{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Book","@id":"https://readstacks.com/books/skin-in-the-game-nassim-taleb/","url":"https://readstacks.com/books/skin-in-the-game-nassim-taleb/","name":"Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life","shortTitle":"Skin in the Game","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Nassim Nicholas Taleb"},"isbn":"9780425284629","numberOfPages":8,"wordCount":3425,"timeRequired":"PT13.5M","datePublished":"2026-05-16T19:00:00Z","dateModified":"2026-05-16T19:00:00Z","publisher":{"@id":"https://readstacks.com/#organization","@type":"Organization","name":"Read Stacks"},"workExample":[{"@type":"Chapter","@id":"https://readstacks.com/books/skin-in-the-game-nassim-taleb/chapter-1-why-skin-in-the-game/","url":"https://readstacks.com/books/skin-in-the-game-nassim-taleb/chapter-1-why-skin-in-the-game/","name":"Why Skin in the Game","position":1,"wordCount":448,"timeRequired":"PT2M","abstract":"Taleb's central claim is that asymmetry between decision-making and consequence-bearing is the root cause of much of the dysfunction in modern institutions. Bankers who keep the upside while taxpayers absorb the downside. Generals who declare wars they will not fight in.","datePublished":"2026-05-16T19:00:00Z","dateModified":"2026-05-16T19:00:00Z"},{"@type":"Chapter","@id":"https://readstacks.com/books/skin-in-the-game-nassim-taleb/chapter-2-the-most-intolerant-wins/","url":"https://readstacks.com/books/skin-in-the-game-nassim-taleb/chapter-2-the-most-intolerant-wins/","name":"The Most Intolerant Wins","position":2,"wordCount":412,"timeRequired":"PT1.5M","abstract":"Taleb examines the strange power of small minorities to shape large-scale outcomes. When a minority refuses to consume something — kosher food, halal meat, peanut-free products — and the majority has no strong preference, the entire supply chain shifts toward the minority's constraint.","datePublished":"2026-05-16T19:00:00Z","dateModified":"2026-05-16T19:00:00Z"},{"@type":"Chapter","@id":"https://readstacks.com/books/skin-in-the-game-nassim-taleb/chapter-3-the-intellectual-yet-idiot/","url":"https://readstacks.com/books/skin-in-the-game-nassim-taleb/chapter-3-the-intellectual-yet-idiot/","name":"The Intellectual Yet Idiot","position":3,"wordCount":401,"timeRequired":"PT1.5M","abstract":"The chapter is Taleb's most controversial polemic: the figure he calls the Intellectual Yet Idiot (IYI). The IYI has formal credentials, public-facing intellectual respectability, and consistent confidence about policy domains they have no skin in.","datePublished":"2026-05-16T19:00:00Z","dateModified":"2026-05-16T19:00:00Z"},{"@type":"Chapter","@id":"https://readstacks.com/books/skin-in-the-game-nassim-taleb/chapter-4-the-lindy-effect/","url":"https://readstacks.com/books/skin-in-the-game-nassim-taleb/chapter-4-the-lindy-effect/","name":"The Lindy Effect Revisited","position":4,"wordCount":427,"timeRequired":"PT1.5M","abstract":"Taleb returns to the Lindy effect — first introduced in Antifragile — to make a sharper point about institutional knowledge. The longer a non-perishable thing has survived, the longer it is expected to continue. Books that have been read for two thousand years are better…","datePublished":"2026-05-16T19:00:00Z","dateModified":"2026-05-16T19:00:00Z"},{"@type":"Chapter","@id":"https://readstacks.com/books/skin-in-the-game-nassim-taleb/chapter-5-no-one-is-bigger-than-the-rule/","url":"https://readstacks.com/books/skin-in-the-game-nassim-taleb/chapter-5-no-one-is-bigger-than-the-rule/","name":"No One Is Bigger Than the Rule","position":5,"wordCount":426,"timeRequired":"PT1.5M","abstract":"The chapter is about the disciplinary mechanism that keeps powerful people from corrupting the systems they participate in. Taleb's argument is that the only reliable mechanism is exposure to the consequences of one's own decisions — financial, reputational, sometimes physical.","datePublished":"2026-05-16T19:00:00Z","dateModified":"2026-05-16T19:00:00Z"},{"@type":"Chapter","@id":"https://readstacks.com/books/skin-in-the-game-nassim-taleb/chapter-6-the-ethics-of-large-versus-small/","url":"https://readstacks.com/books/skin-in-the-game-nassim-taleb/chapter-6-the-ethics-of-large-versus-small/","name":"The Ethics of Large Versus Small","position":6,"wordCount":438,"timeRequired":"PT2M","abstract":"Taleb makes a distinction that runs throughout the book: ethics scale poorly. The ethical intuitions that work at the small-scale (family, friends, village) often break when applied at the large-scale (nation, market, civilization), and vice versa.","datePublished":"2026-05-16T19:00:00Z","dateModified":"2026-05-16T19:00:00Z"},{"@type":"Chapter","@id":"https://readstacks.com/books/skin-in-the-game-nassim-taleb/chapter-7-via-negativa/","url":"https://readstacks.com/books/skin-in-the-game-nassim-taleb/chapter-7-via-negativa/","name":"Via Negativa","position":7,"wordCount":433,"timeRequired":"PT1.5M","abstract":"Taleb returns to the via negativa principle — improvement by subtraction rather than addition — and applies it to skin-in-the-game systems. The most reliable way to improve a decision-making system is not to make the decision-makers smarter; it is to remove the protections that insulate them from consequences.","datePublished":"2026-05-16T19:00:00Z","dateModified":"2026-05-16T19:00:00Z"},{"@type":"Chapter","@id":"https://readstacks.com/books/skin-in-the-game-nassim-taleb/chapter-8-rationality-and-survival/","url":"https://readstacks.com/books/skin-in-the-game-nassim-taleb/chapter-8-rationality-and-survival/","name":"Rationality and Survival","position":8,"wordCount":440,"timeRequired":"PT2M","abstract":"The book closes with Taleb's argument about rationality itself. The dominant academic conception treats rationality as logical consistency — the rational person believes things that are internally consistent with each other and with the evidence.","datePublished":"2026-05-16T19:00:00Z","dateModified":"2026-05-16T19:00:00Z"}]}