Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nassim Nicholas Taleb is a statistician and an academic. Born in Lebanon, he first attended a French school in Beirut before getting degrees from the University of Paris. He then got his MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School before returning to the University of Paris for his Ph.D. in Management Science.

Taleb’s career started in the finance world. He worked as a hedge fund manager, options trader, risk analyst, and derivatives trader. Taleb also created an investment strategy to protect against black swans. His statistics and investment knowledge has set him up to be independently wealthy.

Stepping away from an active investment role, Taleb moved into academia. Working at major institutions around the world, including NYU, Oxford, and London Business School. 

Taleb has been controversial in his writings and public positions. He has called for the cancelation of the Nobel Prize in Economics and applauded the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

Black Swan is the second book of Taleb’s group of philosophical works addressing uncertainty. This group is collectively known as Incerto. He has also has several other works in the field of statistics.