Nassim Taleb Is Annoying, but "Antifragile" Is Still Worth Reading

Nassim Nicholas Taleb can be a pain in the ass. After I invited him to speak at Stevens Institute of Technology a year ago, he made all kinds of demands about where, when and how the event should take place and be publicized--or rather, not publicized. He loathes journalists so much that he almost backed out of his talk after learning that local media might attend. Of the 40-plus speakers I've brought to Stevens, none gave me nearly as much agita as Taleb. I put up with Taleb's prima donna antics because-- as I explained in a post last year --he's brilliant, funny and fearless and tackles consequential topics. What are the limits of science? Of understanding and prediction? Given our limited ability to know and control the world, how should we live our lives? How can we prosper in spite--and even because--of life's vicissitudes? A former derivatives trader, Taleb made his reputation by bashing conventional economics and finance, but his scope has always ranged far beyond Wall Street. His Big Idea is that life inevitably serves up surprises, or "black swans"--from AIDS and nuclear weapons to the 9/11 attacks and the internet--that our necessarily retrospective models of reality cannot foresee. [More]