Summary: Taleb's works focuses on mathematical, philosophical, and practical problems with risk and probability, as well as on the properties of systems that can handle disorder. He spent 21 years as a derivatives trader and, after closing 650,000 option transactions and examining 200,000 risk reports, he changed careers in 2006-2010 to become a scholar, mathematical researcher and philosophical essayist.
Fields: Probability/Risk/Fragility.
What to do under incomplete understanding ("opacity"), epistemology of probability, mathematical expressions of model errors and metaprobability, decision making under ancient heuristics & Mediterranean systems of ethics.
BOOKS (>230 editions, 49 languages)
INCERTO, A Philosophical Essay on Uncertainty (no sequence).
Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life, Random House & Penguin (2018)
Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder, Random House & Penguin (2012)
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, Random House & Penguin (2007-2010 2nd. Ed.), Force et fragilité, reflexions philosophiques et empiriques. Paris: Les Belles Lettres(2010) -adapted from the postscript to the 2nd ed. of The Black Swan
The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms, Random House & Penguin (2010,2017 2nd Ed.)
Fooled by Randomness, Random House & Penguin (2001-2005 2nd Ed.)
TECHNICAL INCERTO, Mathematical expression of the ideas of the Incerto with demonstrations, proofs, and derivations. [ELECTRONIC VERSIONS FREELY AVAILABLE]
Vol 1: Statistical Consequences of Fat Tails: Real World Preasymptotics, Epistemology, and Applications STEM Academic Press (2020)
Vol 2: Fragility, Risk, and Convexity (TK)
Other Technical and Nonliterary Books:
Dynamic Hedging: Managing Vanilla and Exotic Options, J. Wiley (1997)
TECHNICAL AND SPECIALIZED ARTICLES [FIELD] (Note that all academic publications must be backups to points made philosophically in the Incerto --or related applications)
2023 N N Taleb, R Richman, M Carreira, J. Sharpe, The Probability
Conflation: A Reply to Tetlock , International Journal of
Forecasting [PROBABILITY, RISK]
2023 N N Taleb, J West, Working With Convex Responses:
Antifragility From Finance to Oncology, Entropy, [MEDICINE]
2022 N N Taleb, Foreword for Tom Holland's Dominion [THEOLOGY
(sic)]
2022 R Lagnado, N N Taleb, Pension Funds and Correlation Journal
of Alternative Investments [FINANCE]
2022 N N Taleb, D Platt, P Zalloua, TK [GENETICS,
MATHEMATICS]
2021 P. Kollypara, A. F. Siegenfeld, N. N. Taleb, Y. Bar Yam, Unmasking the mask studies: why the effectiveness of surgical masks has been underestimated. Journal of Travel Medicine [MEDICINE]
2021 C. Sandis, N N Taleb, Philosopher's
Magazine [PHILOSOPHY, ETHICS]
2021 N N Taleb, Bitcoin, Currencies, and
Fragility, Quantitative Finance [Economics,
Risk Management]
2021 N N Taleb, Y Bar-Yam P Cirillo, On Single Point Forecasts for Fat-Tailed Variables, International Journal of Forecasting [PROBABILITY, RISK]
2021 A.F.
Siegenfeld, N. N. Taleb, Y. Bar-Yam (2020), What models can and
cannot tell us about COVID-19, Proceedings
of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) [ RISK,
MODELS]
2020 P Cirillo, N N Taleb, Tail risk of
Contagious Diseases, Nature Physics
[STATISTICS, RISK MANAGEMENT]
2021 N N Taleb, D Platt, P Zalloua, European
Journal of Genetics [GENETICS]
2020 N N Taleb, Transaction costs: much smaller than we
thought, Wilmott [MATHEMATICS,
FINANCE]
2020 N N Taleb, in Extremes, Cambridge University Press
2020 N N Taleb, On the mathematical difference between binary bets and real world payoffs, International Journal of Forecasting [MATHEMATICAL STATISTICS, BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS]
2019 N N Taleb, Option pricing under power laws: a robust heuristic [MATHEMATICAL FINANCE]
2019 N N Taleb, All roads lead to quantitative finance, Quantitative Finance [PROBABILITY, MATHEMATICAL FINANCE]
2019 N N Taleb, M5 Competition, International Journal of Forecasting [MATHEMATICAL STATISTICS]
2019 N N Taleb, Medicine and Risk Transfer, Foresight [MEDICINE, RISK]
2018 N N Taleb, How much data do you need? An operational (presasymptotic) metric for FatTailedness, International Journal of Forecasting [MATHEMATICAL STATISTICS, PROBLEM OF INDUCTION]
2018 N.N. Taleb and P. Cirillo, "On the shadow moments of apparently infinite-mean phenomena" Proceedings ICCS 2018, Springer [STATISTICAL METHODOLOGY, EXTREME DEVIATIONS]
2018 N N Taleb, The Logic and Statistics of Extremes, f. in The Darwin College Lectures, Cambridge University Press [MATHEMATICAL STATISTICS]
2018 N N Taleb, Election Predictions as Martingales: An Arbitrage Approach, Quantitative Finance [MATHEMATICAL STATISTICS]
2018 Fontanari, A., Taleb, N. N., & Cirillo, P. Gini estimation under infinite variance, Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and Applications. [MATHEMATICAL STATISTICS]
2018 N N Taleb, "(Anti)fragility and convex responses in Medicine" Proceedings ICCS 2018, Springer [MATHEMATICS, MEDICINE]
2017 Cirillo, P. and N N Taleb, "The Decline of Violent Conflicts: What Do The Data Really Say?" f. Publications of the Nobel Foundation, Proceedings of the Nobel Symposium [STATISTICS, POL SCIENCE]
2018 N N Taleb, E Canetti et al, in A Guide to IMF Stress Testing II: Principles, Concepts and Frameworks, International Monetary Fund [RISK]
2017 N N Taleb, "Fragility and Environment", in Proceedings of 12th Royal Colloqium, Swedish Academy of Sciences [RISK, ENVIRONMENT]
2016 Cirillo, P. and N N Taleb, "On the tail risk of violent conflict and its underestimation" Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and Applications [STATISTICS, EXTREME DEVIATIONS]
2016 Cirillo, P. and N N Taleb, "Expected Shortfall Estimation for Apparently Infinite-Mean Models of Operational Risk", Quantitative Finance [RISK, EXTREME DEVIATIONS]
2015 Taleb, N.N, Model error and dimensionality discussion paper [PROBABILITY]
2015 Taleb, N.N., and Raphael Douady, "On the Super-Additivity and Estimation Biases of Quantile Contributions", Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and Applications [STATISTICS, PROBABILITY]
2015 Geman, Don, Hélyette Geman, and N.N. Taleb,"Tail Risk Constraints and Maximum Entropy", Entropy [PROBABILITY, RISK]
2015 Taleb, N.N. and Sandis (f. 2014), in Oxford University Press Handbook on Professional Economic Ethics: Views from the Economics Profession and Beyond, George DeMartino and Deirdre McCloskey, Editors [PHILOSOPHY/ETHICS]
2015 Taleb, N.N., "Biases and errors of the Gini Coefficient for Fat Tailed Variables", [MATHEMATICS, WEALTH DISTRIBUTION]
2015 Milanovic, B., and Taleb, N.N., "How the superrich may be indifferent to income growth in their countries" not yet submitted discussion paper [ECONOMICS, WEALTH DISTRIBUTION]
2015 Taleb, N.N., "Unique Option Pricing Measure with Neither Dynamic Hedging nor Complete Markets", European Financial Management [(MATHEMATICAL) FINANCE, DERIVATIVES THEORY]
2015 Sandis C. and N.N. Taleb, (eds.) J Boaks & .M. Levine, Leadership and Ethics ( Bloomsbury, 2015)[PHILOSOPHY, ETHICS]
2015 Norman, J., Bar-Yam, Y., Taleb, N.N. , Issues in Science and Technology [RISK, ECOLOGY]
2014 Taleb, N.N., Read, R., Douady, R, Norman, J., Bar-Yam, Y., The Precautionary Principle [RISK, ECOLOGY] under revision
2014 Taleb, N.N. and Greg Treverton, The Calm Before the Storm: Why Volatility Signals Stability and Vice Versa, Foreign Affairs [INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS]
2014 Taleb, N. N., in Tapiero, Bensoussan and Guégan, Future Perspectives in Risk Models and Finance, Springer [RISK]
2014 Sandis C. and N.N. Taleb, The silver rule for acting under uncertainty, The Philosophers' Magazine [PHILOSOPHY, ETHICS]
2014 Taleb, N.N. and Rupert Read, Religion, Heuristics, and Intergenerational Risk Management, Econ Journal Watch [RISK, PHILOSOPHY]
2014 Taleb, N.N., and Gregory F. Treverton, Markers of Country Fragility: a methodology to detect the fragility of a political unit, RAND National Security Research Division PR-1154-USG March 2014 [RISK, SECURITY, POLITICAL SCIENCE]
2014 Taleb, N.N., Elements of Quantitative Finance: Four Points Beginner Risk Managers Should Learn from Jeff Holman's Mistakes, Quantitative Finance [QUANT FINANCE]
2014 Taleb, N.N., and Tetlock, P., On the Difference between Binary Prediction and True Exposure With Implications For Forecasting Tournaments and Decision Making Research [DECISION THEORY]
2014 Taleb, N. N. , and C. Sandis, "The Skin In The Game Heuristic for Protection Against Tail Events", Review of Behavioral Economics (Inaugural Issue)[ETHICS/PROBABILITY/RISK MANAGEMENT]
2013 Taleb, N.N. , 2013, "No, Small Probabilities are not "Attractive to Sell", Financial Analysts Journal [RISK MANAGEMENT]
2013 Taleb, N.N. and Douady, R.,2013, Mathematical Definition and Mapping of (Anti)Fragility, Quantitative Finance, [RISK MANAGEMENT]
2012 Taleb, N.N., Elie Canetti, Elena Loukoianova, Tidiane Kinda, and Christian Schmieder (2012) A New Heuristic Measure of Fragility and Tail Risks: Application to Stress Testing , IMF [ECONOMICS, RISK]
2012 Taleb, N.N., and Martin, G. (f. ), "On Some Consequences of the Spurious Tail", [still] under revision, Journal of Alternative Investments [FINANCE]
2012 Taleb, N.N. and Martin, G. ( 2012), How to Avoid Another Crisis, f. SIAS Review of International Affairs [POLITICAL SCIENCE/PUBLIC POLICY]
2012 Taleb, N.N. and Martin, G. ,The Illusion of Thin Tails Under Aggregation, Journal of Investment Management [STATISTICS/FINANCE]
2012 Taleb, N.N. and Martin, G., Internationella Studier, Utrikespolitiska Institutet/The Swedish Institute of International Affairs [POLITICAL SCIENCE/PUBLIC POLICY]
2012 Taleb, N.N., The Future Has Thicker Tails than the Past: Model Error as Branching Counterfactuals, B. Mandelbrot Memorial [PHILOSOPHY/STATISTICS]
2012 Taleb, N.N., and Goldstein, D. (2012),The Problem is Beyond Psychology: The Real World is More Random than Regression Analyses, International Journal of Forecasting [DECISION THEORY]
2011 Taleb, N.N., and Blyth, M. , The Black Swan of Cairo, Foreign Affairs, 90,3 [POLITICAL SCIENCE]
2011 Douady, R. and Taleb, N. N., Statistical Undecidability, never submitted [MATHEMATICS]
2011 Taleb, N.N. Why Did the Crisis of 2008 Happen?, invited [then withdrawn by author, New Political Economy] [Also presented to The Obama Commission] [POLITICAL SCIENCE]
2010 Taleb, N. and Tapiero, C. The Risk Externalities
of Too Big to Fail, Physica A: Statistical Physics and
Applications
2010 Haug, E. G. and Taleb, N. N. Option Traders use Heuristics, Never the Formula known as Black-Scholes-Merton Equation, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organizations [ECONOMICS]
2010 Taleb, N. N. (2010) Common Errors in the Interpretation of the Ideas of The Black Swan and Associated Papers, Critical Review, Vol 21, No 4 [withdrawn by author during editing] [POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY]
2010 Mandelbrot, B. and Taleb, N. N. “Random Jump, not Random Walk", in The Known, the Unknown, and the Unknowable, Richard Herring Ed., Princeton University Press [STATISTICS, EPISTEMOLOGY OF PROBABILITY]
2010 “Beliefs, Decisions, and Probability” , Blackwell Companion to the Philosophy of Action (with Avital Pilpel) [PHILOSOPHY]
2009 Taleb, N. N. Errors, Robustness, and the Fourth Quadrant, International Journal of Forecasting, 25 [DECISION THEORY/MATHEMATICAL STATISTICS]
Taleb, N. N., Goldstein, D. G., and Spitznagel, M. "The Six Mistakes Executives Make in Risk Management", Harvard Business Review , October [RISK, MANAGEMENT]
2009 Makridakis, S. and Taleb, N., "Decision making and planning under low levels of predictability", International Journal of Forecasting, 25 [DECISION THEORY/STATISTICS]
2008 Taleb, N. N. (2008) Infinite Variance and the Problems of Practice, Complexity, 14(2). [MATHEMATICAL FINANCE]
2007 Goldstein, D. G. and Taleb, N. N. (2007) We Don't Quite Know What We Are Talking About When We Talk About Volatility, Journal of Portfolio Management, Summer 2007.[FINANCE]
2007 Taleb, N. N. "Black Swan and Domains of Statistics", The American Statistician, August 2007, Vol. 61, No. 3 [STATISTICS]
2007 Taleb, N. N. and Pilpel, A. Epistemology and Risk Management, Risk and Regulation, 13, Summer 2007 [RISK/PHILOSOPHY]
2005 Derman, E. and Taleb, N. N. The Illusion of Dynamic Replication, Quantitative Finance, vol. 5, 4 [MATHEMATICAL FINANCE]
2005 Taleb, N.N. I problemi epistemologici del risk management in: Daniele Pace (a cura di) Economia del rischio. Antologia di scritti su rischio e decisione economica, Giuffrè, Milano [RISK/PHILOSOPHY]
2004 Taleb, N. N. “Bleed or Blowup: What Does Empirical Psychology Tell Us About the Preference For Negative Skewness? ”, Journal of Behavioral Finance, 5[ FINANCE]
2004 Taleb, N.N. “Randomness and the Arts”, Literary Criticism/Critique Littéraire [COMPARATIVE LITERATURE]
“The Risk of Severe Infrequent Events” (with George Martin), The Banker, Sept 2007 [FINANCE]
"Fat Tails, Asymmetric Knowledge, and Decision Making, Essay in the Epistemology of Power Laws", Wilmott, 2005 [MATH FINANCE]
Foreword, Lectures on Stochastic Volatility, J. G. Gatheral (Wiley, 2006) [MATH FINANCE]
“These Extreme Exceptions of Commodity Derivatives”, in Commodity Derivatives, Helyette Geman (Wiley, 2004) [ FINANCE]
MAIN New York University Tandon School of Engineering, Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering, (since 2008).
PAST ACADEMIC POSITIONS (All part time, mostly when I was a practitioner): Oxford University, Distinguished Research Scholar, Said Business School BT Center, (2009-2013). London Business School, London, Visiting Research Professor (2007-2009); University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Isenberg School of Management, Dean’s Professor (2005-2007); Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University, Fellow of the Mathematics in Finance Program, and Adjunct Professor (1999-2007).
Education: University of Paris (Dauphine), PhD (Hélyette Geman, committee includes Dilip Madan, Nicole El Karoui, Michel Lasry, and Marco Avellaneda). The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, MBA.
Scientific advisor, International Monetary Fund (risk of tail events); Faculty, Davos World Economic Forum 2009; Faculty, Harvard School of Social Science, 2010, Hard Problems in Social Science; Advised central banks; Currently member various commissions; Member of the United States Secretary of Defense Highland Cross Disciplinary Panel; the King of Sweden scientific committee on global warming, etc.
STOPPED ACCEPTING AWARDS, HONORARY DOCTORATES, LISTINGS, ETC.
Keynotes and main lectures, includes (discipline in parenthesis): Lectio Magistralis Genoa Science Festival, BT Lecture, Oxford University; Goldstone Lecture, U. of Pa, others: LSE (philosophy, economics), MIT Sloan (finance), Stanford (mathematical statistics), Cambridge Union debate, Harvard (social science), Institute of Advanced Studies (mathematical finance) U. of Pa (medicine), Princeton U. (psychology, philosophy), Institut Jan Nicod (philosophy), LBS (economics, philosophy), Max Planck Institute (cognitive science, statistics), Columbia (engineering, mathematics, finance), U. of Chicago (fin. mathematics), Department of Defense (military risk), Bank of England, IMF, World Bank, IFC, Society of Judgment & Decision Making keynote, etc.
BNP-Paribas, Chicago Mercantile Exchange (independent trader), UBS, Credit-Suisse First Boston, Bankers Trust, CIBC, Banque Indosuez, Empirica Capital LLC- tail hedging program (founder, 1999-2005), Universa Investments (scientific advisor, since 2007, totally passive involvement since Jan 2010).
United States Congress, testimonies: subcommittee(value at risk), September 2009; subcommittee (risk management) July 2011. Admitted as an expert in the fields of risk management and derivatives by the United Stated Court of Federal Claims, Judge Mary Ellen Coster Williams, September 17, 2008.
PERSONAL
Hobbies: philology (ancient languages), recreational mathematics.
Languages: French, English, Levantine, Conversational: Spanish, Italian, Greek, Reading: Ancient Greek, Classical Arabic, Latin, Aramaic/Syriac, Hebrew.
Nationalities: U.S., Lebanese (Greek-Orthodox Antiochian Greek ethnoreligious group).