5,246 books
—
7,489 voters
Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.
Start by marking “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable” as Want to Read:
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
(Incerto #2)
by
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 ...more
The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost ...more
Get A Copy
Hardcover, 366 pages
Published
May 15th 2007
by Random House
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Reader Q&A
To ask other readers questions about
The Black Swan,
please sign up.
Popular Answered Questions
This question contains spoilers…
(view spoiler)
Iván Fanego
I just finished it yesterday and my only regret is to not have read years ago. It is wonderful, it will change the way you see the world.
This question contains spoilers…
(view spoiler)
Community Reviews
Showing 1-30

Start your review of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

This is a book that raises a number of very important questions, but chief among them is definitely the question of how the interplay between a good idea and an insufferable author combine to effect the reading experience?
This author is an a-hole. Full stop. He's dismissive, chronically insecure, unstructured and hostile towards his detractors. He engages in what may be the lowest form of rhetoric by pre-emptively attacking any critics (even before they've had the chance to come forward) as too ...more
This author is an a-hole. Full stop. He's dismissive, chronically insecure, unstructured and hostile towards his detractors. He engages in what may be the lowest form of rhetoric by pre-emptively attacking any critics (even before they've had the chance to come forward) as too ...more

This is a great book. And, to take a page from Taleb, anyone who doesn't think so is wrong.
No, no, there are a number of problems with the book. A bit bloated, a bit repetitive. And NNT does make the misstep every once and a while. To take a very small instance, Taleb bases a short section of the book upon the idea that to be "hardened by the Gulag" means to become "harder" or "stronger" rather than its true meaning of someone who has become inured to certain difficulties, not necessarily ...more
No, no, there are a number of problems with the book. A bit bloated, a bit repetitive. And NNT does make the misstep every once and a while. To take a very small instance, Taleb bases a short section of the book upon the idea that to be "hardened by the Gulag" means to become "harder" or "stronger" rather than its true meaning of someone who has become inured to certain difficulties, not necessarily ...more

I can summarize this book in two words: Shit happens.
Actually, I should be more fair since the author spent 300 pages laying out his beliefs and arguing his conclusions. The real summary of this book should be: Shit happens more often than you think.
The author, Taleb, rails against economics, most philosophers, and the way we incorporate news to allow us to make sense of events and everyday happenings. He wants us to unlearn the way we think and learn, while destroying the modern beliefs in ...more
Actually, I should be more fair since the author spent 300 pages laying out his beliefs and arguing his conclusions. The real summary of this book should be: Shit happens more often than you think.
The author, Taleb, rails against economics, most philosophers, and the way we incorporate news to allow us to make sense of events and everyday happenings. He wants us to unlearn the way we think and learn, while destroying the modern beliefs in ...more

First, a disclaimer. I am, professionally, a statistician. I do not have a Ph.D. in my field because I feel that statisticians with Ph.D.'s are devoid of practicality and usefulness to the real world. I work at a factory where I assist engineers in better understanding how processes work and making things better. I generally feel that I make a worthwhile contribution to the world. I bought and read this book because it was critical of statisticians. I do not believe in surrounding myself with
...more

The first time through, I listened to this book with my husband, usually while I was cooking. Although I tried to stop and mark important passages, I ended up thinking the book was not very systematic. The second time through, chapter by chapter, the method in his madness is more apparent.
I continued to think Taleb is more a popularizer than an innovator. But even if so, that's not so shabby. He's trying to revolutionize the way we think, and the more we rehearse that, the better.
Nassim ...more
I continued to think Taleb is more a popularizer than an innovator. But even if so, that's not so shabby. He's trying to revolutionize the way we think, and the more we rehearse that, the better.
Nassim ...more

This book has diminishing returns on the time spent reading it. Taleb's jeremiad is directed against - well - everyone who is not as enlightened as he is. I trudged through this book because - well - everyone is reading it and enlightened people should know how to comment on it. There, I did it. Now I can look down on all those people out there who aren't enlightened like Taleb. And now, me.
Taleb is actually on to something important if you can tolerate his self-importance enough to filter his ...more
Taleb is actually on to something important if you can tolerate his self-importance enough to filter his ...more

Taleb is a pretty good writer, but I thought this was a very uneven book. As I read it I was constantly alternating between "Wow, that's a really great insight, a great way of presenting it" and "Gee, who doesn't realize that?", or even "That just seems flat-out wrong".
It's a book that should have been read by the quantitative analysts ("quants") working for the hedge funds and investment banks in early 2008; but it probably wouldn't have made much difference in the financial melt-down that ...more
It's a book that should have been read by the quantitative analysts ("quants") working for the hedge funds and investment banks in early 2008; but it probably wouldn't have made much difference in the financial melt-down that ...more

If you skipped your Systems, Statistics, or Random Variables classes in college, or if you think you know more than everyone else on Wall Street, then read this book. It will reaffirm what you already know. To the rest of you: this book will reaffirm what you thought you knew when you were 5 or 6...with an updated vocabulary.
I put this book down after the first chapter, but thought I would give it another chance, that I was being unfair. When I read the second chapter (which is a metaphor for ...more
I put this book down after the first chapter, but thought I would give it another chance, that I was being unfair. When I read the second chapter (which is a metaphor for ...more

This review will be comprised of two parts: a review of the ideas presented and a review of the way in which it is written
(A) The ideas
There is no question here, Taleb is an erudite and intelligent scholar. His take on epistomology and the scientific method breathe fresh air into the subject and gloss it with some 21st century context.
It would be difficult for me to overstate the importance of the black swan problem in modern life and the degree to which we are, as societies, unaware of its ...more
(A) The ideas
There is no question here, Taleb is an erudite and intelligent scholar. His take on epistomology and the scientific method breathe fresh air into the subject and gloss it with some 21st century context.
It would be difficult for me to overstate the importance of the black swan problem in modern life and the degree to which we are, as societies, unaware of its ...more

This felt like it was trying to be the next The Tipping Point or Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything and just failed spectacularly, on all counts. Most importantly, perhaps, was that it was dull and a chore to read. In the little footnotes suggesting a chapter was unneccessary for a nontechnical reader and could be skipped (read: you are too dumb to understand this chapter, so don't even bother), like Chapter 15, I gladly took his advice because it meant one
...more

Nassim Nicholas Taleb discusses "black swans", unexpected and life-changing events, and how life is far more uncertain than most believe it to be. He also examines, in-depth, how we fool ourselves into believing reality is otherwise by various means like confirmation bias (we look for evidence to support our existing beliefs) and narrative fallacies (the tendency to describe existence using linear stories when reality is far more complicated).
Mix in a heaping dose of storytelling and ...more
Mix in a heaping dose of storytelling and ...more

This book profoundly nasty and intellectually demented. Taleb a classic science denier; oscillating between anti-science and pseudo-intellectual arguments. When some scientist says something he likes, he misrepresents it to fit his narrative. When the scientific consensus is against him, he cries grand conspiracy theory or slanders the methods of science. His argumentation in this book is like a case study in logical fallacies and crank red flags.
Special pleading.
Ignoring disconfirming evidence ...more
Special pleading.
Ignoring disconfirming evidence ...more

A lot of blogs said a lot of nice things about this book, and from this I conclude that most of those bloggers either A) strictly read the executive summary or B) only read other bloggers. This is a pretty terrible book, and while it has one or two good ideas, they are better and more rigorously expressed in books like "Sway" or "The Drunkard's Walk" than they are in this shameless exercise in self promotion.
The fact that the author displays a limited understanding of the topic, and tends to ...more
The fact that the author displays a limited understanding of the topic, and tends to ...more

Not as overbearingly arrogant as others claim; in fact, often very self depreciating.
More seriously, his writing style is terribly confusing, made worse by my own unfamiliarity with the subject and his insistence on personal jargon standing in for concepts. Very anectdotal as well as making use of "thought experiments" to illustrate concepts that could have done with more explanation and less story. Yes, I get his point that stories help us learn, but I would argue that stories work best as ...more
More seriously, his writing style is terribly confusing, made worse by my own unfamiliarity with the subject and his insistence on personal jargon standing in for concepts. Very anectdotal as well as making use of "thought experiments" to illustrate concepts that could have done with more explanation and less story. Yes, I get his point that stories help us learn, but I would argue that stories work best as ...more

I love reading and I rarely criticise authors. I think it takes discipline to complete a book and thus authors deserves respect. This review is my first negative one and hopefully my last. I buddy read this which was the only positive aspect. We read about a chapter a day and every time we discussed it, we would be at a loss for words. I heard such great reviews about this book highlighting that it was quite controversial. Generally i seek out anything controversial but this author is just a
...more

Okay, let's see if I got it straight...
An anti-academic academic weaves a non-narrative narrative about predicting the unpredictable into the theory that rigid theories are bad.
Oh, and count on things you can't conceive of happening happening.
Something like that.
Taleb's observations on the expectations and biases we hold, especially when estimating risk or uncertainty, are pretty dead on.
His key practical point is about the need for a NON-parametric look at any situation in which ...more
An anti-academic academic weaves a non-narrative narrative about predicting the unpredictable into the theory that rigid theories are bad.
Oh, and count on things you can't conceive of happening happening.
Something like that.
Taleb's observations on the expectations and biases we hold, especially when estimating risk or uncertainty, are pretty dead on.
His key practical point is about the need for a NON-parametric look at any situation in which ...more

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, ...more
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, ...more

Dec 08, 2013
Akash Nair
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
philosophy,
business-econ-mgmt
Black Swan is easily one of the most challenging books I have read. Reading it felt like being part of a revolution. Difficult to comprehend during the first reading, it attacks the application of the Gaussian bell curve in Modern Portfolio Management Theory viciously and having read it a lot recently, it makes me feel like a fool. The book is a treasure trove if you are a quizzer. Contains a hell lot of names(philosophers, economists, mathematicians..). Makes you think hard and gives you a lot
...more

Black Swan, huge-impact improbable events (the success of google, attack of 9/11, invention of internet), shows that social sciences fail to predict various events (behaviors inculuded) by,and so far by merely , usingGaussian "bell curve" approach. The use of mathematics in social sciences overestimates what we know (observed past events)and underestimates what we don't (probable future events): too little science papers succeeded to make (near) accurate predictions; and successful inventions
...more

I only read the first 13 pages of this book, plus the prologue, but that was enough. In the first few pages he name-drops people like Umberto Eco and Nabokov, tells us about people who were rather unknown five years ago (but forgets to tell us that they are still rather unknown now), and compares himself to people in history who are/were actually influential. For a man who claims he is not writing an autobiography, he really works hard to impress the reader. He adds little bits of information in
...more

I have to admit that this book was a guilty pleasure, I really enjoyed it and some of the arguments presented on it are so interesting, but in general this is an uneven book, with a lot of generalizations that come out of nowhere and not so much intellectual background in elaborating its main thesis.

Wall-banger at page 64. This might not be the final rating. I entertain the possibility of picking this up again, but at the moment I cannot bear the thought. The author is an annoying schmuck and that overshadows the concepts, which are quite interesting. You want to learn something useful within the same genre, pick up "Thinking, fast and slow" by Daniel Kahneman instead.

Nassim Taleb's earlier book "Fooled by Randomness" was enormously successful - deservedly so, in my opinion. Unfortunately, this second book is a complete disappointment. Despite its length, it adds very little of interest to the material in the first book. Much of it is a rambling and indulgent rehash of ideas already developed adequately in the first book. If you are looking for fresh insight, spare your money.
Taleb is a very smart guy. In the first book, he wrote fluidly, clearly, without ...more
Taleb is a very smart guy. In the first book, he wrote fluidly, clearly, without ...more

This is a book about the perils of real life randomness that don't fit within neat distributions such as the bell curve. The author explains his insight in a wandering narrative spiced with enough personal autobiography, criticism of nobel laureates, and even fictional characters to hold the reader's interest. Through most of the book I was considering giving it 4 or 5 stars, but then toward the end of the book the author hurt his credibility by going overboard with his criticism of other
...more

This book is like a nice cup of dark roasted coffee. A bit bitter for those who are unfamiliar with the Black Swan brand of uncertainty, yet disconcertingly alerting for those who have encountered this rare blend. The Black Swan glides through deep philosophical discussions and clever humor as effortlessly as its namesake. I was deeply enthralled by Nassim Nicholas Taleb's depth of erudition and wisdom concerning the philosophy of uncertainty.
The second edition of which I was privileged to read ...more
The second edition of which I was privileged to read ...more

I have read all four of NNT' s books three recently "Skin in the Game " Anti-fragile " and "The Black Swan" (I read 'fooled by randomness " too long ago to remember much). I like Anti-fragile the most with the Black Swan a close second. Black Swan stylistically appeals to me as nonfiction reader but anti-fragile delivers more goods but both deliver nonetheless

This book is hyper-interesting, very rich but also super-annoying at the same time. So much has been written about it, that I am going to limit myself to some essentials. This book is about the absolutely unexpected, the black swan you would never suspect if you only saw white swans all your life. Taleb, of course, refers to numerous historical examples of things that have come completely out of the blue: the collapse of the Soviet Union, Nine-eleven, major stock market crises and so on. And of
...more

Aug 20, 2009
Lobstergirl
rated it
it was ok
Recommends it for:
Joyce DeWitt
Shelves:
economics,
got-rid-of
This book "just wrote itself," Taleb says early on. I believe him. Rarely do you read anything so rambling, bouncing from anecdote to anecdote, with such wack-ass headings: Saw Another Red Mini! / Information is Bad for Knowledge / Don't Cross a River if It Is (on Average) Four Feet Deep / How to Look for Bird Poop / How Not to Be a Nerd / How Coffee Drinking Can Be Safe. On the internet this is called clickbait, and once you've clicked and realized how shallow the resulting story is, or how it ...more
topics | posts | views | last activity | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Is any of the readers applying anything from the book to decision making in their lives ? With what impact ? | 6 | 206 | Jun 26, 2017 11:20AM | |
Sustainability Bo...: This month's book: The Black Swan! | 1 | 9 | Apr 03, 2017 05:31AM | |
Black Swan - Thoughts? Discussions? | 1 | 18 | Mar 21, 2017 03:04AM | |
Goodreads Librari...: Quote needing correction of typos | 2 | 19 | Aug 16, 2015 08:48AM |
Nassim Nicholas Taleb spent 21 years as a risk taker (quantitative trader) before becoming a flaneur and researcher in philosophical, mathematical and (mostly) practical problems with probability.
Taleb is the author of a multivolume essay, the Incerto (The Black Swan, Fooled by Randomness, Antifragile, and Skin in the Game) an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human ...more
Taleb is the author of a multivolume essay, the Incerto (The Black Swan, Fooled by Randomness, Antifragile, and Skin in the Game) an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human ...more
Other books in the series
Incerto
(5 books)
12 trivia questions
More quizzes & trivia...
“The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. He is the owner of a large personal library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates visitors into two categories: those who react with “Wow! Signore, professore dottore Eco, what a library you have ! How many of these books have you read?” and the others - a very small minority - who get the point that a private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you don’t know as your financial means, mortgage rates and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menancingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.”
—
321 likes
“Missing a train is only painful if you run after it! Likewise, not matching the idea of success others expect from you is only painful if that’s what you are seeking.”
—
207 likes
More quotes…