Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Essayist, Belletrist, Researcher

 

Nicholas Nassim Taleb is an essayist, belletrist, & researcher only interested in one single topic, chance (particularly extreme & rare events, the "Black Swans" i.e. outliers); but it falls at the intersection of philosophy/epistemology (skepticism; knowledge about the dynamics of history; inferential claims), philosophy/ethics (stoicism facing random events; theories of nonhedonic happiness), mathematical sciences (probability theory, statistical physics), social science/finance (opacity & decision making under incomplete information), and cognitive science (the mental biases making us "fooled" by randomness). A post-trader, he mainly derives his intuitions from a two-decade long and intense practice of derivatives trading ("nondull" activities with plenty of randomness).