Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life

by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

UNUS SED LEO: ONLY ONE BUT A LION Alexander said that it was preferable to have an army of sheep led by a lion than an army of lions led by a sheep. Alexander (or whoever produced this probably apocryphal saying) understood the value of the active, intolerant, and courageous minority. Hannibal terrorized Rome for a decade and a half with a tiny army of mercenaries, winning twenty-two battles against the Romans, battles in which he was outnumbered each time. He was inspired by a version of this maxim. For, at the battle of Cannae, he remarked to Gisco, who was concerned that the Carthaginians were outnumbered by the Romans: “There is one thing that’s more wonderful than their numbers … in all that vast number there is not one man called Gisgo.”fn5 This large payoff from stubborn courage is not limited to the military. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has,” wrote Margaret Mead. Revolutions are unarguably driven by an obsessive minority. And the entire growth of society, whether economic or moral, comes from a small number of people.