Talk:Nassim Nicholas Taleb

There are a few issues with these two lines in Praise and Criticism. Firstly, the whole story is of questionable relevance - the crux of it seems to be that Taleb got a minor correction in a newspaper, which is generally not newsworthy. Secondly, the sources cited are a Huffington Post contributor (note that such contributors are considered generally unreliable as per WP:RSP) and a Reuters blog post. Reuters of course is perfectly citable, but there isn't any clarity on whether blogs hosted by Reuters are. Thirdly, I am doubtful that this exchange, if relevant in the first place, belongs in a section discussing praise and criticism.

In May 2009 interview for GQ magazine, journalist Will Self authored an article in which Taleb said his hedge fund "made $20 bln for our clients."^[1] On June 30 that year, Reuters published emails showing that Taleb explicitly corrected Self.^[2]

Pubcrawler2000 (talk) 18:40, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Interesting story. It is indeed totally irrelevant and looks like it was put in here initially to blame Prof. Nassim for the correction. PopulationGeneticsLevant (talk) 19:37, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Agreed with Pubcrawler2000, to remove, and keep it that way. HuffPo is never WP:RS for finance-related topics. I wish it weren't even considered suitable for selected topics as a "perennial" source, WP:RSN (I think that's the Wiki category). Felix Salmon, in effect, vindicated Taleb and demonstrated that Self's GQ article was inaccurate because it didn't include the correction from Taleb, and that Tavakoli's HuffPo contribution was not credible because it was based on Self's inaccurate article. One more thing: At the time, in 2010, Reuters' finance blogs, were WP:RS and widely read, e.g. featured comments by U.S. securities regulators using their real names. All Reuters' blogs have been defunct for at least 10 years, and are not even visible on the Reuters website. That's okay in this context, as we have the web archive screenshot. I'm documenting the rationale for excluding this content in case any editor in the future re-inserts it.--FeralOink (talk) 13:03, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

'is parents were of Antiochian Greek descent,[17] holding French citizenship.' Thewriter006 (talk) 11:21, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Unless Taleb got his Master's degree when he was 10 years old, it is impossible that he graduated from the University of Paris, as this institution disappeared on December 1970.

It was then split into 13 independent universities, from "Université Paris I - Panthéon-Sorbonne" to "Université Paris XIII - Paris-Nord".

It is critical to clarify from which of these 13 Parisan universities he graduated, as they were not created equal. In particular, "Université Paris VI - Pierre-et-Marie-Curie" and "Université Paris XI - Paris-Sud" were highly ranked in mathematics.

Also, unlike @24.213.126.54 said in the page history (7 August 2023‎), the 13 universities did not "continued functionally as Université de Paris, with divisions I, II,..., IX".

1) They were perfectly independent institutions.

2) They were referred to as "Université de Paris I", "Université de Paris II", ... and were never called "divisions". Karson Paisley (talk) 19:11, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

I read somewhere Dr Nassim say he first studied philosophy and law, then switched to economics then to econometrics. He said he did not focus on mathematics before option trading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.196.135.46 (talk) 18:14, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Of course, given Nassim's achievements, this ironically proves such concerns of prestige matter less when driven by independent research. 2607:FEA8:10C0:77B:F233:869C:99DC:8B82 (talk) 03:10, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

In the most recent edit to this BLP, an editor removed a sentence and 2 citations. We need to include the sentence for continuity, as it provides the reason (a period of low volatility resulting in 3 years of slightly negative returns) for Empirica's closure. It is sourced to the WSJ and Institutional Investor. I am not going to revert the prior edit, as other helpful changes were made. I will reword the sentence and include the sources. Editors can discuss further here, as necessary.-- FeralOink (talk) 12:38, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

The sources say that the fund failed due to a fundamental inability of the strategy to make money in normal times. So I agree this is highly significant. SPECIFICO talk 12:54, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

The name of Taleb's PhD on the page appear to be incorrect. In French it is Réplication d'options et structure de marché Grothendieck1990 (talk) 18:16, 30 December 2024 (UTC)