“And entrepreneurship is a risky and heroic activity, necessary for growth or even the mere survival of the economy.” — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Being an entrepreneur is an existential, not just a financial thing. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
If you are in banking and lending, surprise outcomes are likely to be negative for you. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“Entrepreneurs are selected to be just doers, not thinkers, and doers do, they don't talk.” — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Bankers, they're not harmed by their mistakes. They benefit when things go right, and the society pays the price. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Bailing out every bank that fails makes the system riskier, not safer. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Never think that lack of variability is stability. Don't confuse lack of volatility with stability, ever. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Janet Yellen at the FED is equivalent to having a biology schoolteacher who has never seen blood perform brain surgery. — 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
The mortgage crisis is a clear instance of consumers who needed protection. There was predatory lending to people who didn't know what… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
The government-sponsored institution Fannie Mae, when I look at its risks, seems to be sitting on a barrel of dynamite, vulnerable to… — 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
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
When an investor focuses on short-term investments, he or she is observing the variability of the portfolio, not the returns - in… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Also, it's good to have more than one profession, in case your own profession goes out of style. A Wall Street trader… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“Yet they believe blindly in the stock market, and in the abilities of their pension plan manager. Why do they do so?… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“Bullish or bearish are terms used by people who do not engage in practicing uncertainty, like the television commentators, or those who… — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
Financial institutions have been merging into a smaller number of very large banks. Almost all banks are interrelated. So the financial ecology… — 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
“To see how transfer of antifragility works, consider two scenarios, in which the market does the same thing on average but following… — 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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
Using, as an excuse, others' failure of common sense is in itself a failure of common sense. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
You know, children philosophize more than adults - and they are critical of adults. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
We learn the most from fools ... yet we pay them back with the worst ingratitude. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb Copy Share Image
