Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s background as a former options trader and statistician lends a unique sense of real-life credibility to the arguments in Antifragile, the fourth book in his Incerto series. Throughout this series of books, Taleb weaves a thematic thread that revolves mostly around risk and uncertainty, studying the seemingly random factors that catalyze major societal events. Taleb’s background in finance is central not only to the ideas in Antifragile, but also to the other books in the series (Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes, and Skin in the Game).

Taleb’s experiences as an options trader led him to develop the concept of “Black Swans,” his term for rare, unexpected events that have a profound impact on global events, including financial markets. The book, The Black Swan, became one of his best-known. It, like the other two prior books in the Incerto series, develops a strong critique of traditional risk management approaches. Taleb was interested in the role of unpredictability—the way that unexpected occurrences can shake up systems, whether they are economic, political, or something else.

The 2008 financial crisis (aka “The Great Recession”) was widely seen to validate Taleb’s claims about so-called Black Swans.