Cafe Arcane

Review

Rating: 7

Taleb makes many excellent cautionary points and overall, I believe that his core message is a valuable and prudent one. He does succumb to temptation in playing a little hard/fast with his “example” and “evidence” in order to make them more consumable to his non-academic audience, but if you can forgive these, you’ll find a lot of value in his Black Swans.

The real shame here is the frequency with which I see this book listed on company and personage reading lists on line. With few exceptions, they hold The Black Swan up as some sort of credential that they are in touch with “modern” and “trendy” ideas, but in all honestly, they don’t seem to really grasp the concept, let along embrace the potential of them. Just a trinket while doing “business as usual”. Sad really, but I guess they’ll get their Black Swans eventually, too.