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Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets (Incerto) Paperback – August 23, 2005
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Fooled by Randomness is the word-of-mouth sensation that will change the way you think about business and the world. Nassim Nicholas Taleb–veteran trader, renowned risk expert, polymathic scholar, erudite raconteur, and New York Times bestselling author of The Black Swan–has written a modern classic that turns on its head what we believe about luck and skill.
This book is about luck–or more precisely, about how we perceive and deal with luck in life and business. Set against the backdrop of the most conspicuous forum in which luck is mistaken for skill–the world of trading–Fooled by Randomness provides captivating insight into one of the least understood factors in all our lives. Writing in an entertaining narrative style, the author tackles major intellectual issues related to the underestimation of the influence of happenstance on our lives.
The book is populated with an array of characters, some of whom have grasped, in their own way, the significance of chance: the baseball legend Yogi Berra; the philosopher of knowledge Karl Popper; the ancient world’s wisest man, Solon; the modern financier George Soros; and the Greek voyager Odysseus. We also meet the fictional Nero, who seems to understand the role of randomness in his professional life but falls victim to his own superstitious foolishness.
However, the most recognizable character of all remains unnamed–the lucky fool who happens to be in the right place at the right time–he embodies the “survival of the least fit.” Such individuals attract devoted followers who believe in their guru’s insights and methods. But no one can replicate what is obtained by chance.
Are we capable of distinguishing the fortunate charlatan from the genuine visionary? Must we always try to uncover nonexistent messages in random events? It may be impossible to guard ourselves against the vagaries of the goddess Fortuna, but after reading Fooled by Randomness we can be a little better prepared.
Named by Fortune One of the Smartest Books of All Time
A Financial Times Best Business Book of the Year
- Print length368 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherRandom House Trade Paperbacks
- Publication dateAugust 23, 2005
- Dimensions5.17 x 0.74 x 8.01 inches
- ISBN-10158799190X
- ISBN-13978-0812975215
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Editorial Reviews
Review
–Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker
“Fascinating . . . Taleb will grab you.”
–Peter L. Bernstein, author of Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk
“Recalls the best of scientist/essayists like Richard Dawkins . . . and Stephen Jay Gould.”
–Michael Schrage, author of Serious Play
“We need a book like this . . . fun to read, refreshingly independent-minded.”
–Robert J. Shiller, author of Irrational Exuberance
About the Author
Taleb’s books have been published in forty-one languages.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Croesus, King of Lydia, was considered the richest man of his time. To this day Romance languages use the expression “rich as Croesus” to describe a person of excessive wealth. He was said to be visited by Solon, the Greek legislator known for his dignity, reserve, upright morals, humility, frugality, wisdom, intelligence, and courage. Solon did not display the smallest surprise at the wealth and splendor surrounding his host, nor the tiniest admiration for their owner. Croesus was so irked by the manifest lack of impression on the part of this illustrious visitor that he attempted to extract from him some acknowledgment. He asked him if he had known a happier man than him. Solon cited the life of a man who led a noble existence and died while in battle. Prodded for more, he gave similar examples of heroic but terminated lives, until Croesus, irate, asked him point-blank if he was not to be considered the happiest man of all. Solon answered: “The observation of the numerous misfortunes that attend all conditions forbids us to grow insolent upon our present enjoyments, or to admire a man’s happiness that may yet, in course of time, suffer change. For the uncertain future has yet to come, with all variety of future; and him only to whom the divinity has [guaranteed] continued happiness until the end we may call happy.”
The modern equivalent has been no less eloquently voiced by the baseball coach Yogi Berra, who seems to have translated Solon’s outburst from the pure Attic Greek into no less pure Brooklyn English with “it ain’t over until it’s over,” or, in a less dignified manner, with “it ain’t over until the fat lady sings.” In addition, aside from his use of the vernacular, the Yogi Berra quote presents an advantage of being true, while the meeting between Croesus and Solon was one of those historical facts that benefited from the imagination of the chroniclers, as it was chronologically impossible for the two men to have been in the same location.
Part I is concerned with the degree to which a situation may yet, in the course of time, suffer change. For we can be tricked by situations involving mostly the activities of the goddess Fortuna—Jupiter’s firstborn daughter. Solon was wise enough to get the following point; that which came with the help of luck could be taken away by luck (and often rapidly and unexpectedly at that). The flipside, which deserves to be considered as well (in fact it is even more of our concern), is that things that come with little help from luck are more resistant to randomness. Solon also had the intuition of a problem that has obsessed science for the past three centuries. It is called the problem of induction. I call it in this book the black swan or the rare event. Solon even understood another linked problem, which I call the skewness issue; it does not matter how frequently something succeeds if failure is too costly to bear.
Yet the story of Croesus has another twist. Having lost a battle to the redoubtable Persian king Cyrus, he was about to be burned alive when he called Solon’s name and shouted (something like) “Solon, you were right” (again this is legend). Cyrus asked about the nature of such unusual invocations, and he told him about Solon’s warning. This impressed Cyrus so much that he decided to spare Croesus’ life, as he reflected on the possibilities as far as his own fate was concerned. People were thoughtful at that time.
If You’re So Rich, Why Aren’t You So Smart?
An illustration of the effect of randomness on social pecking order and jealousy, through two characters of opposite attitudes. On the concealed rare event. How things in modern life may change rather rapidly, except, perhaps, in dentistry.
Nero Tulip
Hit by Lightning
Nero Tulip became obsessed with trading after witnessing a strange scene one spring day as he was visiting the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. A red convertible Porsche, driven at several times the city speed limit, abruptly stopped in front of the entrance, its tires emitting the sound of pigs being slaughtered. A visibly demented athletic man in his thirties, his face flushed red, emerged and ran up the steps as if he were chased by a tiger. He left the car double-parked, its engine running, provoking an angry fanfare of horns. After a long minute, a bored young man clad in a yellow jacket (yellow was the color reserved for clerks) came down the steps, visibly untroubled by the traffic commotion. He drove the car into the underground parking garage—perfunctorily, as if it were his daily chore.
That day Nero Tulip was hit with what the French call a coup de foudre, a sudden intense (and obsessive) infatuation that strikes like lightning. “This is for me!” he screamed enthusiastically—he could not help comparing the life of a trader to the alternative lives that could present themselves to him. Academia conjured up the image of a silent university office with rude secretaries; business, the image of a quiet office staffed with slow thinkers and semislow thinkers who express themselves in full sentences.
Temporary Sanity
Unlike a coup de foudre, the infatuation triggered by the Chicago scene has not left him more than a decade and a half after the incident. For Nero swears that no other lawful profession in our times could be as devoid of boredom as that of the trader. Furthermore, although he has not yet practiced the profession of high-sea piracy, he is now convinced that even that occupation would present more dull moments than that of the trader.
Nero could best be described as someone who randomly (and abruptly) swings between the deportment and speech manners of a church historian and the verbally abusive intensity of a Chicago pit trader. He can commit hundreds of millions of dollars in a transaction without a blink or a shadow of a second thought, yet agonize between two appetizers on the menu, changing his mind back and forth and wearing out the most patient of waiters.
Nero holds an undergraduate degree in ancient literature and mathematics from Cambridge University. He enrolled in a Ph.D. program in statistics at the University of Chicago but, after completing the prerequisite coursework, as well as the bulk of his doctoral research, he switched to the philosophy department. He called the switch “a moment of temporary sanity,” adding to the consternation of his thesis director, who warned him against philosophers and predicted his return back to the fold. He finished writing his thesis in philosophy. But not the Derrida continental style of incomprehensible philosophy (that is, incomprehensible to anyone outside of their ranks, like myself). It was quite the opposite; his thesis was on the methodology of statistical inference in its application to the social sciences. In fact, his thesis was indistinguishable from a thesis in mathematical statistics—it was just a bit more thoughtful (and twice as long).
It is often said that philosophy cannot feed its man—but that was not the reason Nero left. He left because philosophy cannot entertain its man. At first, it started looking futile; he recalled his statistics thesis director’s warnings. Then, suddenly, it started to look like work. As he became tired of writing papers on some arcane details of his earlier papers, he gave up the academy. The academic debates bored him to tears, particularly when minute points (invisible to the noninitiated) were at stake. Action was what Nero required. The problem, however, was that he selected the academy in the first place in order to kill what he detected was the flatness and tempered submission of employment life.
After witnessing the scene of the trader chased by a tiger, Nero found a trainee spot on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the large exchange where traders transact by shouting and gesticulating frenetically. There he worked for a prestigious (but eccentric) local, who trained him in the Chicago style, in return for Nero solving his mathematical equations. The energy in the air proved motivating to Nero. He rapidly graduated to the rank of self-employed trader. Then, when he got tired of standing on his feet in the crowd, and straining his vocal cords, he decided to seek employment “upstairs,” that is, trading from a desk. He moved to the New York area and took a position with an investment house.
Nero specialized in quantitative financial products, in which he had an early moment of glory, became famous and in demand. Many investment houses in New York and London flashed huge guaranteed bonuses at him. Nero spent a couple of years shuttling between the two cities, attending important “meetings” and wearing expensive suits. But soon Nero went into hiding; he rapidly pulled back to anonymity—the Wall Street stardom track did not quite fit his temperament. To stay a “hot trader” requires some organizational ambitions and a power hunger that he feels lucky not to possess. He was only in it for the fun—and his idea of fun does not include administrative and managerial work. He is susceptible to conference room boredom and is incapable of talking to businessmen, particularly the run-of-the-mill variety. Nero is allergic to the vocabulary of business talk, not just on plain aesthetic grounds. Phrases like “game plan,” “bottom line,” “how to get there from here,” “we provide our clients with solutions,” “our mission,” and other hackneyed expressions that dominate meetings lack both the precision and the coloration that he prefers to hear. Whether people populate silence with hollow sentences, or if such meetings present any true merit, he does not know; at any rate he did not want to be part of it. Indeed Nero’s extensive social life includes almost no businesspeople. But unlike me (I can be extremely humiliating when someone rubs me the wrong way with inelegant pompousness), Nero handles himself with gentle aloofness in these circumstances.
So, Nero switched careers to what is called proprietary trading. Traders are set up as independent entities, internal funds with their own allocation of capital. They are left alone to do as they please, provided of course that their results satisfy the executives. The name proprietary comes from the fact that they trade the company’s own capital. At the end of the year they receive between 7% and 12% of the profits generated. The proprietary trader has all the benefits of self-employment, and none of the burdens of running the mundane details of his own business. He can work any hours he likes, travel at a whim, and engage in all manner of personal pursuits. It is paradise for an intellectual like Nero who dislikes manual work and values unscheduled meditation. He has been doing that for the past ten years, in the employment of two different trading firms.
Modus Operandi
A word on Nero’s methods. He is as conservative a trader as one can be in such a business. In the past he has had good years and less than good years—but virtually no truly “bad” years. Over these years he has slowly built for himself a stable nest egg, thanks to an income ranging between $300,000 and (at the peak) $2.5 million. On average, he manages to accumulate $500,000 a year in after-tax money (from an average income of about $1 million); this goes straight into his savings account. In 1993, he had a bad year and was made to feel uncomfortable in his company. Other traders made out much better, so the capital at his disposal was severely reduced, and he was made to feel undesirable at the institution. He then went to get an identical job, down to an identically designed workspace, but in a different firm that was friendlier. In the fall of 1994 the traders who had been competing for the great performance award blew up in unison during the worldwide bond market crash that resulted from the random tightening by the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States. They are all currently out of the market, performing a variety of tasks. This business has a high mortality rate.
Why isn’t Nero more affluent? Because of his trading style—or perhaps his personality. His risk aversion is extreme. Nero’s objective is not to maximize his profits, so much as it is to avoid having this entertaining machine called trading taken away from him. Blowing up would mean returning to the tedium of the university or the nontrading life. Every time his risks increase, he conjures up the image of the quiet hallway at the university, the long mornings at his desk spent in revising a paper, kept awake by bad coffee. No, he does not want to have to face the solemn university library where he was bored to tears. “I am shooting for longevity,” he is wont to say.
Nero has seen many traders blow up, and does not want to get into that situation. Blow up in the lingo has a precise meaning; it does not just mean to lose money; it means to lose more money than one ever expected, to the point of being thrown out of the business (the equivalent of a doctor losing his license to practice or a lawyer being disbarred). Nero rapidly exits trades after a predetermined loss. He never sells “naked options” (a strategy that would leave him exposed to large possible losses). He never puts himself in a situation where he can lose more than, say, $1 million—regardless of the probability of such an event. That amount has always been variable; it depends on his accumulated profits for the year. This risk aversion prevented him from making as much money as the other traders on Wall Street who are often called “Masters of the Universe.” The firms he has worked for generally allocate more money to traders with a different style from Nero, like John, whom we will encounter soon.
Nero’s temperament is such that he does not mind losing small change. “I love taking small losses,” he says. “I just need my winners to be large.” In no circumstances does he want to be exposed to those rare events, like panics and sudden crashes, that wipe a trader out in a flash. To the contrary, he wants to benefit from them. When people ask him why he does not hold on to losers, he invariably answers that he was trained by “the most chicken of them all,” the Chicago trader Stevo who taught him the business. This is not true; the real reason is his training in probability and his innate skepticism.
Product details
- ASIN : 0812975219
- Publisher : Random House Trade Paperbacks; 2nd ed. edition (August 23, 2005)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 368 pages
- ISBN-10 : 158799190X
- ISBN-13 : 978-0812975215
- Item Weight : 9.2 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.17 x 0.74 x 8.01 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #18,473 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #12 in Statistics (Books)
- #13 in Free Will & Determinism Philosophy
- #490 in Success Self-Help
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Nassim Nicholas Taleb spent more than two decades as a risk taker before becoming a full-time essayist and scholar focusing on practical, philosophical, and mathematical problems with chance, luck, and probability. His focus in on how different systems handle disorder.
He now spends most of his time in the intense seclusion of his study, or as a flâneur meditating in cafés. In addition to his life as a trader he spent several years as an academic researcher (12 years as Distinguished Professor at New York University's School of Engineering, Dean's Professor at U. Mass Amherst).
He is the author of the Incerto (latin for uncertainty), accessible in any order (Skin in the Game, Antifragile, The Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes, and Fooled by Randomness) plus a technical version, The Technical Incerto (Statistical Consequences of Fat Tails). Taleb has also published close to 55 academic and scholarly papers as a backup, technical footnotes to the Incerto in topics ranging from Statistical Physics and Quantitative Finance to Genetics and International affairs. The Incerto has more than 250 translations in 50 languages.
Taleb believes that prizes, honorary degrees, awards, and ceremonialism debase knowledge by turning it into a spectator sport.
""Imagine someone with the erudition of Pico de la Mirandola, the skepticism of Montaigne, solid mathematical training, a restless globetrotter, polyglot, enjoyer of fine wines, specialist of financial derivatives, irrepressible reader, and irascible to the point of readily slapping a disciple." La Tribune (Paris)
A giant of Mediterranean thought ... Now the hottest thinker in the world", London Times
"The most prophetic voice of all" GQ
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The book is too wide ranging to summarize its content in a review, but perhaps the main lesson is that we humans are inherently prone to being irrational in various ways (usually without realizing it), particularly when it comes to adequately judging risks (and opportunities) and thereby making appropriate decisions in the face of uncertainty. We're especially prone to underestimating how often outliers ("black swans") can occur and how severe their consequences can be ("blowing up" in the case of traders). A corollary is that we often underestimate the role of luck (good and bad) in shaping outcomes, and instead overestimate the role of our decisions. Though we can't eliminate our tendency toward irrationality, we can at least be aware of it, and thereby deploy some "tricks" to help control it or compensate for it.
My thoughts on this book largely echo my review of Taleb's The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable , and both books are similar in content and style, though The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable is perhaps a bit more flamboyant (in a good way). To be more specific:
- Taleb is confident and may sometimes seem condescending, but his erudition is undeniable, and a strong case can be made for his iconoclastic brilliance as well. In a book like this, perhaps the usual modesty and humility don't make sense.
- He's dismissive of those he disagrees with (even Nobel prize winners), and could be accused of oversimplifying their positions, but his criticisms actually seem to have a lot of validity, and recent financial events seem to have significantly (and unfortunately) vindicated him.
- He often circles around his points, but his refusal to get right to the point pushes you to think more deeply about the implications of his ideas, rather than just quickly saying "yes, that's obvious, so what?"
- His frequent digressions make it harder for the reader to follow the thread of his narrative, but the digressions are fun and many are quite insightful. For an open-minded person with an intellectual inclination, this can be a very gripping book.
- I do think the more technical discussions should have been more clear and precise. I guess Taleb tried to "dumb down" the book to reach a broad audience.
- Many of the ideas in the book aren't original to Taleb, but the way he's woven them together and presented them with flourish certainly is, resulting in the ideas having lasting impact on the reader.
- His suggestions on investing aren't very specific, but this is a book about being fooled by randomness in general, not investing in particular. And Taleb's general advice to arrange safeguards against financial disaster, and also get exposure to potentially huge opportunities, certainly seems sensible.
As with The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable , the bottom line is that this book is truly unique in its ability to intellectually entertain while conveying some deep insight and wisdom. Few people in the world have the right intersection of ingredients to produce a book like this, so we should cherish the fact that the book exists. Even if you don't fully agree with him, Taleb is worth engaging with. For readers who like this book and also have a strong interest in science, I also suggest Chance and Chaos by David Ruelle.
Very highly recommended. In fact, ignore this book at your peril.
Overall the book was interesting for a novice reader but definitely not an easy to follow book. There were many parts of the book where I had to stop and read twice or thrice to understand what the author is trying to say. It definitely shows you a different mindset of the Type A personality investment bankers and traders.
The book walks through various phases of how randomness and probability affect people from all walks of life. It is well divided into three major parts, each explaining different angles in which people view probability and randomness in their lives and how they deal with it on an individual level. The author explains well how perception and biases are responsible for people making wrong decisions. He talks about the fact that even though we cannot completely ignore emotions, we cannot as well completely remove probability and randomness while evaluating decisions and risks. The author also explains about the Monte Carlos simulators and how they should always be used to predict outcomes in the future rather than just relying on data from the past. The author also has strong views about denigrate history suggesting that people feel that things that happen to others might not happen to them. Nassim has given a lot of examples to show the reader the various angles in which randomness and probability is perceived, used and interpreted by people. The author also draws light upon the fact that too much information might end up doing more harm than good as it blurs your decision and your ability to choose the right information. Nassim also strongly emphasizes on the fact that any individual should never get completely loyal to his position as it hinders him from looking at different points of views. This in turns affects his decision making and ability to adapt to the changes that come with the position. The author has given examples of people from his life, famous people throughout history as well as people from various field of work to prove his point in several occasions. The author finally suggests that it is inevitable to be affected by randomness as he himself has been affected by it. However whatever the effects of randomness in anyone's life, they never should blame anyone or get angry but just learn to deal with and change is always inevitable.
The book has been written in a very personal format where it feels as if the author is trying to convey a message through a personal talk. Talking about experiences in his life and sharing his emotions definitely helps build that connection with the author. The author's style seems very straight and blunt as well. It feels like he has no qualms about how he has experienced life or what he has thought about some people who he has met in life. This is clearly seen in way he expresses feelings about some of his neighbors, coworkers or even people he has heard about. It gives a sort of raw understanding into the mind of the author. In doing so he has been able to sort of organize his book in to the various aspects of randomness, its effects and biases that come with it and finally how several people deal with it. This sort of structure helps in understanding the complex message that the author is trying to convey.
There are quite a few quotes that got me thinking, some of which are: "Mild success can be explainable by skills and labor. Wild success is attributable to variance.", "Heroes are heroes because they are heroic in behavior, not because they won or lost.", "A mistake is not something to be determined after the fact, but in the light of the information until that point.", "The only article Lady Fortuna has no control over is your behavior.". However my most favorite line from the book is "No amount of observations of white swans can allow the inference that all swans are white, but the observation of a single black swan is sufficient to refute that conclusion." I love it because it made me think and realize that this applies to so many things in life. Your reputation that you build upon for so many years can all come crashing down with a major mistake. Nassim explains this with an example of a successful banker who earned millions for a bank however a single mistake that cost him millions got him fired and forgotten of the things he had done in the past.
After reading through the entire book you have a sense of confusion mainly due to the fact that it does stay close to its name that there is a lot of talk about randomness that exists in the world and the market. However Nassims ability to convince the author is promising. He himself believes that he was fooled by randomness and consciously tries to make certain decision that help him in making the sound decision.
Overall this book has great things to offer from head scratching content to knowledge to even humor at times and is definitely worth a read. It helped me step out of my comfort reading zone and challenge me in my thoughts and opinions that I had about various aspects in life.
Top reviews from other countries
This book is so good that my only regret is that I didn't read it 15 years ago when the book first came out. This book will change my life. It has already affected me on how I view the world around me. I believe every person, whether they are specifically in the risk-taking business, or generally living life (life after all is a risk-taking business), will benefit from the insights Nassim provides in the excellent 262 pages.
One of the book's greatest strengths lies in Taleb's ability to blend complex ideas with engaging storytelling. Through anecdotes and examples, he illustrates how randomness influences our lives in ways we often overlook. Whether it's in financial markets, career success, or everyday choices, Taleb demonstrates how randomness plays a far more significant role than we realize.
Moreover, Taleb's insights are not just theoretical musings; they have practical implications for how we approach risk and uncertainty. By embracing the unpredictability of the world, readers can learn to navigate uncertainty with more humility and resilience.
What sets "Fooled by Randomness" apart is its refreshing honesty. Taleb doesn't claim to have all the answers, but he encourages readers to question assumptions and think critically about the world around them. In doing so, he empowers us to become more discerning in our decision-making and less susceptible to the pitfalls of randomness.
Overall, "Fooled by Randomness" is a thought-provoking and enlightening read that challenges readers to reconsider their understanding of success, failure, and the role of randomness in our lives. Whether you're a seasoned investor, a curious thinker, or simply someone interested in exploring the mysteries of chance, this book is sure to leave a lasting impression.