Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nassim Taleb (http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/)

My Hero is Nassim Nicholas Taleb. He is a writer and philosopher from Lebanon. His greatest hobby is teasing people who take themselves and the quality of their knowledge too seriously and those who don’t have the courage to say “I don’t know” (to quote him directly). He is the author of many non-fiction works, but his two major books are “The Black Swan” and “Fooled by Randomness”. Both of those books deal with the properties of random events in our daily lives. His interests are improving medicine, and preventing climate change. He works those two topics into his daily work, which now in April 2010, means he is writing. He is writing, even though he is in a media hiatus, meaning he is avoiding media. (Think about that one for a second.) He has a facial appearance rather similar to that of Ben Bernanke, ironic knowing that he and Ben Bernanke are in different spectrums of the same world. The two different spectrums they are occupying are in a worldwide pandemonium while the heads of the spectrums stand in the middle, peacefully ringing large bells. He takes pride that he is from Greek Orthodox heritage. He grew up in Lebanon, during a war metaphorically similar to that of Ben Bernanke and himself. He has a website, set in Times New Roman, and with more hyperlinks than Bill Simmons has footnotes. Nassim Taleb may be my hero, but I am not his. And neither is Ben Bernanke.

Nassim Taleb is my hero, and so is Ben Bernanke. (Those Bernanke comments were not negative). I may not know him personally, but he has probably influenced my life more than being TIME’s person of the year influenced Ben Bernanke. (Again, not negative to Ben or TIME, only positive to Nassim Taleb.) He has caused me to reevaluate my view on the world and the way it works, and his Black Swan theory has changed my life for the good. He has sparked many debates in his life, which I admire as it is important to ask questions. My hero is Nassim Nicholas Taleb because he is the one who has made me lie back and say “Wow. He’s probably right” the most times.