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Rating:  -
Taleb has penned an interesting book that attacks parts of modern Financial and Statistical theory. Specifically- he points out that the Bell Shaped Curve of distribution that many business students learn about in school is fundamentally flawed because it fails to properly account for Black Swans- highly improbable events. The Bell Curve is not appropriate because it is not scalable. Data sets that have small variances- the average height of human beings- fit well inside a Bell Curve. But things like stock index prices and measures of individual wealth do not lend themselves to standard deviations about a mean. Taleb has some very interesting criticisms of portfolio theory and modern day measures of risk- that are widely used by most businesses. His ideas in this book force a new conversation around risk and how we should prepare for unlikely occurrences. Overall- I enjoyed the book.
However, I'd echo some of the criticisms of other reviewers. 1) The book is poorly edited. It is far longer than it needs to be. It could have been chopped down to 200 pages without losing any of the central tenets, 2) The hubris of the author is, occasionally, overwhelming. Taleb does himself and his readers a disservice by engaging in way too much self-aggrandizing sidebars, and 3) In line with criticism number 2- Taleb spends a good portion of the book (the parts that should have been edited out) trying vainly to impress? Overhwhelm? his readers with his knowledge of obscure French writers and philosophers and writing about the schadenfreude he felt after the stock market crash in October 1987. One example, among many, tangential journeys he takes the readers on. For all his braggadocio about being a pragmatical empiricist- I found his literary meandering to be the hobgoblin of an undisciplined mind (to paraphrase a famous quote).
Rating:  -
Amazing book that has some great views on the world. The book is kind of depressing if you have invested your life into finance or economics. But if you think about some of the ideas that he has, you will look at the business world in a much more different light.
Bad parts: LOTS of references to obscure and dead sociologists. It's OK if he tells what their idea was and explains it, but often he just says a name or a book and assumes that you have read it or heard of the person.
Overall the book is a must read for any economics, finance, psychology or business person. There are some parts that can be skipped over if boring, but at the heart of it, the book will change how you look at life.
Rating:  -
Dusted this masterpiece off and re-read it again due to the market uncertainties. Times like this everyone has an opinion, but no one has a clue. Taleb's unique background, being a student of randomness, a Wharton MBA, and a former derivatives trader at a hedge fund provides the perfect backdrop for analytical thought in moments of fear and sheer speculation.
These current chaotic financial fears breaths truth in so many statements he makes in Black Swan. I'd highly recommend people pick up a copy for keeping themselves grounded and reducing the urge to make rash decisions. The main thesis is to persuade people to understand the past does not predict the future - aberrations occur that destroy our deeply seated logic and certainty of the ways things should react to uncertainty, but suddenly don't.
All in all, a fascinating, timeless treatise from a philosophical point of view and market based one.
Rating: -
This book is very opinionated but it provide a lot of provocative insights, one of few book that shake your conventional belief on the subject of capital market.
Rating: -
Only a limo driver (without belittleing the trade) would use induction outside a formal system, or apply Gauss distribution to a single observation, although to be fair the author gives warning about reading chapter 15 with its confused discussion of the normal distribution. Overall entertaining and to be recommended, but not to be taken too seriously.
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