Fooled By Randomness and The Black Swan (info at his website http://fooledbyrandomness.com/) along with one he recommends: What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars http://infraredpress.com/ Those will all teach you what not to do, which is…
on “Ask HN: Good resources for learning+getting into Finance / Trading?” ↗…like to read books from people who predicted things before they happened and try to understand their mindset. Understanding finance... One may not like its writing style but Nicolas Nassim Taleb's "The Black Swan" helped me understand how finance was indeed the crumbs of capitalism that Buffet hates. Understanding economy... Another one I love --but it's in french-- is Charles Gave. That economist (definitely…
on “Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Eight Books Everyone Should Read” ↗Man, what happened to Nassim Taleb? I remember Black Swan (to a degree) and Fooled by Randomness being pretty illuminating reads but I couldn't finish Antifragile and his Twitter activity is...kind of unsettling, to say the least.
on “Takeaways from Nassim Taleb's New Book “Skin in the Game”” ↗This entire paper and no reference to Nassim Taleb? They even use his language. Any fans of Fooled by Randomness, Black Swan, etc.? One of his main ideas, that he has followed up with Mathematics, is fragility to model error in the presence of fat-tails. If you’re interested in this kind of stuff I’d highly recommend his…
on “A simulation of the insurance industry: The problem of risk model homogeneity” ↗Adding the Taleb book to my list. I recently read "The Black Swan" which I thought was an important read in spite of how unlikeable I find the author, how long the book is, and how tangled up the ideas are. It felt like a bit of a crazy rant, but worthwhile. Thanks!
on “Ask HN: What Are You Reading?” ↗