Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life

But we don’t have to go very far to get the importance of scaling. You know instinctively that people get along better as neighbors than roommates.

Having an assistant (except for the strictly necessary) removes your soul from the game.

A country should not tolerate fair-weather friends. There is something offensive in having a nationality without skin in the game, just to travel and pass borders, without the downside that comes with the passport.

In that sense, decentralization and fragmentation, aside from stabilizing the system, improves people’s connection to their labor.

The ethical is always more robust than the legal. Over time, it is the legal that should converge to the ethical, never the reverse.

No person in a transaction should have certainty about the outcome while the other one has uncertainty.

There is another point: we may not know beforehand if an action is foolish—but reality knows.

Forecasting (in words) bears no relation to speculation (in deeds).

When there is fire, you will run faster than in any competition.