The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

Nassim Taleb approaches his subject matter in The Black Swan through three main lenses: his formative experiences in Lebanon, his professional trajectory as a trader, and his own ideology. As a young person growing up in Lebanon, Taleb was an avid reader, intellectually curious and interested in political discourse. When civil war erupted in Lebanon between Christians and Muslims in 1975, Taleb confronted a Black Swan. Taleb couldn't process how Christians and Muslims, who had maintained peace for hundreds of years, decided to engage in a civil war that would forever alter the history and memory of a nation—this war was Lebanon's Black Swan. Thus, Taleb's connection to the idea of Black Swans is ingrained in deeply personal experiences.

Taleb also refers to his former work as an options trader. He has intricate knowledge of economic systems, including ones in which risks are encouraged and even necessary. For Taleb, Black Swans are not merely poetic, metaphorical images that help us find philosophical meaning. Instead, they are economic disruptors, unlikely and virtually impossible to predict. As an investor and mathematician, Taleb grounds his work in mathematical theories instead of relying solely on imagination.