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Skin in the Game
- Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life
- Narrated by: Joe Ochman
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
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Skin in the Game
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Summary
Number-one New York Times best seller
A bold work from the author of The Black Swan that challenges many of our long-held beliefs about risk and reward, politics and religion, finance and personal responsibility.
In his most provocative and practical book yet, one of the foremost thinkers of our time redefines what it means to understand the world, succeed in a profession, contribute to a fair and just society, detect nonsense, and influence others. Citing examples ranging from Hammurabi to Seneca, Antaeus the Giant to Donald Trump, Nassim Nicholas Taleb shows how the willingness to accept one's own risks is an essential attribute of heroes, saints, and flourishing people in all walks of life.
As always both accessible and iconoclastic, Taleb challenges long-held beliefs about the values of those who spearhead military interventions, make financial investments, and propagate religious faiths. Among his insights:
- For social justice, focus on symmetry and risk sharing. You cannot make profits and transfer the risks to others, as bankers and large corporations do. You cannot get rich without owning your own risk and paying for your own losses. Forcing skin in the game corrects this asymmetry better than thousands of laws and regulations.
- Ethical rules aren't universal. You're part of a group larger than you, but it's still smaller than humanity in general.
- Minorities, not majorities, run the world. The world is not run by consensus but by stubborn minorities asymmetrically imposing their tastes and ethics on others.
- You can be an intellectual yet still be an idiot. "Educated philistines" have been wrong on everything from Stalinism to Iraq to low carb diets.
- Beware of complicated solutions (that someone was paid to find). A simple barbell can build muscle better than expensive new machines.
- True religion is commitment, not just faith. How much you believe in something is manifested only by what you’re willing to risk for it.
The phrase "skin in the game" is one we have often heard but have rarely stopped to truly dissect. It is the backbone of risk management, but it's also an astonishingly rich worldview that, as Taleb shows in this book, applies to all aspects of our lives. As Taleb says, "The symmetry of skin in the game is a simple rule that's necessary for fairness and justice and the ultimate BS-buster," and "Never trust anyone who doesn't have skin in the game. Without it, fools and crooks will benefit, and their mistakes will never come back to haunt them."
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What listeners say about Skin in the Game
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 27-05-18
Diminishing returns
Skin in the Game is an enjoyable collection of anecdotes, observations and angry diatribes. It is also much inferior to the previous three volumes in the "Incerto" series. Taleb is still scratching the same itch and seeking after the same high. But he has run out of things to say.
His message remains important, but please go read Antifragile, Black Swan or Fooled by Randomness instead. They will give you everything you need. This aimless volume, which merely introduces a few new terms to explore again many of his familiar topics, can only be recommended to devoted Taleb fans.
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15 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Tim
- 05-03-18
Another great work by Teleb
If you've read anything else by Teleb, you won't be disappointed with Skin in the Game. Another thoughtful rant covering many fields and subjects. If you haven't read anything by him before... I would suggest reading fooled by randomness first, but that's just personal preference, his books can be read in any order. I can't recommend them highly enough. They prove what the majority of people believe about risk, probability and indeed life, is wrong.
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10 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- John Coleman
- 27-05-23
I listened to twice, to make sure I understood it
Taleb's "Skin in the Game" is a book I listened to twice to make sure I understood it. A lot of what's in the book made sense if I had to ignore some strong opinions. A book that talks about science is full of opinions. But I liked it. But it's not as strong as Taleb's previous books. That said, Taleb, even on half-power, leaves most other authors in the dust.
Key lessons:
Aim for errors that don't cost too much - innovation and invention happens by accident
Observe what people do, not what they say
Never discount anything that allows you to survive or avoid ruin; anything that hinders that is irrational. Consider the survival of populations with dominant beliefs.
Beware of scientism vs. science
Beliefs map to action, risk-taking, and having something at stake, "skin in the game"
Consider how much you bleed vs. how much you're willing to risk for it
Beware of asymmetry.
Bet when in profit and not when in distress.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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- Richard Denton
- 14-05-18
excellent
a necessary education for so many in modern times. Taleb shows the sharp trader's wit and a tonne of insight. get it read!
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 12-09-19
heading required when it says optional
a bit short but great. black swan was better. similar types of books, but this one made fun of the insiders. very funny take.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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- Victor G.
- 26-02-23
great, but could be better in paper than in audio
good food for thought. However it requires time to absorb the ideas, which is not sometimes the case in an audiobook
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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- Pepe
- 11-05-18
Interesting reading, take it with a grain of salt
Although the author is definetely an intelligent person and the main point of the book is worth understanding, some of the examples -particularly that against Richard Dawkins- have important flaws or are too extreme to be taken without more evidence. This is basically a book about opinions, with no science behind it. Nonetheless, it does have some common sense points that are worth being conscious about.
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7 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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- maxm007
- 28-03-18
It’s complicated.
Taleb presents a problem for me. On the one hand he appeals to my libertarian inclination within the Liberal spectrum and find myself agreeing with him on many of his points. On the other hand there is Twitter/Facebook Taleb where he partakes in trollish discourse I just am not used to from people I look up to.
Reading this book you get a bit of both Talebs but Twitter Taleb is more palatable in book form for some reason. Social media just isn’t a good form of communications missing queues and humour. I get the feeling i probably would quite like him in person.
This is a good book regardless of his idiosyncratic public persona. Yes this isn’t groundbreaking to statisticians but it is to people like me, in particular in the personal way he presents the concepts. I don’t agree with all his political policy conclusions he derived from all of this, but I understand better where he is coming from.
One thing that irks me a little is that he berates people for criticising his stuff not based on the meaning , but on out of context bits and even sometimes straw men. However he doesn’t always extend the same courtesy to others.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Luis Campos
- 22-01-20
Nassim Taleb did it again
I love this book so much that I bought in on Kindle and Audible only to find out that the two actually work together to provide an amazing reading and listening experience.
Content wise I could not love this more.
In a world full of BS and easily offended narrow minded people, STIG is actually a refreshing way to realise I'm not crazy. Last page of the book is the perfect way to summarise it, but you'll have to read/listen it all!
Narration was very good, but maybe Glossary should come first in the audio book. Or on both ends of the book 😉
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Karl Deeter
- 07-05-18
Mesmerising book
If you are confounded by the world this book is a tonic of sense, it puts perspective into the why and how of many things.
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