Antifragile: How to Live in a World We Don't Understand

As you'd imagine, antifragile – a term coined by the author – is the opposite of fragile. But it's not the same as robust. A porcelain cup is fragile. If you hit it with a hammer it'll shatter easily. So you might think the hammer is "antifragile" because it's resilient. It doesn't break under stress. But eventually it might rust or the handle may become loose. Things that are antifragile actually thrive on chaos, disorder, volatility, stress, or pressure. They flourish in the face of unpredictability – they even need it to survive.

Given our uncertain world, resilience is good but antifragility is our goal, the author says. And, in this book, he aims to show how best to achieve this across an array of areas – from diet, medicine, science and technology, to personal finances, entrepreneurship, corporate life, politics, and the global economy.

So who's this book for? Well, the author covers so much terrain that there's something in it for everyone. Whether you're merely interested in the world economy or you have a role to play in its management, you run a business or simply work for one, this book will show you how to create systems that are strengthened by stress, rather than weakened by it.

But "Antifragile" isn't for everyone. The author's style, tone and vocabulary don't make for an easy read. While many of his conclusions are insightful and some of his observations will make you smile, his tone is arrogant and condescending. At best you'll laugh it off, putting it down to deliberate provocation. At worst, you'll find it offensive, particularly if you belong to one of the professions he disdains.

The language he uses is also incredibly complex, making the six-page glossary essential for most readers. But if you can stomach his style, tone and big words – and we think it's definitely worth a shot – you'll stumble upon some gems of wisdom.

A former derivatives trader and quantitative analyst, Taleb is an independent scholar and one of the world's best-known thinkers on uncertainty, probability, and knowledge. He's also distinguished professor of risk engineering at New York University's Polytechnic Institute. Prior to "Antifragile," he wrote "The Black Swan," which made his name, "Fooled by Randomness," which you can hear about in a different Book Insight podcast, and "The Bed of Procrustes."

So keep listening to hear about what soccer moms and Alan Greenspan have in common, how the "barbell" approach can help you thrive in an uncertain world, and why serendipity trumps strategy.

In his previous books, the author used the term "black swans" to refer to rare, improbable events for which we can never be fully prepared, and that have a major effect – for example World War I, the rise of the Internet, or the dissolution of the Soviet Union. We typically try to rationalize black swan events after they've happened through hindsight, which leads us to try and predict similar events in the future so we can avoid them. But black swan events are, by nature, unpredictable.

The problem is we fear uncertainty, so we cushion ourselves against it by over-medicating in the field of health, over-scheduling our children's time, over-forecasting the economy, and over-planning in the corporate world. By trying to buffer ourselves against volatility, we make our bodies, our children's psyches, our economies, and our businesses more fragile, and less able to respond to the stressors that will inevitably come.

This argument underpins "Antifragile," and the author makes a powerful case, throwing in anecdotes from Greek mythology, learned scholars, modern history, and his own life. Take pilots, for example. The automation of airplanes is making flying too comfortable for them, dulling their senses and failing to challenge their skills. This is turning them into worse pilots and causing more accidents.

Similarly, we're not exposing our children to enough risk or challenge, physical or mental. We're wrapping them in cotton wool, keeping them away from germs, and planning their days with military precision. As over-sanitized organisms, they fail to develop natural resistance and their imaginations go to sleep. As a result, they pick up infections more easily and are unable to amuse themselves when soccer practice is rained off.

Soccer moms – who the author sees as representative of neurotic, overprotective parents – get a bad rap in this book, as does former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan.

Greenspan tried to smooth out economic fluctuations and eliminate the boom and bust business cycle, but his policies merely brushed risks under the carpet until they blew up in everyone's face, the author argues. Like the soccer moms, he tried to suppress randomness, and in doing so he created fragility.

A degree of economic bust is necessary to weed out vulnerable firms early – giving them time to start again – and to minimize a bigger economic crisis further down the line. In a similar way, small forest fires get rid of some of the flammable material so when a bigger fire comes, there's less to burn.

The restaurant business is a good example of an antifragile industry. Individual restaurants are fragile – they compete with each other and when one opens, another may be squeezed out of the market. But collectively, the sector benefits from volatility – quality and service improve with competition, bad restaurants shut down and are replaced by better ones. Without this cycle, we'd all be eating mediocre food in the same old establishments.

We think the author has some good lessons for individuals, businesses and economies here. As human beings, we thrive on challenge, and as organisms we benefit from exposure to harm and risk – up to a certain point, of course. And in politics, business, and in the broader economy, trying to suppress volatility is likely to backfire. The United States supported or tolerated Middle Eastern dictators for years in the name of stability, but dissent was bubbling under the surface, until it exploded into revolution.

So how can we build systems that benefit from volatility, or put ourselves in a position where we thrive on uncertainty?

The author says the path to antifragility involves a combination of aggressiveness and paranoia, or a "barbell" strategy. The image of a barbell or dumbbell – a bar with weights on either end – is used to illustrate two extremes kept apart, with nothing in the middle.

In investment terms, this would mean putting 90 percent of your money in safe, risk-free securities, and 10 percent in those that offer maximum risk. This way, you can't lose more than 10 percent of your holdings but you're exposed to a massive upside. On the other hand, putting 100 percent of your cash into medium-risk securities would expose you to total ruin.

The idea is to play it safe in some areas while taking a lot of small risks in others, instead of choosing the middle or moderate road. The moderate path is for "suckers," to use one of the author's favored terms. Protect yourself from extreme harm and let the upside take care of itself.

Similarly, allowing children to play with fire – just a little bit – gives them a chance to learn from their minor injuries. In theory, this will keep them safe from major harm in the long run.

We can take this barbell approach into our work lives. If you want to pursue a risky career such as acting or fiction writing, it's best to do so alongside a profession that's at the other end of the stability spectrum, such as accounting. You'd be exposed to maximum positive risk but you won't end up sleeping on the streets. On the other hand, combining acting with novel writing would make you extremely fragile, while sticking with a profession you consider to be middle-of-the-road for the rest of your life has very little upside and is a sure path to boredom.

But if you don't like this balancing approach, the author offers a variation, which he calls the "serial barbell": maximally safe, followed by maximally speculative. For example, you could work for a decade in a secure profession and then give it up to write a book or pursue a career on the stage. You'll always have something to fall back on if your new venture doesn't pan out.

Overall, the self-employed are more antifragile than the employed, the author says. Carpenters, tailors, plumbers, artisans, and taxi drivers might face volatility and live in constant insecurity, but they're aware of the risks and can adapt to a changing environment. They're constantly alert to fluctuating market conditions, and this alertness breeds antifragility.

For employees, the risks are hidden. Their incomes are stable and they enjoy benefits and annual vacation, but it only takes one phone call from HR and they're out of a job. They've failed to develop resilience, never mind antifragility.

The author enjoys overturning conventional wisdom in this book and he likes to take a pop at the way much of the world operates – so much so that at times it reads like a long rant. One of the targets of his derision is the medical profession. Doctors are too quick to intervene when Mother Nature most likely has everything in hand. Left alone, our bodies often heal themselves.

To highlight this point, the author includes a tale about a time he broke his nose. Visiting a hospital emergency unit after falling over on uneven ground, he asked the doctor if he had any statistical evidence of the benefits of applying ice to his nose. Or was it merely a case of naïve interventionism – that is, the human need to do something?

The doctor replied: "You have a nose the size of Cleveland and you're now interested in… numbers?" We found the doctor's response and the picture of the author squabbling over the benefits of his treatment rather amusing. The author later discovered there was no compelling empirical evidence that ice reduces swelling – except in rare cases where the patient is at risk. So his protest had not been in vain.

On a more serious note, he makes some valid points about the overuse of medication and how, in many cases, it makes us more susceptible to illness and disease and less able to cope with emotional and physical shocks.

Strategists also get a rough ride in this book. The author says there's no evidence that strategic planning works. In fact, there's evidence to the contrary. It makes corporations blind to opportunities, locked into a predetermined course of action. Strategy, he says, is little more than "superstitious babble." This is one of his most provocative ideas and should be viewed with healthy skepticism.

His argument goes like this: in a random world, we must leave room for serendipity. Businesses need to be flexible and able to change direction if opportunities arise. Coca-Cola, for example, started out as a pharmaceutical product, while Tiffany & Co. began as a stationery store. The cosmetics company Avon did door-to-door book sales before moving into make-up, while mobile phone maker Nokia began life as a paper mill before expanding into rubber shoes. Companies must be allowed to drift, and strategy can act like a straightjacket.

Similarly, breakthroughs in medical research have often happened by chance or accident. Researchers have stumbled upon cancer drugs when they've been looking for something else, and vice versa. If our mindset is too fixed on an end result, we might not notice we've discovered a drug for high blood pressure because our remit – and our funding – involves cancer alone.

The author makes countless observations like these throughout the book's more than 400 pages, excluding its appendices and extensive bibliography, and you'll definitely come away with plenty of food for thought.

But "Antifragile" has many flaws, beginning with the author's apparent arrogance and his dismissive and sometimes hostile tone toward a range of people and professions. While his directness is at times refreshing, he takes it too far. He condemns anyone who wears a suit and tie, particularly on Fridays, and he scoffs at economists, bureaucrats, journalists, and even academics – of which he is one.

He also makes sweeping generalizations and rash assertions that detract from the arguments that do hold water. His use of complex terminology seems gratuitous in places, and, when it comes to structure, there isn't much of one. "Antifragile" is divided into six sections, or books, but the author takes a scattergun approach to presenting his arguments, and the same theories pop up randomly. While perhaps appropriate for a book on randomness, it makes for a fair amount of repetition.

Nor do we think the author spent enough of the book's many pages explaining how to live in an uncertain world, focusing instead on identifying things he deems fragile. And there's a hole in his main argument because, as he admits, antifragility only exists up to a certain point.

But, if you can forgive the author's pomposity, overlook his generalizations, and skip a few dense chapters, graphs, and charts, "Antifragile" will amuse, entertain, and will definitely make you think – about your life, health, business, and the global economy.

"Antifragile" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb is published by Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Thanks for listening.

* This book is printed with the subtitle, "Things That Gain From Disorder" in the U.S.