"[Taleb is] Wall Street's principal dissident. . . . [Fooled By Randomness] is to conventional Wall Street wisdom approximately what Martin Luther's ninety-nine theses were to the Catholic Church."
-Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker
Finally in paperback, the word-of-mouth sensation that will change the way you think about the markets and the world.This book is about luck: more precisely how we perceive luck in our personal and professional experiences.
Set against the backdrop of the most conspicuous forum in which luck is mistaken for skill-the world of business-Fooled by Randomness is an irreverent, iconoclastic, eye-opening, and endlessly entertaining exploration of one of the least understood forces in all of our lives.
If the prescriptions for getting rich that are outlined in books such as The Millionaire Next Door and Rich Dad Poor Dad are successful enough to make the books bestsellers, then one must ask, Why aren't there more millionaires? In Fooled by Randomness, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a professional trader and mathematics professor, examines what randomness means in business and in life and why human beings are so prone to mistake dumb luck for consummate skill. This eccentric and highly personal exploration of the nature of randomness meanders from the court of Croesus and trading rooms in New York and London to Russian roulette, Monte Carlo engines, and the philosophy of Karl Popper. Part of what makes this book so good is Taleb's ability to make seemingly arcane mathematical concepts (at least to this reviewer) entirely relevant in evaluating and understanding everything from the stock market to the success of those millionaires cited in the aforementioned bestsellers. Here's an articulate, wise, and humorous meditation on the nature of success and failure that anyone who wants a little more of the former would do well to consider. Highly recommended. --Harry C. Edwards

Customer Reviews:

Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0

Superb:

Nutshell review - This is an excellent book - well written, insightful, full of lessons for investing (and life) and eye-opening! Certainly if you are an investor, but also if you just want to understand just how large a role randomness plays in your life, then you need to read this book. Entertaining and informative at the same time.
Two other excellent books in the same genre are The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow and, of course, Taleb's later book The Black Swan... more info

Fooled by luckiness:

The author is a trader and writes about trading. The book, however, is not at all a mere how-to book on investing but deals with much broader topics on life in general. You may not learn anything new if you are familiar with probability and statistics; however, the author eloquently illuminates those "random" elements in society in various interesting perspectives, including history, science, philosophy, mathematics, psychology, and so on. The author's illustrious reading habit made this a very... more info

So many lessons taken from this:

I loved the rant and I loved the stories. While sometimes a little bit hard to stay in the flow of it, I think I learned as much of value from this book than anything I read in school. Really drove home some key value lessons about finance and way beyond.
Better lucky than good though best to be both!

Outstanding - An Unputdownable Read:

This (and its sister book 'The Black Swan) completely blew me away. I am a 24 year old finance major, now working as a management consultant, with a real interest in markets and psychology.
The central thesis of the books are tantalisingly simple: the world is so functionally complex (and growing ever more so) that most social phenomena are effectively `random'. Randomness, however, is poorly understood and even more poorly explained by orthodox mathematical modelling which systematically... more info

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