Antifragile

Things That Gain from Disorder

By: Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Narrated by: Joe Ochman

Length: 16 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

From the best-selling author of The Black Swan and one of the foremost thinkers of our time, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a book on how some things actually benefit from disorder.

In The Black Swan Taleb outlined a problem, and in Antifragile he offers a definitive solution: how to gain from disorder and chaos while being protected from fragilities and adverse events. For what Taleb calls the "antifragile" is actually beyond the robust, because it benefits from shocks, uncertainty, and stressors, just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension. The antifragile needs disorder in order to survive and flourish.

Taleb stands uncertainty on its head, making it desirable, even necessary, and proposes that things be built in an antifragile manner. The antifragile is immune to prediction errors. Why is the city-state better than the nation-state, why is debt bad for you, and why is everything that is both modern and complicated bound to fail? The audiobook spans innovation by trial and error, health, biology, medicine, life decisions, politics, foreign policy, urban planning, war, personal finance, and economic systems. And throughout, in addition to the street wisdom of Fat Tony of Brooklyn, the voices and recipes of ancient wisdom, from Roman, Greek, Semitic, and medieval sources, are heard loud and clear.

Extremely ambitious and multidisciplinary, Antifragile provides a blueprint for how to behave - and thrive - in a world we don't understand, and which is too uncertain for us to even try to understand and predict. Erudite and witty, Taleb’s message is revolutionary: What is not antifragile will surely perish.

Please note: The bleeps in the audio are intentional and are as written by the author. No material is censored, and no audio content is missing.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2012 Nassim Nicholas Taleb (P)2012 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"[This] is the lesson of Taleb...and also the lesson of our volatile times. There is more courage and heroism in defying the human impulse, in taking the purposeful and painful steps to prepare for the unimaginable." (Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point)

"[Taleb writes] in a style that owes as much to Stephen Colbert as it does to Michel de Montaigne." (The Wall Street Journal)

"The most prophetic voice of all.... [Taleb is] a genuinely significant philosopher...someone who is able to change the way we view the structure of the world through the strength, originality and veracity of his ideas alone." (GQ)

Stupid censorship

Bleeping out the cursewords was really stupid in offensive.It made the performance seem childish and lame.

Best Introduction to Counter-Intuitive Thinking

In Antifragile, Taleb challenges the common form of processing information and thinking in the West. Although Taleb developed these ideas independently, I still find this book to be the best introduction to Daoist thinking available in the West, and I recommend it to my students often. Taleb proposed the opposite of fragility in thought and action, proposing a system of thought and action that allows a person to make the most out of the challenges in life, rather than being beaten down by them. His main point is simple: Do not run from situations that are chaotic or even traumatic, embrace them, run straight towards them and allow yourself to learn and grow from them. After all, no one can tell what lies just around the corner, so don't worry about it, just take the opportunity and become a better you.
Audible 20 Review Sweepstakes Entry.

bleeping profanity

there is a perfect coincidence of this performance and fragility. why censor the author in an Audible book?
makes no sense.

Taleb is my new hero.

I love this book. Read black Swan beforehand and this book takes it a step further. The view on ethics and the ethic responsibility to create anti fragile systems is spot on. The narrator has a very nice voice and is able to pronounce the Italian English Latin etc fluently. Thanks for offering this book

distilled truth

I love this book. Its thesis is that life requires resistance, struggle, and randomness to flourish. This idea is applied to societies, economics, science, and more. Taleb highlights the problem of scientism and overconfidence in "rationality" which is far too prevalent in the modern world. Taleb is truly a novel thinker, I'm recommending this book to everyone that will listen.

Please read this book!

An absolute masterpiece of wit, research, and philosophy with plenty of real world application and theory

Makes my MBA less meaningful

This is a great book. Forget business school, just read Nassim Taleb. It is much cheaper and a better education.

A sceptic masterpiece

Known and previously unknown truths thoughtfully proposed for anyone with open ears and mind. A treat to read.

Welp… Taleb once again has me rethinking everything in my life and by extension confusing the shit out of everyone I talk to.

I loved it. Every bit of it. I wish I could’ve read this, and been able to understand it, when I was younger.

Very rich and detailed

Fun but very complex for someone like me, not used to this subject. I will read that again