Abandoned on page 25 of 300. The subject might be interesting but the author is obnoxious. The last chapter I read was about an author who unexpectedly wrote a bestseller proving to be a black swan. Unfortunately the tale was invented for no real reason as there are plenty of people like this. That was the last straw and I abandoned the book.

This is a very interesting, thought provoking and an annoying book. Taleb does a great job in explaining the difference between phenomena that are predictable, that aren't predictable, and how these are being continuously confused with disastrous consequences. It also makes a good point that great swatches of modern economic theory is trash and pseudo science - a claim that seems to have facts on its side.

What makes this book annoying is that christ, can a man sound any more self-satisfied than Taleb. Probably, but I guess he'd just collapse in a little black hole of pure condescension.

In spite of the at times insufferable tone, this is a great read especially for anyone who's in any sort of business of predicting things.

Llegué a este libro por ser uno de los autores favoritos de un gran maestro y amigo, el Dr. Monares, también leí sobre Taleb en el libro del premio Nóbel Daniel Kahneman y en el libro de negociaciones Never Split the difference.
Sigo al autor en Twitter, en la actualidad es uno de los principales detractores del Bitcoin y es muy ácido en sus comentarios.

El libro trata de que es muy difícil predecir eventos raros (como la primera vez que alguien vio un cisne negro). Usa mucha edición y nombre a filósofos conocidos y no tan conocidos y a matemáticos como Mandelbrot quien describió los fractales.
Está en contra de la estadística Gaussiana y le toma muchas páginas el explicarlo.

Escribe algo muy interesante, que nadie pudo predecir el 11 de septiembre en Nueva York, pero posteriormente todos los expertos salieron a explicarlo diciendo que las señales siempre estuvieron ahí.

Habla sobre los sesgos cognitivos, tema que a mí me apasiona y deja muy claro que los seres humanos somos muy malos para entender estadística.

Habla sobre Extremistan y Mediocristan como sitios donde pueden ocurrir cisnes negros o no.
Por ejemplo un médico sabe cuánto dinero va a ganar en promedio y es acorde a la cantidad de trabajo que haga, su ganancia está "topada" vive en Mediocristan.
J.K. Rowling escribió Harry Potter y se hizo millonaria, y no tiene que escribir un libro nuevo cada vez que alguien compra uno de ellos. Ella tuvo un "cisne negro" y vive en Extremistan.

La verdad es que es muy largo, tedioso y está escrito muy mordaz y sarcástico. No sería un libro que recomiende fácilmente. Quizá leer un resumen sería suficiente.
challenging funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

Blew my tiny little mind

Gave it 100 pages but just wasn’t for me. Still not really sure what it’s about. The example parts were interesting and with more of those I might have persevered but there were large chunks where I just didn’t know what the author was trying to get at.

His style of writing is horrendous. Such arrogance.

This is basically a statistician who has attempted to weave his personal anecdotes and thinly veiled history into a self-aggrandizing critique of people's decision-making process. A vapid memoir of a Wallstreet quant who believes, after many years of philosophical self-study, he understands humanity better than the humans do. And he may be right, in a limited sense, but the book would be more enjoyable told two steps back from his personal life. It's a non-fiction Ayn Rand novel. As other reviewers have mentioned, this book contains little new, but for those who don't want to read much original philosophy or even just Malcolm Gladwell's collected works, it fills a niche. Though I will be updating my portfolio strategy to include more long term options after reading this...

Interesting ideas and concepts, although I disagreed with much of what he said in how he applied it to the world, and even just some of the ideas he through in that I strongly oppose.

This book was tough to read. That aside, there were many interesting points made in the book. The conclusion seems a bit anti-climatic after going through everything. The real meat of this book is somewhere in the middle of it.