Summary - Skin in the Game

While a standalone, "Skin in the Game" also serves as the fifth volume in the author's Incerto series, which explores the concept of uncertainty and randomness in history and our personal lives and attempts to reconcile how to handle uncertainty in everyday life. In this book, Taleb recognizes the fact that it is only the people who take risks - that is, people with "skin in the game" - that comprehend how the world works better than those spared from risk-taking. Ideally, the world should be run under a free market where everybody bets on their own money and resources - however, almost none of the major decisions made today (when to go to war, when to financially bail out the banks) are made by people who have anything to lose in the game. This is partly why Black Swan events have had special influence in the 20th and 21st centuries, before modern times, kings went with their troops to battle and risked their own lives.