• DOI:10.1198/000313007X220011
• Corpus ID: 120488719

Strong Language on Black Swans

@article{Brown2007StrongLO,
  title={Strong Language on Black Swans},
  author={Aaron Brown},
  journal={The American Statistician},
  year={2007},
  volume={61},
  pages={195 - 197}
}

• Aaron Brown
• Published 1 August 2007
• Education
• The American Statistician

In 2001, Nassim Taleb published a quirky little book entitled Fooled by Randomness: The Role of Chance in the Markets and in Life (Taleb 2001). Taleb was a well-known Wall Street quant. That means he had a Ph.D. in a mathematical field and made a lot of money betting on derivatives, first for major investment banks, then a hedge fund, then his own hedge fund. His first book, Dynamic Hedging (Taleb 1997), had become (and still is) the classic text in that highly specialized field. He was also known for lively and contentious presentations at technical financial conferences. But there was nothing in his resume to suggest he would write a general-interest probability book, if such a thing was even possible. Five years, hundreds of thousands of copies, and translations into 17 languages later, Fooled by Randomness remains near the top of the mathematical sellers on Amazon.com, exceeded only by more topical books that come and go. Its sales are roughly 75 times the number of statistics graduate students in the U.S., 20 times the number of practicing statisticians, and equal to the number of science and engineering graduate students. Many of us embraced its message and incorporated it into our classes and presentations. Those who rejected the book’s message cannot afford to ignore it, due to its strong influence on our students and clients, and the likelihood that it will come up in job interviews.