Fooled by Randomness: N. Taleb Monday, August 18, 2008
Posted by ei-forum in Book Reviews.trackback
Nassim Nicholas Taleb tackles the hidden role of chance in life and in the markets – beware, this book is not an easy read but it is incredibility clever and quite witty. Mr. Taleb highlights how outcomes are ofter unpredictable and how performance is – in most cases – down to chance rather than skill.
The theme for this book is quite controversial due to the fact that people are often oblivious to the very existence of randomness and are used to attributing outcomes to merit. However, things are more complex than they appear…
Basically, the three broad concepts he focuses on are (i) peoples misunderstanding of “the rare event”, (ii) the survivorship bias – the fact that we tend to have a distorted view of things because we base our assumptions on winning examples and therefore have a distorted view of overall odds and (iii) filtering through the ‘noise’ and identifying the true meaning in events.
The book is extremely thought-provoking and a definite must on all bookshelfs.
Enjoy!
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[...] Nicolas Taleb at his best! Wednesday, October 15, 2008 Posted by fmdm in Investing. trackback We have talked about Mr. Taleb in the past and have even reviewed his book ‘Fooled by Randomness’ (read post – here). [...]
Very clever and well written.
Thank you!