Nassim Taleb
Formal First Name
Nassim Nicholas (Nassim)
Dates
1960 - present
Nassim Nicholas Taleb has dedicated his life to problems of knowledge, uncertainty, and probability. He spent almost two decades as a businessman and quantitative trader before becoming a full-time philosophical essayist. A well-acclaimed writer, Taleb’s books have been published in thirty-three languages.
Nassim Taleb Professional Experience / Academic History
Professional Experience
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Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering
Academic History
- Nassim Taleb 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.
- He started as a trader, then got a doctorate in mid-trading career; he wrote literary books before writing technical papers, and his work became progressively more technical and formal with time.
- In addition to his trader life, Taleb has also written, as a backup of the Incerto, more than 70 scholarly papers in mathematical statistics, genetics, quantitative finance, statistical physics, philosophy, ethics, economics, and international affairs, around the notion of risk and probability.
- Taleb refuses all honors and anything that "turns knowledge into a spectator sport."