Fooled by Randomness
"[Taleb is] Wall Street's principal dissident. . . . [Fooled By Randomness] is to conventional Wall Street wisdom approximately what Martin Luther's ninety-nine theses were to the Catholic Church."--Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker Finally in paperback, the word-of-mouth sensation that will change the way you think about the markets and the world. This book is about luck: more precisely how we perceive luck in our personal and professional experiences. Set against the backdrop of the most conspicuous forum in which luck is mistaken for skill--the world of business--Fooled by Randomness is an irreverent, iconoclastic, eye-opening, and endlessly entertaining exploration of one of the least understood forces in all of our lives. — From the Trade Paperback edition.
Themes & atmosphere
Also by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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What you might want to know about Fooled by Randomness
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
A former options trader argues, with stories and stats, that much of what gets called success is just survivors of randomness. The book sharpens the way readers look at performance, hindsight, and risk.
Fooled by Randomness (2001) is the first book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Incerto series, followed by The Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes, Antifragile, and Skin in the Game. The books develop a connected philosophy of risk, uncertainty, and decision-making.
Reading Fooled by Randomness first introduces Taleb's approach to luck, hindsight bias, and risk before the more famous Black Swan extends the framework to rare catastrophic events. Either book works as an entry point, but the Incerto reads naturally in publication order.
Fooled by Randomness was written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, published in 2001 by Random House NY.
Fooled by Randomness is 312 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Fooled by Randomness takes most readers 5 to 7 hours to finish.
Fooled by Randomness is a standalone novel by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, not part of a series.
Fooled by Randomness is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.