“Before the discovery of Australia, the Old World was convinced that all swans were white, a belief entrenched, as it was confirmed by empirical evidence. The first time they saw a black swan must have been an interesting surprise for several ornithologists (and others particularly concerned with the color of birds), but the significance of the story is not that. A single observation can invalidate a general statement that arose and was confirmed over millennia during which we had seen millions of white swans and only. All it takes is one (and, from what I’m told, somewhat ugly) black bird.

In this (personal) essay, I take the risk and assert, against many of our ingrained habits of thought, that the world is dominated by the extreme, the unknown, and the very improbable at the same time that we spend our time focusing on the known and the repetitive. I also dare to claim that, despite our progress and the evolution of knowledge, or perhaps because of the progress and evolution of knowledge, the future will be increasingly less predictable, while both human nature and the social “sciences” seem to conspire to hide the idea from us.”

For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the author of the bestselling The Black Swan, the Black Swan is the basis of all events in the world, from the emergence of religions to occurrences in our personal lives. The Black Swan is an extremely improbable event with three main characteristics: it is unpredictable, it has huge consequences, and after its occurrence, we wish to make it seem less random and more predictable than it actually is.

Taleb is an exceptionally entertaining writer, with wit, audacity, and unusual stories to tell. He masterfully employs his erudition on subjects ranging from cognitive psychology and business to probability theory and explains that we nurture illusions that we know more than we do by limiting our knowledge to the trivial and insignificant, thus great events continue to surprise us and shape our world.

Impressive, profound, and universal, The Black Swan is a landmark book that could itself be a Black Swan. They said of the book: “The Black Swan changed the way I view the world.” –Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences “Confirms his position as the guru for every aspiring Damien Hirst, George Soros, and budding entrepreneurs.” –Sunday Times “Extremely entertaining, thought-provoking… easy to dive into.” –Financial Times “Particularly clever.” -Niall Ferguson, Los Angeles Times “Leaps out like no superhero of the mind.” -Boyd Tonkin, Independent “The greatest prophetic voice of all.” -GQ “A captivating study of how we often become victims of the unexpected.” -Guardian “Changed modern thinking.” -The Times “Taleb’s writing style is a blend of Stephen Colbert and Montaigne. We pleasantly traverse with him the path of illusion related to confirmation bias and the narrative of the unfounded.” -The Wall Street Journal

Nassim Nicholas Taleb has dedicated his life to the issues of luck, uncertainty, probabilities, and knowledge, and has followed three high-profile careers related to his ideas as a man of letters, entrepreneur-financier, and university professor. Although he spends most of his life as a flaneur, pondering in cafes around the world, he is currently a distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering at the Polytechnic School of New York University. His works have been translated into forty-one languages.