Skin in the Game

The bestselling author of The Black Swan and ‘the hottest thinker in the world’ (Sunday Times) is back with a book challenging many of our long-held beliefs about risk, reward, politics, religion and finance

How can a stubborn minority easily end up ruling? Should you take advice from a salesperson? Is the pope atheist?

More than the foundation of risk management, skin in the game is an astonishingly complex worldview that, as Nassim Nicholas Taleb shows in this provocative book, applies to all aspects of our lives and drives history. In his inimitable style, he draws on everything from Antaeus the Giant to Donald Trump to Seneca to the ethics of disagreement to how to buy a used car, to create a jaw-dropping tapestry for understanding this idea in a brand new way.

Full of philosophical tales and practical stories, Skin in the Game offers a key rule to live by: do not do to others what you don’t want them to do to you, with its practical extension: never take advice from someone who gives advice for a living.