Quicklet on Nassim Taleb's Fooled by Randomness (CliffNotes-like Summary)

Chalk up an outcome to skill, and we take credit for the result. Chalk up an outcome to luck, and it wasn’t in our control. For any outcome, we are faced with this initial sorting decision. That decision is a bet on whether the outcome belongs in the “luck” bucket or the “skill” bucket.

The successes in my life had given me a false sense of omniscience and infallibility. The vast majority of the successes in my life were because I got lucky, not because I was particularly smart or better or different. I didn’t know it at this point in the story, but I sure as hell was about to find out.

The way our lives turn out is the result of two things: the influence of skill and the influence of luck. For the purposes of this discussion, any outcome that is the result of our decision-making is in the skill category. If making the same decision again would predictably result in the same outcome, or if changing the decision would predictably r

Because of our natural Pattern Matching abilities, we tend to see patterns where none exist and tend to attribute random Changes to skill if the Changes are good or misfortune if they’re bad. As a result, we’re Fooled by Randomness—the title of Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s first book.