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Fooled by Randomness
- The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
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Fooled by Randomness
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Summary
Set against the backdrop of the most conspicuous forum in which luck is mistaken for skill, the world of trading, this audiobook is a captivating insight into one of the least understood factors of all our lives. In an entertaining narrative style, the author succeeds in tackling three major intellectual issues: the problem of induction, the survivorship biases, and our genetic unfitness to the modern word. Taleb uses stories and anecdotes to illustrate our overestimation of causality and the heuristics that make us view the world as far more explainable than it actually is.
The audiobook is populated with an array of characters, some of whom have grasped, in their own way, the significance of chance: Yogi Berra, the baseball legend; Karl Popper, the philosopher of knowledge; Solon, the ancient world's wisest man; the modern financier George Soros; and the Greek voyager Ulysses. We also meet the fictional Nero, who seems to understand the role of randomness in his professional life, but who also falls victim to his own superstitious foolishness.
But the most recognizable character remains unnamed, the lucky fool in the right place at the right time - the embodiment of the "Survival of the Least Fit". Such individuals attract devoted followers who believe in their guru's insights and methods. But no one can replicate what is obtained through chance.
It may be impossible to guard against the vagaries of the Goddess Fortuna, but after listening to Fooled by Randomness we can be a little better prepared.
Critic reviews
"An articulate, wise, and humorous meditation on the nature of success and failure that anyone who wants a little more of the former would do well to consider." (Amazon.com)
What listeners say about Fooled by Randomness
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Andy
- 24-06-17
Interesting quick listen
Not a huge amount of takeaways, but interesting story and thoughts on how humans compute chance.
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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
- nat
- 20-04-19
Absolutely must - read
This book is very well written, tapping the most important and relevant issues of logic science. The author addresses the probability issues from many perspectives, starting with reviewing existing philosophy and adding his own interpretation bucked up with multiple examples. It took me a while to listen to this book and I think for this deep analytic thinking one would benefit of printed version. So I definitely recommend!
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
- Johan
- 07-04-13
Opens your eyes to randomness
If you can look past the fact that the author does on occasion come across as a bit full of himself, you'll be rewarded by some enlightening insights that will change the way you see the impact of randomness on the world. This book will help you on your way to distinguishing the signal from the noise and there is more noise than you might have thought.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- J. K. Moon
- 28-02-15
Very good
Met expectations
Will listen again
Essential listening for any human being. It's a shame I'll go back to my old behaviour
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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
- Adebola Egunjobi
- 15-08-18
Best takeaway: l learnt why I never seem to learn.
Some reviewers have called his style arrogant. But I found him to be very self-assured, and anyway doesn't everyone look down on some other unfortunate person who just doesn't seem to "get it"?
Like every other good book I have read, the essential lessons in this one too will be forgotten with time. But one key learning will stay with me -- that despite the best intentions of all involved, including ourselves, we don't really learn from instruction; we only really learn from our own experiences, and those are often very flawed and very expensive.
So just read this one, and anything else you read, for the sheer fun of it.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- J. M. Poulain
- 22-11-21
Interesting thoughts on Randomness in Life
Full of a lot of interesting anecdotes about the way randomness plays its role in life. Unlike books such as Superforecasters which tries to use statistical modelling to predict the future by using historical examples as a class Taleb asks how can we know if things haven't changed. How can you use a baysien model to ask what class something is in if you're not sure if the class has changed or if your base rate has a large enough sample size.
Whilst full of doubt and examples where people are more certain than they ought to be the book doesn't go as far as to show how Taleb himself uses randomness despite him stating a number of times that he still trades and tries to lose little and often but win big on rare events (termed black swans)
The Audio contains odd, and as far as I can tell, random (I appreciate the irony) pauses at the end of chapters that keeps making me wonder if my app has crashed or not.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 15-11-20
Excellent but the hype is a bit much.
Such a massively acclaimed book, and it is very good, but I suppose it didn't quite meet its potentially unmeetable expectations.
Nevertheless, there is a core set of important learnings gained from going through the book.
Very unique style. Feels disjointed and random until something suddenly clicks. Nice change of pace.
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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
- The Supper Journal
- 05-11-19
Brilliant!
This is definitely the best book I’ve read/listen this year. The recording has many jumps, blank gaps and issues though. So I had to buy the hard copy version to read along, which turned to be a good decision.
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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
- Mr. H.
- 06-07-20
An interesting take on randomness
An interesting take by the author on randomness and written in a way that simulates thinking and reflection on how randomness surrounds us and how we react and respond to it. very enjoyable.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Ritam
- 09-09-18
outstanding!
outstanding book. great narration. loved each idea. the book is an eye opener for everyone.
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1 person found this helpful