This book is a weird mix of novel ideas, bragging, and pseudo-science.

Taleb makes a strong case for his theory of black swans. It's an interesting and valuable theory but it's also one that could be communicated in a short conversation and does not need a whole book to contain it.

Taleb fills the rest of the pages by bragging about his own success and ridiculing established philosophers, economists, and anyone else he can think of. I'm not in any position to judge his opinions of these people, but I know that he really drops the ball with his math, which is amateur at best and misleading at its worst. For example, on page 235 of the hardcover edition he writes: "Take a random sample of any two people in the U.S. population who jointly earn $1 million per annum ... it would be $50,000 and $950,000" This is used to illustrate income inequality in the U.S., but really the only reason it's true is because $50,000 is a common annual income. If he set his total to $2 million, or $100 million, his point would seem even more significant. I stopped reading this book shortly after that page.