Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life - Softcover

Taleb, Nassim Nicholas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0241300657 ISBN 13: 9780241300657

Publisher: Allen Lane, 2018

Synopsis

The bestselling author of The Black Swan and 'the hottest thinker in the world' (Sunday Times) is back with a book challenging many of our long-held beliefs about risk, reward, politics, religion and finance

How can a stubborn minority easily end up ruling? Should you take advice from a salesperson? Is the pope atheist?

More than the foundation of risk management, skin in the game is an astonishingly complex worldview that, as Nassim Nicholas Taleb shows in this provocative book, applies to all aspects of our lives and drives history. In his inimitable style, he draws on everything from Antaeus the Giant to Donald Trump to Seneca to the ethics of disagreement to how to buy a used car, to create a jaw-dropping tapestry for understanding this idea in a brand new way.

Full of philosophical tales and practical stories, Skin in the Game offers a key rule to live by: do not do to others what you don't want them to do to you, with its practical extension: never take advice from someone who gives advice for a living.

About this title

About the Author

Nassim Nicholas Taleb spent twenty-one years as a risk taker before becoming a researcher in philosophical, mathematical, and (mostly) practical problems with probability. Although he spends most of his time as a flâneur, meditating in cafes across the planet, he is currently Distinguished Professor at New York University's Tandon School of Engineering but self-funds his own research.

His books, Antifragile, The Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes and Fooled by Randomness (part of a multi-volume collection called Incerto, Latin for uncertainty), have been translated into thirty-seven languages. Taleb has authored more than fifty scholarly papers as backup to Incerto, ranging from international affairs and risk management to statistical physics. He refuses all awards and honours as they debase knowledge by turning it into competitive sports.

From the Back Cover

Bestselling author of BLACK SWAN is back with a new book about why we should only trust those who have something to lose. For a society to function properly, those who benefit should also risk something and those who risk something should benefit. Full of philosophical tales and practical stories, it offers a key rule to live by: do not do to others what you don't want them to do to you.

Edition details

• Publisher: Allen Lane
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0241300657
• ISBN 13: 9780241300657
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304