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Skin in the Game
- Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life
- Narrated by: Joe Ochman
- Series: Incerto
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Categories: Business & Careers, Management & Leadership
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Summary
Number-one New York Times best seller
A bold work from the author of The Black Swan that challenges many of our long-held beliefs about risk and reward, politics and religion, finance and personal responsibility.
In his most provocative and practical book yet, one of the foremost thinkers of our time redefines what it means to understand the world, succeed in a profession, contribute to a fair and just society, detect nonsense, and influence others. Citing examples ranging from Hammurabi to Seneca, Antaeus the Giant to Donald Trump, Nassim Nicholas Taleb shows how the willingness to accept one's own risks is an essential attribute of heroes, saints, and flourishing people in all walks of life.
As always both accessible and iconoclastic, Taleb challenges long-held beliefs about the values of those who spearhead military interventions, make financial investments, and propagate religious faiths. Among his insights:
- For social justice, focus on symmetry and risk sharing. You cannot make profits and transfer the risks to others, as bankers and large corporations do. You cannot get rich without owning your own risk and paying for your own losses. Forcing skin in the game corrects this asymmetry better than thousands of laws and regulations.
- Ethical rules aren't universal. You're part of a group larger than you, but it's still smaller than humanity in general.
- Minorities, not majorities, run the world. The world is not run by consensus but by stubborn minorities asymmetrically imposing their tastes and ethics on others.
- You can be an intellectual yet still be an idiot. "Educated philistines" have been wrong on everything from Stalinism to Iraq to low carb diets.
- Beware of complicated solutions (that someone was paid to find). A simple barbell can build muscle better than expensive new machines.
- True religion is commitment, not just faith. How much you believe in something is manifested only by what you’re willing to risk for it.
The phrase "skin in the game" is one we have often heard but have rarely stopped to truly dissect. It is the backbone of risk management, but it's also an astonishingly rich worldview that, as Taleb shows in this book, applies to all aspects of our lives. As Taleb says, "The symmetry of skin in the game is a simple rule that's necessary for fairness and justice and the ultimate BS-buster," and "Never trust anyone who doesn't have skin in the game. Without it, fools and crooks will benefit, and their mistakes will never come back to haunt them."
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What listeners say about Skin in the Game
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Tim
- 05-03-18
Another great work by Teleb
If you've read anything else by Teleb, you won't be disappointed with Skin in the Game. Another thoughtful rant covering many fields and subjects. If you haven't read anything by him before... I would suggest reading fooled by randomness first, but that's just personal preference, his books can be read in any order. I can't recommend them highly enough. They prove what the majority of people believe about risk, probability and indeed life, is wrong.
9 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 27-05-18
Diminishing returns
Skin in the Game is an enjoyable collection of anecdotes, observations and angry diatribes. It is also much inferior to the previous three volumes in the "Incerto" series. Taleb is still scratching the same itch and seeking after the same high. But he has run out of things to say.
His message remains important, but please go read Antifragile, Black Swan or Fooled by Randomness instead. They will give you everything you need. This aimless volume, which merely introduces a few new terms to explore again many of his familiar topics, can only be recommended to devoted Taleb fans.
13 people found this helpful
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- Ismail
- 17-05-18
Funny and entertaining
This was my first of the series from Nasim Taleb. It was like listening to the rant of a smart but drunk Uncle. A bit like the American know it all at the party that just needs to listen before he talks.
That being said, it was entertaining and some food for thought. He is an equal opportunities offender. Everyone from Obama to Salafism gets a mention. Lots of personal score settling.
2 people found this helpful
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- Pepe
- 11-05-18
Interesting reading, take it with a grain of salt
Although the author is definetely an intelligent person and the main point of the book is worth understanding, some of the examples -particularly that against Richard Dawkins- have important flaws or are too extreme to be taken without more evidence. This is basically a book about opinions, with no science behind it. Nonetheless, it does have some common sense points that are worth being conscious about.
7 people found this helpful
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- Brian Mc
- 11-12-20
Interesting but much to aggressive
The tone throughout this book is what I heard throughout my time in industry - dog eat dog. Interesting in parts but a generally bad vibe.
1 person found this helpful
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- Cay45
- 16-11-20
It’s like the author keeps repeating
Skin in the game , another statement, skin in the game and so on.
I just didn’t get it.
1 person found this helpful
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- Turcu Ciprian
- 04-09-20
Bad
Barely understood what he was saying, kept jumping from idea to idea and, maybe it’s just me, but after reading 10 other books on audible, this was the worst one.
I don’t recommend it, it’s long and all over the place
1 person found this helpful
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- august year
- 04-08-20
YAWN
Taleb is just ranting and raving about nothing really. No new insight, no solutions, no unique view.... I kept hoping for something to dig my teeth into and get a different perspective but alas the world is full of influential people with more money than talent...Taleb seems to be one of them.
Don't bother with this book. Read a summary somewhere if you're really curious.
1 person found this helpful
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- Michael Doherty
- 16-10-18
Fascinating
Deep thoughts presented with a great deal of insight and humour. So enjoyable listening to someone who doesn’t take himself too seriously yet has the intellect to take on the big issues.
1 person found this helpful
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- Jimbo Jones
- 11-06-18
Knowledgeable and egotistic
I enjoyed this, obviously a knowledgeable guy with occasional insights. His ego shines through, mind. I've read most of his stuff and this is the least focused so maybe start with one of his other titles.
1 person found this helpful
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- Jeremy
- 11-03-18
Brilliance smothered by Condescension and Petty Squabbling
I’ve enjoyed and applies Taleb’s insights for years, but this book was so infused with petty arguments and dismissive quips that it was difficult to pull anything useful from it. The author uncharacteristically wandered off topic so often that trying to reconstruct his arguments almost took more effort than the insight seemed worth. I think there were some pretty significant insights (“don’t confuse data for mathematical rigor” for example). But the book as a whole was so condescending and vitriolic to anyone who disagreed with the author about his past ideas, which is strange coming from someone who preaches such a stoic view of things. I think the author had some very important ideas, but it will take serious work to find them if you aren’t interested in taking the author’s side in all the flame wars he’s either started or been dragged into.
142 people found this helpful
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- Jeremy Teeter
- 03-03-18
The expansion pack to Antifragile
If you've never read Taleb before, pass on this book for now and go read Fooled by Randomness or The Black Swan. This book, while fascinating to long time Taleb fans, is more preaching to the choir, and so he skips a lot of he lead up and background discussions that had been part of the backbone of his other books. I valued the discussion of minority rule and the concept of an absorbing barrier applied to financial ruin, and the authors use of unreliable narratives was entertaining as always. That said, the ideas in this book are minor points compared to his other works, and I found myself wishing he had waited another year or two to continue fleshing out the ideas in this book to allow it to be up to the same standards of his other works.
117 people found this helpful
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- Hessa Al-thani
- 22-06-18
Better off read than heard
There's a lot in here that should be read over and mulled over to fully appreciate the author's message. I stopped half way because I'd much rather read it and carefully consider the author's conjectures rather than taking them for granted. I gave the performance a 2 because there were times when the reader added his own tone to the text.
8 people found this helpful
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- Larry C
- 14-03-18
Didn’t care for this one.
I loved the other three books but this one seemed to be mainly an opportunity to vent for the author. Way too much belittling of others and more “I”s than I think I have ever read in a book that was not an autobiography.
41 people found this helpful
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- Alex
- 17-05-18
some interesting stuff in here
for example, defining rationality in terms of behaviors not beliefs. And businesses that are succesfull are by definition not stupid.
5 people found this helpful
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- Ramiro Torres
- 05-05-18
Great Summation of lost Accountability.
succinct discourse on the hidden art of accountability linking inter-relational action/inaction in our Societal stagnation/progress
5 people found this helpful
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- Nicholas E. Ertz
- 21-04-18
Asymmetries be damned.
Taleb will make you think. He may also make you yell at the window and kick the dog. He brooks no half-hearted response. In this epistle, we hear him remind us to trust no one who gives advice and has no "skin in the game". What is their risk? This is part of the series that includes Black Swan. Read it. (My skin is that you will think me a fool if I'm wrong.)
5 people found this helpful
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- Scott H
- 02-03-18
Taleb's snobbery and condescension @ all time high
For someone who rails against critics breaking his principle of charity in not using straw man arguments against his main points, he sure does it himself an awful lot. For example, he uses Richard Thaler's self deprecating story about enjoying a tie his wife bought him when he wouldn't have bought it himself as proof of what an idiot Thaler is. Thaler feels this mental accounting is irrational and Taleb does not. I'm inclined to lean toward what I take to be Taleb's argument that the term 'irrational' is overplayed and does not really describe what is happening in a lot of the behavioral economics studies but to just dismiss the whole field as bunk goes much too far. That is where his ideas about heuristics that he uses to criticize Richard Dawkins come from after all. I bet Dawkins would even concede the point that an outfielder is using heuristics rather than subconsciously doing differential equations to anticipate where to go as he originally wrote decades ago.
Taleb makes some good points but he always overplays his hand and portrays himself and a very small handful of his heroes who 'have skin in the game' as the only people in the world who have contributed anything worthwhile.
Some of the things I liked:
-His points about vocal minorites having large impact on public policy or commerce e.g., kosher foods, non-gmo foods, smoking in restaurants.
-Don't tell me what you think, tell me what's in your portfolio. All that really matters is our actions- not our opinions.
I would give this another star but I'm so turned off by his self aggrandizement and unwarranted dismissal of every scientist, school teacher, public servant, and 9-5 employee that I can't do it.
107 people found this helpful
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- SelfishWizard
- 18-03-18
All the Arrogance, Anger and Bile you can Eat!
Taleb interrupts the flow of his work (such as it is) to rant throughout against Michelin starred restaurants, "idiot intellectuals", suit and tie executives, journalists, scientists, academics, genetically modified food (go figure) and in fact pretty much all food other than pizza (made with fresh ingredients) and hamburgers.
He prefers weightlifters to professors and almost anything to Stephen Pinker. He dislikes any and all who aren't what he considers to be traders and risk takers. Gym equipment other than bar bells and sommeliers come in for his especial ire. But he likes brutish looking inarticulate doctors. The non brutish amongst us he considers to be effete and impudent snobs offering comments on matters on which they have no skin in the game. It is hard to see what "skin" Taleb actually has in this irritable list of things he doesn't like.
The book feels like it was dashed off after too many beers on the way to a barroom brawl.
But Taleb obviously delights in his angry skewering of the rest of the world. Somehow he sells this stuff "to the Swiss" (his trading term for the average faceless sucker), so more power to him for developing a business plan and finding a paying audience for his bile.
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- N.F.
- 08-03-18
Parting ways with Taleb
I enjoyed previous works by Taleb like Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan. However, I couldn't stand this one. It is so full of derision against anyone who is not exactly like him, so full of his many personal vendettas that is incoherent.
He skips from subject to subject with little logic, and covers subject rather superficially. He arrogantly dismisses scientists, doctors, economists and then goes on to peddle what are basically conspiracy theories. Then he goes on to raise on a pedestal "ancient wisdom". I almost had the feeling that he would advocate spitting at black cat like my grandmother because it is wisdom that survived, unlike taking statins which is new science.
In conclusion, if I met Taleb, I would suggest he took a nice long look at the mirror. He might recognise one of his "Intellectual Yet Idiot"s there.
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