{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Book","@id":"https://readstacks.com/books/antifragile-things-that-gain-from-disorder-nassim-taleb/","url":"https://readstacks.com/books/antifragile-things-that-gain-from-disorder-nassim-taleb/","name":"Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder","shortTitle":"Antifragile","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Nassim Nicholas Taleb"},"isbn":"9780812979688","numberOfPages":10,"wordCount":4249,"timeRequired":"PT17M","datePublished":"2026-05-16T15:25:00Z","dateModified":"2026-05-16T15:25:00Z","publisher":{"@id":"https://readstacks.com/#organization","@type":"Organization","name":"Read Stacks"},"workExample":[{"@type":"Chapter","@id":"https://readstacks.com/books/antifragile-things-that-gain-from-disorder-nassim-taleb/chapter-1-between-damocles-and-hydra/","url":"https://readstacks.com/books/antifragile-things-that-gain-from-disorder-nassim-taleb/chapter-1-between-damocles-and-hydra/","name":"Between Damocles and Hydra","position":1,"wordCount":412,"timeRequired":"PT1.5M","abstract":"Taleb opens with the triad that organizes the whole book: fragile, robust, antifragile. The fragile thing breaks under stress (the porcelain teacup, the over-leveraged bank, the brittle career). The robust thing endures stress without changing (the Phoenix that rises unchanged from the ashes).","datePublished":"2026-05-16T15:25:00Z","dateModified":"2026-05-16T15:25:00Z"},{"@type":"Chapter","@id":"https://readstacks.com/books/antifragile-things-that-gain-from-disorder-nassim-taleb/chapter-2-overcompensation/","url":"https://readstacks.com/books/antifragile-things-that-gain-from-disorder-nassim-taleb/chapter-2-overcompensation/","name":"Overcompensation","position":2,"wordCount":408,"timeRequired":"PT1.5M","abstract":"The mechanism by which biological and many engineered systems become antifragile is overcompensation. The body responds to bone-loading stress by building more bone than was needed to resist the original load. The muscle responds to exercise by rebuilding stronger than it was before the tear.","datePublished":"2026-05-16T15:25:00Z","dateModified":"2026-05-16T15:25:00Z"},{"@type":"Chapter","@id":"https://readstacks.com/books/antifragile-things-that-gain-from-disorder-nassim-taleb/chapter-3-the-cat-and-the-washing-machine/","url":"https://readstacks.com/books/antifragile-things-that-gain-from-disorder-nassim-taleb/chapter-3-the-cat-and-the-washing-machine/","name":"The Cat and the Washing Machine","position":3,"wordCount":416,"timeRequired":"PT1.5M","abstract":"Taleb draws the critical line between living and non-living systems. The washing machine wears out with use; every cycle brings it closer to breakdown. The cat is the opposite — under-stimulation makes it weaker, while normal activity and small stresses keep it healthy.","datePublished":"2026-05-16T15:25:00Z","dateModified":"2026-05-16T15:25:00Z"},{"@type":"Chapter","@id":"https://readstacks.com/books/antifragile-things-that-gain-from-disorder-nassim-taleb/chapter-4-what-kills-me-makes-others-stronger/","url":"https://readstacks.com/books/antifragile-things-that-gain-from-disorder-nassim-taleb/chapter-4-what-kills-me-makes-others-stronger/","name":"What Kills Me Makes Others Stronger","position":4,"wordCount":431,"timeRequired":"PT1.5M","abstract":"Antifragility at one scale often requires fragility at the smaller scale below it. The restaurant industry is antifragile because individual restaurants are fragile; the failures inform the survivors, the gene pool of business models improves, and the average meal in the average restaurant becomes better…","datePublished":"2026-05-16T15:25:00Z","dateModified":"2026-05-16T15:25:00Z"},{"@type":"Chapter","@id":"https://readstacks.com/books/antifragile-things-that-gain-from-disorder-nassim-taleb/chapter-5-tinkering/","url":"https://readstacks.com/books/antifragile-things-that-gain-from-disorder-nassim-taleb/chapter-5-tinkering/","name":"Tinkering and the Discovery of Antifragility","position":5,"wordCount":428,"timeRequired":"PT1.5M","abstract":"Taleb argues that most major innovations historically came from tinkerers — practitioners with hands-on problems, modest theoretical baggage, and the freedom to try many things — rather than from theorists who reasoned their way to the discovery.","datePublished":"2026-05-16T15:25:00Z","dateModified":"2026-05-16T15:25:00Z"},{"@type":"Chapter","@id":"https://readstacks.com/books/antifragile-things-that-gain-from-disorder-nassim-taleb/chapter-6-lecturing-birds-how-to-fly/","url":"https://readstacks.com/books/antifragile-things-that-gain-from-disorder-nassim-taleb/chapter-6-lecturing-birds-how-to-fly/","name":"The Lecturing-Birds-How-to-Fly Effect","position":6,"wordCount":412,"timeRequired":"PT1.5M","abstract":"Taleb's name for the phenomenon where the formal explanation arrives after the practical mastery and then receives credit for the mastery as if it had caused it. Birds flew long before anyone explained aerodynamics. Aerodynamicists did not teach the birds to fly; they reverse-engineered what the birds were already doing.","datePublished":"2026-05-16T15:25:00Z","dateModified":"2026-05-16T15:25:00Z"},{"@type":"Chapter","@id":"https://readstacks.com/books/antifragile-things-that-gain-from-disorder-nassim-taleb/chapter-7-skin-in-the-game/","url":"https://readstacks.com/books/antifragile-things-that-gain-from-disorder-nassim-taleb/chapter-7-skin-in-the-game/","name":"Skin in the Game","position":7,"wordCount":434,"timeRequired":"PT1.5M","abstract":"The most important concept in Taleb's framework, which he later expanded into its own book: the people making decisions must bear personal cost when those decisions go wrong. The banker whose bonus is paid before the loan defaults, the policy expert who recommends a war…","datePublished":"2026-05-16T15:25:00Z","dateModified":"2026-05-16T15:25:00Z"},{"@type":"Chapter","@id":"https://readstacks.com/books/antifragile-things-that-gain-from-disorder-nassim-taleb/chapter-8-the-logic-of-disorder/","url":"https://readstacks.com/books/antifragile-things-that-gain-from-disorder-nassim-taleb/chapter-8-the-logic-of-disorder/","name":"The Logic of Disorder","position":8,"wordCount":421,"timeRequired":"PT1.5M","abstract":"The mathematical heart of the book, simplified: antifragile things have positive convexity — they have more upside than downside under uncertainty. The barbell strategy Taleb advocates puts most of your resources in the safest possible position (eliminating ruin risk) and a small portion in high-variance…","datePublished":"2026-05-16T15:25:00Z","dateModified":"2026-05-16T15:25:00Z"},{"@type":"Chapter","@id":"https://readstacks.com/books/antifragile-things-that-gain-from-disorder-nassim-taleb/chapter-9-time-and-fragility/","url":"https://readstacks.com/books/antifragile-things-that-gain-from-disorder-nassim-taleb/chapter-9-time-and-fragility/","name":"Time and Fragility","position":9,"wordCount":442,"timeRequired":"PT2M","abstract":"The Lindy effect, named after a New York deli, observes that for non-perishable things, the longer they have already existed, the longer they are likely to continue. A book that has survived two thousand years is a better bet to survive two thousand more than…","datePublished":"2026-05-16T15:25:00Z","dateModified":"2026-05-16T15:25:00Z"},{"@type":"Chapter","@id":"https://readstacks.com/books/antifragile-things-that-gain-from-disorder-nassim-taleb/chapter-10-iatrogenics/","url":"https://readstacks.com/books/antifragile-things-that-gain-from-disorder-nassim-taleb/chapter-10-iatrogenics/","name":"Iatrogenics: The Harm of the Healer","position":10,"wordCount":445,"timeRequired":"PT2M","abstract":"Iatrogenics is the medical term for harm caused by treatment. Taleb extends it as a general concept: the systematic harm done by interventions whose benefit is overestimated and whose downside is hidden. The classical case is medicine — for most of its history, doctors killed…","datePublished":"2026-05-16T15:25:00Z","dateModified":"2026-05-16T15:25:00Z"}]}