The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

ABOUT THIS BOOK

A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal lives.

Useful in the way it gets you thinking about- and builds understanding of - probability when it comes to the incidence of everything around us and the events that affect us.

The Black Swan is a book about prediction. It describes our many challenges and failings making predictions. It's probability and economics heavy, with examples often focusing on socioeconomic factors.

Surprisingly to me, the 2009 financial crash and global COVID-19 pandemic are NOT categorized as black swans—they're gray swans—as the occurrence of them was very predictable (just not the exact timing, scale, or specifics). Black Swans are unknown unknowns; unforeseen positive or negative events that create huge effects, that typically sit outside of the expectations of common predictions (as there was no reasonable way to predict them).

There were so many highlights for me it's hard to pick any key bits out, the entire book was fantastic, even the big essay at the end of the second edition of the book that I read.

Taleb is fantastic at explaining his theories, using multiple examples to illustrate each one. I felt like this rounded out my understanding of each of the theories. Fair warning: he can be quite egotistical and rude at times.

I love any books that illustrate different world-views, and The Black Swan was fantastic for that, hence 5 stars. I highlighted a lot, and expect to re-read after reading his other books.

P.S. As a software engineer, I also found the book very applicable to estimating complex software projects.

The message that Taleb is driving home, is clear and understood: Gaussian bell curves need to be deleted from public memory - Black Swan events, that are highly improbable, yet enormously impactful don't follow projections using standard deviations. While this in itself is definitely news to me, the book is windy, lengthy, and sometimes “hautain” (haughty, in reference to Taleb's beloved French). Glad I read it but I didn't always fully enjoy it.

I don't know enough about statistics or science to understand most of this book, but it didn't really matter; I loved how Taleb turns statistics on its head and watches how it tries to keep standing. From this book away these big thoughts: You think they won't, but black swans will happen. No one will expect them. Their impact will be astonishing. Go for the good black swans, however unlikely; stay away from the bad black swans, no matter what.