Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life
From the author of The Black Swan comes a characteristically combative argument that cuts to the heart of why so much in modern life feels rigged. Why do experts who talk the most tend to get things so spectacularly wrong? Why do corporations collapse while their architects walk away unscathed? How have we managed to produce more people living in servitude now than in ancient Rome? Taleb's answer is disarmingly direct: the people shaping our world rarely bear any personal cost when things go wrong. Citizens, craftspeople, political activists, and traders in volatile markets all have something at stake. Policy advisers, banking executives, and career theorists, by contrast, operate at a comfortable remove from the consequences of their decisions. Taleb argues, in his typically abrasive and entertaining fashion, that this asymmetry corrupts everything it touches. When there's no personal price attached to being wrong, poor judgements go unpunished and keep recurring. His central principle is almost childishly simple, which is precisely what gives it such force: fairness requires that the people making decisions share in whatever fallout follows. It's a bracing, occasionally infuriating read, and one that's likely to change how you assess the credibility of anyone offering confident opinions, whether in finance, politics, or public life.
- Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Publisher: Penguin
- Genre: Economics
- ISBN: 978-0141982656
- Pages: 304 pages