A Single Black Swan

Gladwell focuses on one person's unique investment strategy in this chapter. While it is easy to be overwhelmed by all of the stock market terms and seemingly meaningless numbers that are spouted off in the next 25 pages, if you pay close enough attention, Gladwell brings light to an investment strategy that is perfectly illogical, but at the same time the most reliable. Nassim Taleb bases the finances of his company off of the inevitability of disaster. As stated in the book, if the market followed a smooth bell curve, then statistically, a disaster would happen around every 7,000 years. Sadly, we all know this to be false as a major downfall in the market happens every 3-4 years. Taleb relies on this downfall every 3-4 years because, while other investors lose a considerable amount of money (as expected) in a financial crisis, Taleb makes it rich. “No amount of observations of white swans can allow the inference that all swans are white, but the observation of a single black swan is sufficient to refute that conclusion," says Taleb. Gladwell possesses the ability to portray a man of seemingly insane decisions, as one who has the genius to make millions. This type of writing is a talent in itself.