Taleb’s new book is a study of survival of the fittest in the jungle of the 21st century. Although it is not explicitly a guide to portfolio management, many of the author’s tales offer metaphoric lessons for hedge fund managers and investors. There might be cold comfort, for example, in Taleb’s view that if the Titanic had not sunk, we would have kept building larger and larger ocean liners and the next disaster would have been even more tragic. After all, hedge funds hit icebergs too. In Taleb’s view, good errors are those that help either financial or shipbuilding engineers create stronger (i.e. antifragile) systems; bad errors — banks getting overleveraged, for example — produce contagion.
Nassim Taleb Channels Charles Darwin | Institutional Investor’s Alpha.
The question, not asked, is did Charles Darwin ever see a Black Swan? “rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cygno” (“a rare bird in the lands, very much like a black swan”).