Skin in the Game quotes

“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.”

“Taleb examines the strange power of small minorities to shape large-scale outcomes.”

“The IYI has formal credentials, public-facing intellectual respectability, and consistent confidence about policy domains they have no skin in.”

“The longer a non-perishable thing has survived, the longer it is expected to continue.”

“Taleb's argument is that the only reliable mechanism is exposure to the consequences of one's own decisions — financial, reputational, sometimes physical.”

“Taleb makes a distinction that runs throughout the book: ethics scale poorly.”

“Taleb returns to the via negativa principle — improvement by subtraction rather than addition — and applies it to skin-in-the-game systems.”

“Taleb argues this misses the actual function of rationality in evolution and in life: it is what survives, not what is consistent.”