Nassim Taleb on Strategy Quotes

"True mastery requires a barbell strategy: extreme safety in your basics and extreme risk in your ideas."

"The Lindy effect suggests that the longer a book has been in print, the longer it will remain. Read old books."

"The Lindy Effect suggests that for non-perishable things like business ideas, every additional day of survival implies a longer life expectancy."

"The most important aspect of a business is its ability to survive a 'Black Swan'—an unpredictable event with massive consequences."

"Robustness is when you don't care about the outcome of an event. Antifragility is when you want the event to happen."

"The goal of a business should be to reach a point where it no longer needs to predict the future to be profitable."

"Fragility is the dislike of volatility. If your business depends on things staying exactly as they are, you are fragile."

"The strategy for the discoverers and entrepreneurs is to rely less on top-down planning and focus on maximum tinkering and recognizing opportunities when they present themselves."

"A business that is not antifragile will eventually be destroyed by the very volatility it tries to avoid."

"The suckers think you cure a flaw with a fix. The professional knows you cure a flaw by making the system more robust."

"The strategist is a person who focuses on what is not changing."

"You don't want to win an argument. You want to win."