Skin in the Game

Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life

Nassim Nicholas Taleb | 4.08 | 13,600 ratings and reviews

Recommended by Ben Horowitz, Marc Andreessen, Daniel Kahneman, and 8 others. See all reviews

Ranked #10 in Business Ethics, Ranked #13 in Probability — see more rankings.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Black Swan, a bold new work 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 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 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.” less

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Reviews and Recommendations

We've comprehensively compiled reviews of Skin in the Game from the world's leading experts.

Daniel Kahneman Nobel Prize Winner, AuthorChanged my view of how the world works. (Source)

Ben Horowitz Co-founder/Andreessen HorowitzA book about the dynamics of how large-scale, highly random systems behave. (Source)

Marc Andreessen Co-Founder/Andreessen HorowitzSkin in the game as conflict of interest, or as attaching one's livelihood to one's speech? Who to listen to, and why. Ideal counterpart to Philip Tetlock's Expert Political Judgment. (Source)

James Altucher Founder/StockPickrThe idea: if you have “skin in the game” on major life decisions (and even smaller ones), that means you take both risk and reward on your decisions. You’ll do more research, you’ll take better care of yourself to have the energy to make good decisions and be creative, and ultimately you will live a more real and brave life. The title alone is worth it. And the rest of the book is a good read. (Source)

Keith Rabois @conorsen Lol. The Skin in the Game book is quite powerful, albeit often redundant. (Source)

Ola Brown (Orekunrin) Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book skin in the game is basically an evidence based thesis on the above challenge. His most interesting quote from the book on this topic is: "Avoid taking advice from someone who gives advice for a living, unless there is a penalty for their advice" (Source)

Sahil Lavingia Skin in the Game by @nntaleb is the non-fiction book I've read recently that has stuck with me the most. This is a thread of my highlights, with no additional commentary. If they're interesting, I recommend reading the book. (Source)

Anant Jain The five-book series, "Incerto", by Nassim Nicholas Taleb has had a profound impact on how I think about the world. There’s some overlap across the books — but you'll likely find the repetition helpful in retaining the content better. (Source)

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