Customer Rating:  
Summary: Incoherent and slightly mad - but interesting
Comment: Taleb wants to tell us about 'Black Swans' - highly improbable events that have a disproportionate impact - and the subject couldn't be more timely, in light of the global financial crisis, and especially in view of his (2006) comments on the precarious state of Fannie Mae. He makes the point that much statistical theory (and certainly economic modeling) assumes normally-distributed data, whereas the real world ("Extremistan" in his parlance) contains significant outlier events that can create havoc with models - and, as we have seen, with shareholder value.
Another bonus is that he is widely-read, widely-traveled, and eclectic in his sources. So he should be worth listening to. Unfortunately, he spends most of the book telling us about himself, and in particular how only he and a select few academics (Benoit Mandelbrot comes in for particular praise) really 'get it' as far as probability is concerned. He is a self-described 'erudite' whose exotic background (Lebanese Greek Orthodox, with several languages) gives him special insight that more pedestrian practitioners lack. Taleb spends much of the book reiterating how fraudulent, foolish or ignorant most economists, mathematicians and philosophers are; and how 'NNT' - as he prefers to call himself - has, through his empirical work as an options trader and his wide reading, achieved insights that the Nobel laureates have missed. (Nobel laureates are especially scorned.)
Apart from the self-aggrandizing and repetitive nature of his prose, the book's main failings are that Taleb tries but does not succeed in making the case that stock-market returns are fractal in nature (sorry, Dr Mandelbrot - this was discredited some time ago), and he offers virtually no useful advice on the central problem he raises. That is, given that Black Swans are so far outside our normal experience that they cannot be readily modeled or predicted, how should be prepare ourselves for the worst (or the best)? Taleb's answer: think outside the box, pursue potentially 'good' Swans, and hedge against bad ones. Oh, and 'don't be a sucker'.
I was - I paid money for his book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Little white lies
Comment: "Lies, damned lies, and statistics." Nassim Taleb exudes a healthy disdain for traditional "Gaussian" statistics in his popular manifesto, The Black Swan. Jaded and toughened by several years as a derivatives trader on Wall Street, Taleb emerged from the profession with unique insights on how the world is missing the boat on analyzing risk. The book is certainly eye-opening, endeavoring to make its point in so many eclectic fashions that it's best consumed in small doses. It's a bit like reading Soros. The author doesn't pretend to toe the line on traditional perspective. In fact, he embraces such a healthy admiration for himself and his contrarian idea that it pays to step back every few pages and contemplate his assertions rather than taking too much of it at face value.
To his credit, Taleb makes some prescient comments in the book, originally published in 2007. Undoubtedly it's become a more popular read today than it was back then, with the global financial crisis now dominating the headlines. That footnote on p. 225 is a perfect example, in one fell swoop correctly asserting that Fanny [sic] Mae was "sitting on a barrel of dynamite", yet mis-spelling the company's name. A bit of editorial sloppiness notwithstanding, the book also suffers from being too wordy, with the same point being drilled home in chapter after erudite chapter, as if the reader were being forced to write "I UNDERSTAND THAT KURTOTIC RISKS ARE REALLY HARD TO PREDICT" 100 times on the blackboard.
I originally cracked open The Black Swan thinking that its lessons would be predominantly applicable to the world of investing. That's not the case. Although the author certainly made a killing as a professional trader, harvesting especially big gains during the crash of 1987 (see pp. 18-19 et al), he doesn't confine the black swan to the world of finance. Far from it. Sociology, economics, publishing, medicine, national security, and even the lowly turkey (see p. 41) - we all have plenty to gain by not losing sight of highly improbable risks.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Dry, dull, self-indulgent book ... waste of time and money.
Comment: Black Swan is without doubt the most disappointing book I have ever read in my life.
That I actually feel compelled to submit a review (for the first time in a decade) is testimony in itself. I hope that it will help somebody else avoid the utter waste of time and money that this book represents..
The key problems with this book are:
1. The complete lack of structure and flow. Imagine listening to somebody who digresses ad infinitum. At each turn in their storyline, at each anecdote, you're wondering "ok, where is this going? how is *this* related to the overall message you're trying to communicate?". But no, they continue with the next little incomplete anecdote ad nauseum.
2. The intrusion of the author's personality into the book itself. And from what I've gathered, the author is a self-obsessed bore. All the references to himself, the people he's met (often with no explanation of the pertinence to the storyline), name-checking obscure philosophers & economist ('obscure' to the layman anyway) for seemingly no reason other than to appear intellectual. The author spends so long pointing out others' mistakes and showing how others are so stupid and he's so smart, and it's simply not nice to listen to people like that.
3. Poor writing style. As mentioned already, this really needed an editor.
I laboured with it for hours but eventually had to put it down when 60% of the way through.
I persevered that long because I thought there must be some pay-back further along the line; but no ... no amusing or insightful stories/anecdotes to make the medicine easier to swallow - this is simply a long, dry, dull read.
If you are looking for an enjoyable and insightful read along the lines of Tipping Point, Blink, Freakonomics, Outliers etc then this is definitely NOT it.
This book is a Black Swan. It certainly doesn't owe its success to the content.
(I actually bought it on a whim based on its position in the bestseller list and Chris Anderson describing it as "mindblowing... a masterpiece" - shame on you, Chris).
Actually, it's not a Black Swan... it was just well marketed. Shame about the product.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Interesting concepts/theories - way too long
Comment: Do not use your valuable time reading through this entire book. Taleb provides some solid theories with good support. However, this book could have been condensed into about 50 pages and he could have conveyed his entire message. Much of the book is stream of consciousness and it is difficult to see how what he is currently discussing ties to what he just discussed, and where the discussion will go next. Additionally, many of his theories, while applicable in the constrained set of circumstances he presents, are not widely applicable.
Presentation of the Black Swan was a useful backdrop for other discussion in the book, but the Black Swan was really not what the majority of the book was about. Instead, it branched off into other theories, not directly supporting the Black Swan theory, and in many cases, unrelated to other parts of the book.
While Taleb (clearly qualified in this area of empiricist discussion), at times, wrote in engaging prose, too many times he engaged in name-dropping and abstract theoretical presentation that distracted the reader (without an extensive knowledge of mathematical theorists). It was difficult to determine an appropriate audience for this book. Sometimes it seemed anecdotal, targeting the lay mathematician, while at other times it dove so deep as to only interest a Ph.D. in related topics.
Overall, it was a struggle to get through this book and while there was some scattered, solid discussion, I was able to take very little away that will be applicable. Not an enjoyable or informative read.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Beautiful!
Comment: One of those books that can change the way you see the world and (as usual for such books) it does so with humor, clear unpretentious language and examples. As another reviewer already said, the point of the book could have been stated in a couple of lines, but then we'd miss the great writing and more importantly, the internalization of what Taleb is talking about.
Some of my favorite parts:
* Turkey Problem (Induction): For 999 days, the turkey is loved and cared for by human beings. Why should it worry or have any doubts. But then on the 1000th day there's a surprise awaiting it. The title illustrates this point too. It only takes one contradiction, one knife, one black swan to prove wrong an infinity of verifications.
* Extremistan vs. Mundanistan: In a stadium full of people, one person, even the tallest in the world, won't offset the average height by very much. Same with age, or with weight, or caloric intake. These qualities are of Mundanistan. However, with things like money (ie. Bill Gates enters the stadium) one person can outweigh the entire group. Things like net worth are from Extremistan. Our prediction models are based on Mundanistan, however many of the things that can impact us most are from Extremistan (ie. impact of disease, medicine, wars, weather) and hence our prediction models don't work.
* Ludic Fallacy (seeing the map as the terrain) via Brooklyn Tony and the actuary. This is my favorite part of the book!
Thought experiment at a bar (this isn't an exact quote, sounded much better in the book):
Taleb: I tossed a fair coin 99 times and got heads each time. What are my odds of heads on the next toss?
Dr. John (the actuary): 50/50.
Tony: At least 99 to 1.
John: But why? The previous tosses have nothing to do with the next one.
Tony: You're either full of crap or a pure sucker to buy that fifty percent business. The coin's gotta be loaded.
I love it!
|
