Is the pope atheist? Why can a stubborn minority easily end up ruling? Should you take advice from a salesperson? This book is all about why having skin in the game matters. For a society to function properly, those who benefit should also risk something and those who risk something should benefit. 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.

Author Biography

Nassim Nicholas Taleb spent two decades as a risk taker before becoming a full-time essayist and scholar focusing on practical, philosophical, and mathematical problems with chance, luck, and probability. He now spends most of his time in the intense seclusion of his study or as a flaneur meditating in cafes. In addition to his life as a trader, he spent several years as an academic researcher as Distinguished Professor at New York University's School of Engineering and Dean's Professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst.He is the author of the Incerto (Latin for uncertainty), accessible in any order (Antifragile, The Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes and Fooled by Randomness) plus a freely available technical version, Silent Risk. Taleb has also published more than 50 academic and scholarly papers as a backup, technical footnotes to the Incerto in topics ranging from statistical physics to decision science. His books have been translated into thirty-seven languages.