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| The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable | 
 enlarge | Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Publisher: Random House
Category: Book
List Price: $27.00
Buy New: $15.49
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (361 reviews)
Sales Rank: 138
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.5 x 1.4
ISBN: 1400063515
Dewey Decimal Number: 003.54
EAN: 9781400063512
ASIN: 1400063515
Publication Date: April 17, 2007
Release Date: April 17, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Brilliant and thought-provoking May 12, 2007
14 out of 22 found this review helpful
This is one of those books that demands a lot from the reader, but the investment is well worth it. A background in statistics, at least at the rudimentary level, is almost a prerequisite. Taleb is a pragmatic, down to earth philosopher and thinker, and each page contains delights and new perspectives. He writes extraordinarily well and the book contains many laugh-out-loud moments (I particularly enjoyed the description of f.y. money as that sum which enables you to say this a few seconds BEFORE hanging up the phone, rather than a few seconds after!). The book covers not only statistics and the stock market, with an emphasis on what is called behavioral finance, but also human nature and perception. Taleb enjoys being a gadfly and on occasion toward the end of the book takes a bit too much delight in his squabbles with others in the field, but overall this is a 10-star book. I only wish there were more like it published on a regular basis.
 A disappointing follow-up to "Fooled by Randomness" May 10, 2007
71 out of 77 found this review helpful
I'm a mathematician and former trader, and I've always enjoyed Taleb's work, from his technical tome on derivatives, "Dynamic Hedging," to the brilliant "Fooled by Randomness." These books provided a healthy dose of empirical skepticism about a field that sometimes gets carried away with its own "precise" models -- as well as some insightful commentary on why people are bad at recognizing randomness and making predictions, and how we should be wary of charlatans (and fools) trying to sell us false certainty, especially about financial markets. Unfortunately, "The Black Swan" doesn't say much that "Fooled by Randomness" didn't already say (and say better), and I was disappointed by most of the new material.
First, Taleb's ideas on uncertainty have gone a bit over the edge. Before, he denounced the poor use of over-simplified models (i.e. the bell curve) to model uncertainty; he now seems to have given up on models altogether (save for a brief and justified nod to Benoit Mandelbrot). Rather than just attack bad science, and encourage better science in its place, he seems to view the entire scientific enterprise as hopeless -- adopting the somewhat anti-intellectual attitude that we should stop trying to "understand" markets at all, and be more like Fat Tony, the trader from Brooklyn. His portrayal of mathematical finance types is a complete caricature, which is amusing because, whether he likes it or not, he's one of them! (Taleb has taught in the mathematical finance program at NYU's prestigious Courant Institute.) The idea that mainstream academics are too myopic to see beyond their bell-curve models is laughable, and in many cases, decades out of date -- even undergrads learn about the flaws in the Black-Scholes model, and the problem of "fat tails."
While "Fooled by Randomness" suggests (wisely) that we pay attention to the magnitude of events and not just their probabilities, in "The Black Swan" he throws out probability altogether. This results in some bizarre advice, such as that people should structure their lives (and financial portfolios) to capture "positive black swans," i.e. huge but unlikely turns of good fortune, because "unlikely" is a meaningless probabilistic notion. For example, he suggests that people should put 90% of their assets in extremely safe instruments (like T-bills), while gambling the remaining 10% on risky ventures and hoping to hit it big. He claims that this limits one's downside while waiting for a big windfall ... but what happens when the "risky" 10% gets wiped out in a year or two? Do you then start investing your remaining assets (possibly losing more), or do you just stick with low-yield T-bills for the rest of your life? Taleb seemingly hasn't thought it out that far. By the "positive black swan" logic, thousands of unemployed "actors," waiting for that big break that never comes, have the right idea -- not to mention people who waste their money on lottery tickets (hey, the downside is only a buck, but the upside is millions!). This seems to be a complete reversal from "Fooled by Randomness," which had a brighter view of skilled ("Mediocristan") pursuits like dentistry, where one avoids living at the behest of good or bad fortune altogether.
Finally, Taleb has always exuded snobbery in his writing -- in the past it has almost been charming -- but this time it quickly wears out its welcome. He never fails to remind the reader that he sees himself as an erudite "gentleman trader," a rogue philosopher among philistines and eggheads. Yawn.
I still give this book 3 stars, because it does have some decent content, but read "Fooled by Randomness" instead. If you've already read that book, there's no need to buy this one -- but if you're in the mood to read about the problems of uncertainty and prediction in the markets, check out "When Genius Failed" by Lowenstein, "A Random Walk Down Wall Street" by Malkiel, or (for the eggheads) "Fractals and Scaling in Finance" by Mandelbrot.
A Revelatory Book May 8, 2007
10 out of 26 found this review helpful
Nassim Nicholas Taleb's "Like the Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable" is clearly a revelatory book.
In reading this book I was most highly impressed with Taleb's ideas about unexpected events in life, and about the value of thinking outside of the box.
Taleb's symbol for the highly improbable in life is the black swan. Further, he links three aspects as central components in a highly improbable event; the three components being that firstly an event is unpredictable, secondly that it carries a massive impact, and thirdly that it is not consciously acknowledged until after the fact.
Written in the format of a psychological, spiritual fiction adventure is another book that I highly recommend if you found "The Black Swan" interesting; and this book is Nexus: A Neo Novel
In NEXUS the main character Logan experiences the 'unexpected' when he coincidentally discovers his lost love Sarah at a spiritual retreat designed to discover the centre of their being. Logan's soul-searching journey with the 'unexpected' and 'thinking outside of the box' is awesome, and demonstrates how the unpredictable if lived out intuitively can have a massive impact on one's life. I was fascinated with some of the parallel themes between NEXUS and " Like the Black Swan"
 An author in love with himself May 7, 2007
84 out of 116 found this review helpful
Ok, let me summarize this book for you: Nicholas Nassim Taleb is smarter than everyone. He's smarter than scientists, philosophers, economists, entrepreneurs and every person who has ever walked on earth. Oh, and he can beat the street too.
His first book is good. This one is just bad. He talks too much about how great he or some friend is, but that even isn't what annoyed me the most.
What really made me write a 1 star review is that there isn't really anything new on the whole book. Really, not one original idea. If you've read a good science book in the last ten years you can skip this one. If you haven't, you can find the same content elsewhere without reading what looks like a lazy draft from a self-centered kid.
A Spectacular Sequel May 7, 2007
6 out of 21 found this review helpful
If you loved Fooled By Randomness, then you'll love this sequel to that story even more. This book is the exception to the general rule about sequels.
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