🔒 Boardroom Talk – The wisdom of Nassim Taleb; words that someone should turn into a poster

By Alec Hogg

A good friend gave me a copy of Nassim Taleb’s book Anti-Fragile – one of the few of his that I’ve not yet read. It’s been elevated to the top of my rather lengthy to-read list. Taleb is a masterful philosopher on our modern financial system. His gift is to make the rest of us think – often very differently.

I’ve had the privilege of spending quality time with Taleb a few times since attending a half-day workshop ahead of a hedge fund conference in Nice a decade and a half back. Those few hours transformed the way I see the world. A process accelerated by reading and re-reading his first book, Fooled By Randomness.  

___STEADY_PAYWALL___

A self-proclaimed “economic activist”, it says much about the Lebanese-born American’s popularity, that apart from our re-acquaintance at a Discovery Leadership Conference in Sandton, the other times we met were in exotic locations – Monaco and Davos; me as a reporter, he as one of the star attractions.  

Nassim has an active Twitter account (@nntaleb) whose featured pic is an owl (what else?). It is responsible for this inspirational advice:

Never threaten when angry
Never promise when joyful
Never plan when gloomy
Never reply when tired
Never buy when euphoric

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— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) July 1, 2023

Someone needs to turn that into a poster.