Synopses & Reviews
Selected by Amazon.com and the Financial Times as one of the best business books of the year, Fooled by Randomness is an instant classic. It's uniqueness has drawn to it a wide following - from the New Yorker to the Pentagon. Already published in 14 languages, this new edition, expanded by over 80 pages, includes up-to-date advances from behavioral finance and cognitive science This book is about luck
About the Author
Nassim Nicholas Taleb is an essayist principally concerned with the problems of uncertainty and knowledge. Taleb?s interests lie at the intersection of philosophy,
mathematics, finance, literature, and cognitive science but he has stayed extremely
close to the ground thanks to an uninterrupted two-decade career as a mathematical
trader. Specializing in the risks of unpredicted rare events (?black swans?), he held senior trading positions in New York and London before founding Empirica LLC, a trading firm and risk research laboratory. Taleb is a fellow at the Courant Institute
of Mathematical Sciences of New York University where he has been teaching a
class on the failure of models since 1999. His degrees include an MBA from the Wharton School and a Ph.D. from the University of Paris Dauphine. The author?s ideas on skeptical empiricism have been covered by hundreds of articles around the world. Since childhood, Taleb has been obsessed with the defects of his own thinking. In addition to his scientific and literary interests, Taleb enjoys cafe
lounging and museum hopping.
Table of Contents
Preface and Acknowledgements Chapter Summaries Prologue Mosques in the Clouds Part I: Solon's Warning - Skewness, Asymmetry Introduction One: If you're so rich why aren't you so smart? Two: A Bizarre Accounting Method Three: A Mathematical Meditation on History Four: Randomness, Nonsense, and the Scientific Intellectual Five: Survival of the Least Fit - Can Evolution Be Fooled by Randomness? Six: Skewness and Asymmetry Seven: The Problem of Induction Part II: Monkeys on Typewriters - Survivorship and Other Biases Eight: Too Many Millionaires Next Door Nine: It is Easier to Buy and Sell Than Fry an Egg Ten: Loser Takes All - On the Nonlinearities of Life Eleven: Randomness and Our Brain: We Are Probability Blind Part III: Wax In My Ears - Living With Randomitis Twelve: Gamblers' Ticks and Pigeons in a Box Thirteen: Carnedes Comes to Rome: On Probability and Skepticism Fourteen: Bacchus Abandons Antony Epilogue: Solon Told You So References Acknowledgments for the First Edition Index About the Author Colophonx