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Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder Paperback – 21 August 2013

by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Author)

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Tough times don't last. Tough people do.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the bestselling author of The Black Swan and one of the foremost thinkers of our time, reveals how to thrive in an uncertain world.

Just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension, and rumors or riots intensify when someone tries to repress them, many things in life benefit from stress, disorder, volatility, and turmoil. What Taleb has identified and calls "antifragile" is that category of things that not only gain from chaos but need it in order to survive and flourish.

In The Black Swan, Taleb showed us that highly improbable and unpredictable events underlie almost everything about our world. In Antifragile, Taleb stands uncertainty on its head, making it desirable, even necessary, and proposes that things be built in an antifragile manner. The antifragile is beyond the resilient or robust. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better and better.

Furthermore, the antifragile is immune to prediction errors and protected from adverse events. Why is the city-state better than the nation-state, why is debt bad for you, and why is what we call "efficient" not efficient at all? Why do government responses and social policies protect the strong and hurt the weak? Why should you write your resignation letter before even starting on the job? How did the sinking of the Titanic save lives? The book spans innovation by trial and error, life decisions, politics, urban planning, war, personal finance, economic systems, and medicine. And throughout, in addition to the street wisdom of Fat Tony of Brooklyn, the voices and recipes of ancient wisdom, from Roman, Greek, Semitic, and medieval sources, are loud and clear.

Antifragile is a blueprint for living in a Black Swan world.

Print length

546 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Penguin (General UK)
Publication date

21 August 2013
Dimensions

12.9 x 2.3 x 19.8 cm
ISBN-10

0141038225
ISBN-13

978-0141038223
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Review

Really made me think about how I think -- Mohsin Hamid ― Guardian

The hottest thinker in the world -- Bryan Appleyard ― The Sunday Times

A superhero of the mind -- Boyd Tonkin

Wall Street's principal dissident -- Malcolm Gladwell

A guru for every would-be Damien Hirst, George Soros and aspirant despot -- John Cornwell ― Sunday Times

Nassim Taleb, in his exasperating but compelling book Antifragile, praises "things that gain from disorder" - people, policies and institutions designed to thrive on volatility, instead of shattering in the encounter with it -- Oliver Burkman ― Guardian

More than just robust or flexible, it actively thrives on disruption -- Julian Baggini ― Guardian

Modern life is akin to a chronic stress injury. And the way to combat it is to embrace randomness in all its forms. . . Taleb is the great seer of the modern age ― Guardian

Something antifragile actively thrives under the impact of the unexpected...to embrace randomness rather than trying to control it ― The Sunday Times

Enduring volatility is one thing; what about benefiting from it? That is what Taleb calls 'antifragility' and he thinks that it is the ultimate model to aspire to - for individuals, financial institutions, even nations. . . May well capture a quality that you have long aspired to without having quite known quite what it is. . . I saw the world afresh ― The Times

Taleb takes on everything from the mistakes of modern architecture to the dangers of meddlesome doctors and how overrated formal education is. . . . An ambitious and thought-provoking read . . . highly entertaining ― Economist

This is a bold, entertaining, clever book, richly crammed with insights, stories, fine phrases and intriguing asides. . . . I will have to read it again. And again ― Wall Street Journal

[Taleb] writes as if he were the illegitimate spawn of David Hume and Rev. Bayes, with some DNA mixed in from Norbert Weiner and Laurence Sterne. . . . Taleb is writing original stuff-not only within the management space but for readers of any literature-and . . . you will learn more about more things from this book and be challenged in more ways than by any other book you have read this year. Trust me on this ― Harvard Business Review

What sometimes goes unsaid about Taleb is that he's a very funny writer. Taleb has a finely tuned BS detector, which he wields throughout the book to debunk pervasive yet pernicious ideas. . . . Antifragility isn't just sound economic and political doctrine. It's also the key to a good life ― Fortune

At once thought-provoking and brilliant, this book dares you not to read it ― Los Angeles Times

Book Description

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin (General UK); 1st edition (21 August 2013)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 546 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0141038225
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0141038223
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.9 x 2.3 x 19.8 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 2,255 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 36 in Popular Applied Psychology
- 46 in Business Decision-Making & Problem Solving
- 50 in Business Decision Making

Customer Reviews:
3,675 ratings

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Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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Nassim Nicholas Taleb spent more than two decades as a risk taker before becoming a full-time essayist and scholar focusing on practical, philosophical, and mathematical problems with chance, luck, and probability. His focus in on how different systems handle disorder.

He now spends most of his time in the intense seclusion of his study, or as a flâneur meditating in cafés. In addition to his life as a trader he spent several years as an academic researcher (12 years as Distinguished Professor at New York University's School of Engineering, Dean's Professor at U. Mass Amherst).

He is the author of the Incerto (latin for uncertainty), accessible in any order (Skin in the Game, Antifragile, The Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes, and Fooled by Randomness) plus a technical version, The Technical Incerto (Statistical Consequences of Fat Tails). Taleb has also published close to 55 academic and scholarly papers as a backup, technical footnotes to the Incerto in topics ranging from Statistical Physics and Quantitative Finance to Genetics and International affairs. The Incerto has more than 200 translations in 41 languages.

Taleb believes that prizes, honorary degrees, awards, and ceremonialism debase knowledge by turning it into a spectator sport.

""Imagine someone with the erudition of Pico de la Mirandola, the skepticism of Montaigne, solid mathematical training, a restless globetrotter, polyglot, enjoyer of fine wines, specialist of financial derivatives, irrepressible reader, and irascible to the point of readily slapping a disciple." La Tribune (Paris)

A giant of Mediterranean thought ... Now the hottest thinker in the world", London Times

"The most prophetic voice of all" GQ

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3 star		7%
2 star		3%
1 star		4%

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Top reviews from Australia

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XO5

Every scientist needs to read this

Reviewed in Australia on 23 June 2022

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Every scientist and science student should read this.

Reviewed in Australia on 15 March 2021

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Keeps you engaged, wanting to read more

Helpful

Stuart Morris

but brilliant all the same

Reviewed in Australia on 2 June 2017

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A little dense, but brilliant all the same.

2 people found this helpful

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Nick Yang

Good book

Reviewed in Australia on 11 March 2019

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Item as described.

Helpful

The fooled-by-data effect is accelerating

Reviewed in Australia on 27 August 2018

The author does rail against the anti-intellectualism of the modern world. In particular, he detests the dishonesty of modern academia, which he accuses of preferring theory over practice. And that practice should embrace the inherent variation of the modern world.

My favourite quote is: 'The fooled-by-data effect is accelerating. There is a nasty phenomenon called "Big Data" in which researchers have brought cherry-picking to an industrial level. Modernity provides too many variables (but too little data per variable), and the spurious relationships grow much, much faster than real information, as noise is convex and information is concave.'

This book is definitely confronting. But it is well-written and should be accessible to the general reader.

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

Amazonion

Painful to read

Reviewed in Australia on 3 March 2021

Heaps of gold nuggets throughout the book, accompanied by repetitive self boasting, and endless ineffective historical and philosophical examples. While the author endlessly expresses his distain towards what he calls "soviet- harvard" academia, his egotistical writing proves he's no different: unnecessarily long and abstract words, phrases, sentences instead of straight to the point, 5 year old can understand sort of elaboration. All of the great points in this book can be summarized over 50 pages or so, but no, this book has to be 400+ pages..

3 people found this helpful

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Ed209

I loved Fooled by Randomness and the Black Swan

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 February 2018

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I loved Fooled by Randomness and the Black Swan, but this follow up is disappointing. There's two reasons for this. the first is that Taleb seems to have explained his key thoughts in those earlier books, and there's little new material here. The second is that Taleb suffers from what I would call 'Harry Potter Syndrome', in that as he's become more popular editors seem more reluctant to take a scalpel to his work (actually he repeatedly voices his disdain for editors). The result of this is 500 pages of rambling thoughts, and it's hard to get to the end of it let alone draw any conclusions. I feel bad criticising Taleb as his earlier books made a huge impression on me, but this just isn't up the same standards. Hopefully his publishers will lay down the law next time and insist on a more active editor.

84 people found this helpful

Karl Chama

Like swimming in an ocean of words and contempt

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 August 2019

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I really, really wanted to like this book.

I tried to read it and stick with it - I genuinely did. But Taleb literally was repeating the same thing over and over again to the point I thought that there had been an error in printing. The author's disdain towards other academics and scholars using terms like the "Soviet-Harvard illusion" was quite off-putting and his use of "big-words-for-big-words-sake" really started to chafe.

Honestly, I think that the ideas presented in the book are fantastic and worthy of praise but his tone, hubris and diatribes against others made the book unreadable.

I've put it down and I won't pick it up again. What a shame.

50 people found this helpful

M. Ingham

A MUST read.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 June 2020

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Not a super easy read. But, why should it be? Really. Life is far more complex than most folks would like to admit. Especially our politicians, bosses, leaders etc. A good focus on this book is very rewarding. There is a dreadful truth. Which is probably that most of the time we are kidding ourselves about the control and our resilience we really have. Whether it's over our society, environment, the weather, conflicts and confrontations, physical, political, romantic, etc, etc. Life. Having just come through the first wave of Covid 19. I found it was a perfect example of Taleb's concept. The topic presented in this work is 100% spot on. The response of the public governments and health providers was just as Taleb' anticipates. The progress of Covid 19 through the global community was influenced by all the randomness and unpredictability that Taleb identifies as being massively influential on our everyday lives, yet un-recognised and discounted by most of us. I'm not saying the book is some kind of prophecy. No, the book is a description of the way people cope with, try to cope with, or don't cope with reality and that which cannot be predicted. So, armed with Taleb's thoughts and observations of the way that humans do and don't cope with life, I feel that I now have something that I'm sure most of us want. Yet few of us have. An edge, over everyone else, which is simply, a better idea of how things happen and whats really going on. Also a little sadness that humans have a LONG way to go yet, before enough of us ''Get it'' . To make a worthwhile difference to our societies. Essential reading, if you would like to make the most of your life. Taleb, is not, by the way an un-educated scrawler of self help books. He has devoted a signifcant life time effort to producing three books this being the third, on the topic of 'randomness' and how we cope or don't cope with it. He is also clever enough to have made enough money and a reputation as a serious thinker, that he doesn't have to write books for a living nor have them edited by a publisher in order to attract an audience. If folks don't read his books it's their loss.

8 people found this helpful

Kevin Ramsey

interrupted by "wow I never thought of it like that before"

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 May 2017

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It's hard to know where to stop when talking about this book. Some books are described as life changing, but are not. This one really is. I will never look at any aspect of my life again in quite the same way. I wish I'd read it years ago. I'm now buying it for my (adult) children. It can become a struggle to read at times but if it does, put it down and come back to it. Having said that most of the book is compulsive and humorous reading, interrupted by "wow I never thought of it like that before". I would however recommend reading "The Black Swan" first as I think you might miss the point of this book, at least initially, if you don't.

30 people found this helpful

AK

The author is certainly highly erudite and makes some excellent points but does so in a relatively wayward fashion

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 April 2016

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If you have read any of the previous Taleb books, such as The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable or Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets you are most likely not in for a surprise. The author is certainly highly erudite and makes some excellent points but does so in a relatively blunt and confrontational manner (explaining the number of reviews giving alternatively 1 or 5 stars).

In the current book he discusses the concept of anti-fragility, i.e. a feature of systems that benefit, rather than get harmed by unpredictability. There are lots of good points made and I certainly buy into the concept. We do tend to be fooled by randomness (pun intended) and do tend to discount rare events - much to our detriment.

Where the success of the book will depend on the disposition of the reader much more, is it's typically Taleb style. He is confrontational and that to an extent where quite some readers may be put off. While this does not bother me generally, I find that he actually belabored the point somewhat too much and that the book would definitely benefit from an abridgement to something like 300 pages. While I did not find any part of the book completely replaceable, the point does get a bit too repetitive after a while.

If you want to get much of the content in a less confrontational, and slimmer volume, I recommend you try A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits Of Disorder first. If, however you have enjoyed his previous work, do go for it by all means - he is much the same (perhaps even a tad more extreme) as always and the content is certainly worthwhile.

24 people found this helpful

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