Customer Reviews:
 Great idea - mediocre presentation July 8, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I listened to the audiobook. I think the idea behind this book is very, very interesting - life is shaped more by random (non-predictable) events than by anything one of us can foresee. That being said, the author has filled the book with several anecdotes that are somewhat meaningless (eg, the fictitious Russian author) and/or irrelevant (autobiographical details of his life) - hence the 4 stars, rather than the 5 stars the idea deserves. It appears that at times, he is trying to be too clever by half, and destroys the rhythm of ideas by being too verbose. Some of his sentences are very convoluted, and I found myself having to rewind and listen to some sentences more than once to figure out what he means by what he says. I found the parallels with Asimov's futuristic science fiction Foundation series- where Harry Seldon constructs his of mathematically predicting the future, but is thrown off by the unpredictable appearance of the Mule (=a black swan). It is odd, especially in the context of this book, that over so many millennia that the Foundation existed, why only one such even that was so enormously disruptive occurred. According to Taleb, they should be occurring much more commonly. Had this book been written better, I would have given it 5 stars.
 The Black Swan is a Red Herring July 5, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
Nicholas Taleb has seemingly spent his entire life chasing what he refers to as the black swan. A series of highly improbable events that have continuously shaped the course of human history. He presents his description of this phenomenon in what might be termed an autobiographical manifesto of sorts, the exhaustive and seemingly endlessly referenced book, "The Black Swan -- The Impact of the Highly Improbable". It's not that Taleb isn't onto something, or hasn't written a thought provoking book, he has. But Taleb has not given us a black swan. He has given us a Red Herring. He has taken a small piece of stinky fish and dragged it in the dirt perpendicular to the path we are on. There is a small benefit, if we leave our path momentarily to gain a new perspective, new insights will emerge, but that is all our feeble brains can comprehend, and nothing more. But to believe there are no thinker's among us who do not understand the need to search for the extraordinary and to try to link them to potential causes, that although we might not understand completely, are contributory and can indeed be rectified, is not to be an observer of the human race at all. Ultimately he is wrong about the Black Swan but he is right about the requirement for us to think outside the box. But this has been said before. Taleb just reminds us.
First 2 chapters are worth the price June 26, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The research based information on the psychology of marketing, buying and selling that are described in the first two chapters are little known, facinating and extremely useful for those at many levels. Detailed discussions of "decoys" in marketing products, the relative comparisons involved in almost all buying decisions and the incredible effects of "free" merchandise such as Amazon's free shipping are given in an interesting and engaging way. After that the impact and interest of the information declines with each chapter and by chapter 7 it is hard to tell what the focus of the book (audio) is. A guess would be that after chapter three it just goes on to whatever the author found interesting and researched.
 A great book long over due June 19, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
The author, I think, is one of the great thinkers of our time. I enjoyed his work. On YouTube, there is a long interview of Mr. Taleb by an old guy. It was a disaster in that the interviewer has almost no knowledge about what what Taleb was talking about (including chaos, ...) and consistently interrupts and makes annoying noises. Therefore, I could only partially tell what Taleb was trying to say and I knew it was something important. Being unable to completely hear and see what Taleb attempted to say, I bought his book. Anyhow, it is not a technical book, it's fun with lots of history knowledge and intriging to read. I recommended it to many friends already.
Don't let Taleb's annoying asides stop you from reading The Black Swan June 16, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Taleb could use a good editor, no doubt about it. Taleb's writing can be very entertaining and informative when he does not distract and annoy the reader with childish throwaway asides. On the other hand, these asides act as road-signs: When you find one aside too many, just skip the rest of the chapter because it is of no major consequence. When Taleb takes to his subject, he writes like an adult. :)
The subject matter, which could have been covered in fewer pages, is about the fact that the normal or bell curve does not represent reality in many cases and in these instances predictions based on a normal distribution will be wildly wrong. I found particularly helpful some pointers about our understanding of issues like "evidence" which may or may not prove your assumptions and "randomness" (not what you learn in a casino) which may be Gaussian or not.
The rest of the book is dedicated to various subjects such as the history of the Levant, not to be confused with the Middle East; a diatribe against the Nobel prize for economics; the academic pecking order; Taleb's travelogue including Rome, Paris, Sidney, Boston; and praises for philosophers and mathematicians Taleb happens to like including Mandelbrot and Poincare.
The reason for reading this book, if you are an investor, is to make sure you adapt your portfolio to the reality of Black Swans and avoid wrong assumptions and bad theories such as MPT, Black-Scholes, and Efficient Markets. If you are not highly leveraged then Black Swans will be less traumatic for your portfolio. Maybe Taleb should have railed against excessive leverage.
While Taleb does mention his dumbbell style of investing, don't expect to find an investing tutorial. He provides some clues but you will have to create your own unique style of harnessing good Black Swans and avoiding the bad ones.
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