Fooled by his own sense of importance - Rated 
'Fooled by Randomness' is clearly a text which provokes different responses in different people. This was of particular appeal to me when purchasing the book as I think that any text which has landed 5 star glittering reviews whilst also being branded with 1star "stay away" warnings is worth a look.
Having finished the book I can certainly identify with this split reaction. You can't help but acknowledge some of Taleb's ideas as being extremely relevant to many aspects of life and particularly, the over hyped status attributed to much of the banking world. His opinion that much of a trader's financial performance is due to market noise and randomness rather than his/her speculative skill will, I'm sure, strike a particularly welcome tone to many of us who are feeling the effects of the current financial meltdown. It's surely about time that bankers get over their egos and face up to the responsibility of their risk taking decision processes.
Having said this, Taleb's writing style is incredibly narcissistic. He is clearly very pleased with himself for assimilating a host of ideas which predominantly stem from mathematical, philosophical and psychological literature and applying them to an economic framework. This, in my opinion, is where he starts to go wrong. His book is incredibly anecdotal and has a habit of touching on a topic for a few paragraphs and then moving on (often saying that he will return to something later in the book). This flighty approach means that he never really gives you a sense of closure on any of the ideas he is talking about. He boasts an impressive reading list at the end of the book which he pretentiously rams into many of the chapters, for instance, often quoting the results of empirical psychological findings. However, his book is anything but empirical. It is speculative and subjective and if anything, Taleb comes across as being more of a glorified gossip than an intellectual thinker.
For example, p224 he introduces the concept of Wittgenstein's ruler and applies it to how he deals with receiving criticism regarding his book: "Unless you have confidence in the ruler's reliability, if you use a ruler to measure a table you may also be using the table to measure the ruler....The point carries practical implications: The information from anonymous reader on Amazon.com is going to be all about the person, whilst that of a qualified person, is going to be all about the book."
I think that this statement truly reveals Taleb's inconsistency as, in my opinion, this statement is merely an extension of the very principles which he has used in this book. Surely he is fooling himself by refusing to acknowledge the credibility of an anonymous Amazon.com reviewer's opinion who may not, in his eyes, have the relevant professional qualifications. In my opinion, this shows a lack of rational thought and an inability to see through his pompous image. Forgoing this, if I were to apply this same level of discriminatory analysis to him using Wittgenstein's ruler, I would say that this book reveals more about him than any of the concepts he discusses. Most of the literature he has assimilated has been around for years and exists, in the most part, in a far more empirical form than the way he portrays it. One could argue he over attributes importance to himself and his profession by borrowing psychological concepts to promote the ideas like "behavioural economics". This is clearly a logical cross disciplinary connection but, when combined with his arrogance, it makes you feel like he is suggesting that the psychological principles in question have only gained importance once they have been fitted to their economic framework.
I can't help but think that Taleb is a bit contradictory when it comes to the alignment of his message and that of his writing style. All in all, a bit of a confused book but worth reading to get your head around the arguments he puts forward. Definitely not a ground breaking text. This is a clear illustration of the exaggerated egos which exist within the banking world. Taleb clearly loves himself.
Mathematically illiterate claptrap - Rated 
This review covers both "The Black Swan" (TBS) and it's predecessor work "Fooled by Randomness" (FBR).
An old joke speaks of a book entitled "How to Be Taller" published in two volumes, one for each foot. IMO the only way that TBS and FBR will enlighten people is by allowing them to see farther if they stand on them.
If you are going to write books about randomness and rare events, then it helps to know what you are talking about. Unfortunately Taleb appears not to have taken so rudimentary a precaution. Random processes have inherent non-determinism. Non-linear processes do not but they do exhibit chaotic behaviour that is mistakenly regarded as random.
Taleb fails to make an essential distinction between chaotic and random systems. (See for example page 142 of TBS where he states, "... There is no effective difference between my guessing a variable that is not random but for which my information is partial or deficient ... and predicting a random one ...") This is true *only* if the guessing itself is random. Otherwise one may readily design experiments that can distinguish between non-linear and truly random systems. Needless to say, the inferences that he makes from his mistaken premise are flamboyantly unsound.
In his examples what Taleb calls random behaviour is often the behaviour of deterministic but non-linear systems. Such systems have the property that small changes in initial conditions may produce large differences in trajectories through the phase space. This is true even when the changes are less than the error inherent in measuring the relevant quantities. Such a system can take markedly *different trajectories from distinct initial states that are indistinguishable by measurement*. Hence there is often negligible correlation between measured initial states and observed trajectory - but such lack of correlation *does not* imply that the underlying process is random.
Statistical methods are fine for truly random processes but non-linear processes do not generally satisfy the conditions under which statistical methods can be validly applied. The quantitative financial analysts that Taleb describes as being "fooled by randomness" are in fact merely incompetent users of inappropriate mathematical modelling techniques.
On the evidence of his writing, and despite his oft-cited "voracious reading", I regard Taleb as mathematically illiterate. the criticism that he makes of others apply just as well, IMO, to himself.
Drivel - Rated
A truly, truly awful book. I have never written any review before but I have to warn people how bad this really is. The whole book is drivel of the highest order. Writing style is awful. There is no point to anything he says, just complete drivel. Completely un-readable nonsense.
shake up your thinking! - Rated 
This book is a challenge by a mathematical rebel to get you to re-examine the assumptions buried under your perception of the world. It especially gets you thinking about the way you construct order, purpose and the efficacy of individual choice and competency in relation to the money markets. The evolution of our psychology makes us see patterns and order in a world ruled more by chance than we imagine.
The writer shakes up your perceptions by his style as much as by his message. This makes it both exciting and challenging as a read. Living by the message is even more of a challenge!
Very mixed views - Rated 
This book is a book of contrasts. I find myself agreeing with many of the views both positive and negative of the other reviewers of this book.
On the plus side, the book's main argument is very interesting and is fairly compelling. The essential idea is that the role of randomness in events, especially in financial endeavours is largely random and has very little if anything to do with skill. The effect of this idea is far reaching, and affects many areas not the least of which is executive pay; if the fortune of companies is due in large part to luck (rather than the CEO's skills) then how can their pay levels be justified. Likewise with stockbrokers etc.
On the minus side the writing style is very difficult. I don't mean the vocabularly and grammar but rather the strcuture of the book. Often at the end of a chapter the reader is left struggling to remember how (apart from in a very indirect sense) a chapter relates to the central argument and why it has been placed at that point in the book. The whole book is largely unstructured and hard to remember in any detail reading more like a series of unconnected anecdotes.
This is a great pity as the author is clearly onto something here and were it not for the above problem I would add it as a lifechanging book. Maybe Mr Taleb will write us a new, shorter, conciser and consequently much more persuasive book!
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