Category Archives: Event

Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs | Famed Author, Nassim Taleb, to Speak at WWS, April 10

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Famed Author, Nassim Taleb, to Speak at WWS, April 10

Best-selling author Nassim Nicholas Taleb will speak at the Woodrow Wilson School on Tuesday, April 10, 2012 at 4:30 p.m., in Dodds Auditorium, Robertson Hall. Taleb’s talk is part of the School’s “Economic Recovery: Perils, Politics and Possibilities” thematic lecture series. A book sale and signing of his New York Times bestseller, “The Black Swan,” along with a public reception will immediately follow the talk in the Shultz dining room.

… The event will archived online for later viewing on the Woodrow Wilson School’s Webmedia site – http://wws.princeton.edu/webmedia.

via Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs | Famed Author, Nassim Taleb, to Speak at WWS, April 10.
HatTip to Dave Lull

L.A. Hedgie To Host Ron Paul Fundraiser | FINalternatives

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I guess that counts me out.

What do you serve a libertarian for dinner? Hedge fund manager Mark Spitznagel has until March 20th to figure it out—that’s when he’ll host a $2,500-per-plate fundraising dinner for U.S. presidential candidate Ron Paul.

Spitznagel, the founder and CIO of Universa Investments, will host the dinner at his Los Angeles home, according to TheWrap.

Paul’s fellow speaker at the event will be Nassim Taleb, author of “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable,” a book which has had a strong influence on Spitznagel’s investment strategies. Spitznagel, known for his value- and derivatives-based stock market investing, made a killing during the 2008 financial crisis, having essentially bet on the crash.

via L.A. Hedgie To Host Ron Paul Fundraiser | FINalternatives.

Non-Sissy Uncertainty: Why I Inflict Nassim “Black Swan” Taleb on My Students | Cross-Check, Scientific American Blog Network

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More follow-up from NNT’s recent Stevens Institute talk.
HatTip to Dave Lull.

Here’s a quote from the prologue of Antifragility, which should give you a sense of Taleb’s substance and style: “This book is about how to domesticate, even dominate, even conquer, the impenetrable, the unseen, the non-understood, the opaque, the perplexing, and the inexplicable. Wind extinguishes a candle and energizes fire. Likewise with randomness: you want to use it, not hide from it. You want to be the fire and wish for the wind. This summarizes my non-sissy attitude toward randomness and uncertainty.” Non-sissy uncertainty? That’s a message I’ll enjoy imparting to my students.

via Non-Sissy Uncertainty: Why I Inflict Nassim “Black Swan” Taleb on My Students | Cross-Check, Scientific American Blog Network.

Nassim Taleb presents the concept of anti-fragility – The Stute – Stevens Institute of Technology

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About a recent NNT talk. I hope there’s audio. HatTip to Dave Lull.

“The Triad” is Taleb’s system to categorize entities as fragile, robust, or anti-fragile. Some basic examples follow: debt would be considered fragile; equity, robust; and venture capital equity, anti-fragile. A nation-state would be considered fragile, while a city-state would be considered anti-fragile. The issue, however, is that it’s a lot easier to identify something as fragile than it is to classify it as anti-fragile. Both fragile and anti-fragile entities experience non-linearities and non-linear responses; however, there are some important distinctions between them, which Taleb highlights in his book.

Taleb discusses fragility and anti-fragility, plus their implications, in the draft of his technical paper “A Map and Simple Heuristic to Detect Fragility, Anti-fragility, and Model Error,” which can be found on his website. For those in the audience who had very little technical understanding of fragility, Taleb provided a simpler, more intuitive explanation of his central ideas. The difference between fragility and anti-fragility and their connection to his previous work, “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable” can be understood using a very good example from the paper.

via Nassim Taleb presents the concept of anti-fragility – The Stute – Stevens Institute of Technology.