“Entrepreneurs are selected to be just doers, not thinkers, and doers do, they don't talk.” — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
I'm a capitalist but one who is smallist and localist, and who favours businesses where owners are still in charge. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Never ask a trader if he is profitable: you can easily see it in his gesture and gait. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
In science you need to understand the world; in business you need others to misunderstand it. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Private equity has absolutely no reason to exist. The private equity holder has all the upside and the banks all the downside. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
I want them poor and they deserve to be poor. You can't have capitalism without punishment. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Being an entrepreneur is an existential, not just a financial thing. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
My nightmare scenario is that the government saves Citibank once again, as well as the other banks, and business resumes as usual.… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“Some business bets in which one wins big but infrequently, yet loses small but frequently, are worth making if others are suckers… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
You have family-owned businesses that have been around for 500 years. You cannot name a corporation that survives intact for even a… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
The number of managers with great track records in a given market depends far more on the number of people who started… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“Note that scholars are judged mostly on how many times their work is referenced in other people's work and thus cliques are… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Scientists may be in the business of laughing at their predecessors, but owing to an array of human mental dispositions, few realize… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Banking is a very treacherous business because you don't realize it is risky until it is too late. It is like calm… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
We should probably stop trading derivatives, anything more complex than regular options ... I am an options trader, and I don't understand… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
We have this culture of financialization. People think they need to make money with their savings rather with their own business. So… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“The strategy for the discoverers and entrepreneurs is to rely less on top-down planning and focus on maximum tinkering and recognizing opportunities… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“To view it in another way, consider the difference between judging on process and judging on results. Lower-ranking persons in the enterprise… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“He is susceptible to conference room boredom and is incapable of talking to businessmen, particularly the run-of-the-mill variety. Nero is allergic to… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“In order to progress, modern society should be treating ruined entrepreneurs in the same way we honor dead soldiers, perhaps not with… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Wittgenstein's ruler: Unless you have confidence in the ruler's reliability, if you use a ruler to measure a table you may also be using… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share
In politics we face the choice between warmongering, nation-state loving, big-business agents on one hand; and risk-blind, top-down, epistemic arrogant big servants of large… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share
My nightmare scenario is that the government saves Citibank once again, as well as the other banks, and business resumes as usual. Then, the… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share
Using, as an excuse, others' failure of common sense is in itself a failure of common sense. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share
You know, children philosophize more than adults - and they are critical of adults. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share
“Suckers think that you cure greed with money, addiction with substances, expert problems with experts, banking with bankers, economics with economists, and debt crises… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share
“One needs to go out and buy a lottery ticket in order to win. Does it mean that the work involved in the trip… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share
Individuals should think about the worst-case scenarios and plan for them. The world will be crazier than you think it will be. Put money… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share
“If you are looking for your misplaced wallet in your living room, in a trial and error mode, you exercise rationality by not looking… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share
“Most humans manage to squander their free time, as free time makes them dysfunctional, lazy, and unmotivated—the busier they get, the more active they… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share
We learn the most from fools ... yet we pay them back with the worst ingratitude. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share
We are victims of the post-Enlightenment view that the world functions like a sophisticated machine, to be understood like a textbook engineering problem and… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share
“loss of bone density and degradation of the health of the bones also causes aging, diabetes, and, for males, loss of fertility and sexual… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share
“It takes a huge investment in introspection to learn that the thirty or more hours spent “studying” the news last month neither had any… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share
