1) The Millionaire Next Door may actually have a disclaimer somewhere in the text, but it must have been really mild compared to the (many!) implicit claims that it held the secrets to becoming rich. I don’t recall that disclaimer, at least in relation to the discussions of their surveys, how to buy cars by the pound, etc… (I do applaud the authors for treating frugalness as if it is cool – but I wish they presented their work more rigorously.)

2) In my experience, the author of a book rarely has input to the title, never mind quotes on the paperback version.

I’ve never read Taleb, but I have heard him in a couple podcasts and saw him on the Daily show. Off the cuff, he comes off as an intense, but decent, guy.

We all need to be more mindful of randomness, if readers can get that without reading the book, more power to them.

If the guy is truly dillusional, it is better to not read the book, and i appreciate the warning.

I’d also like to get into a rant on this author’s apparent use of evolution being ‘fooled’ as an example, but this is definitely not the place for it, and I couldn’t possibly be fair since I haven’t read the book.

I’ll still read The Black Swan…if I can just see around Taleb’s ego, maybe I’ll get what I’ve been hearing about it.

I saw an interview with Taleb on CSPAN BookTV, and the guy was fun, though I think quite frustrating for the interviewer. While I would agree that he does come off as an arrogant and too confident of his own beliefs, he did seem like someone I would get along with in real life (and I usually don’t like arrogant people). Though I can understand how he would be Trent’s polar opposite.

Just because the Millionaire Next Door book acknowledges that they are susceptible to survivor bias, doesn’t make that bias any less real.

The book may be acknowledging the bias, but how many readers (including most of us PF bloggers) ignore that bias and are simply infatuated with the idea of becoming rich through frugality?

Maybe what the Taleb is saying is that, yes, you can become rich through frugality, but the odds are against you. Maybe there is a better strategy that you could follow, instead of focusing on frugality, if only your heart wasn’t already captured by the Millionaire Next Door philosophy?

Just a thought.

I can certainly understand your thoughts regarding the author’s presentation of himself. I concur that the author has a very high opinion of himself, yet I always felt that it was more of a cultural thing rather than overt, conscious smugness. His webpage links to a lot of other interesting material he’s written and has some additional background.

In spite of that, I think this book and The Black Swan are probably the two that have most influenced my thinking over the past 10 years. I work in an environment where statistics are frequently beaten, bent, and forced into positions that they have no business being in, and it’s wonderful to have someone knowledgeable calling out the charlatans on what they are doing.

As NNT says himself, “My major hobby is teasing people who take themselves & the quality of their knowledge too seriously & those who don’t have the guts to sometimes say: I don’t know….” I think that’s a cause we can all get behind.

Don’t be so quick to judge – The Black Swan is an incredible book, although it’s hard to follow at time, and is filled with powerful ideas.

Part of his point throughout the entire book goes hand in hand with Warren Buffett and his saying that it is better to be approximately right than precisely wrong.

I haven’t read Fooled By Randomness, but The Black Swan is something that a LOT of people need to read, especially all of Wall Street, which is chock full of people who, after enough years have passed, are proved to be precisely wrong instead of approximately right.

Yes, his thoughts do come through a bit strongly in The Black Swan, but rightfully so to someone who is fed up with the nonsense of ‘experts’ who create such dangerous financial situations by believing that things can be carefully measured and predicted based on normal probabilities.

I haven’t read this specific book, but I had planned to read THE BLACK SWAN by the same author. Now I’m not sure I will. Thanks for the review!