Book Review - Skin in the Game

Nicholas Taleb's Skin in the Game provides an interesting perspective of how we should approach risks.

Doctors have 'skin in the game' because they risk their livelihoods if they provide bad medical advice. Further, being able to perform surgery is one indicator of showing medical ability. However, doctors may not always choose to provide the best medical advice.

For example, let's say the doctor has two options:

1. Issue medication which prolongs a disease by 30 years
2. Perform a difficult surgery which completely cures the disease

The doctor may issue medication to the patient because it is the safer choice. They also avoid the consequences because the patient will not notice their slow deterioration in the short term. As such, they successfully transfer the risk from themselves to the patient.

The example above provides a small insight, but does not fully reflect what the book has to offer. Taleb tends to write in a manner which is not friendly to the audience. It's hard to follow along and perceive what he writes in the way it's intended to be.

He makes references to his other books in this book - Antifragile, Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness. Even if you have not read them, it shouldn’t have a big impact on your interpretation of what’s going on.

I would only recommend this book if you like a challenge. Taleb does provide an interesting perspective and you'll only start realising the benefits of the knowledge years later down the track. This is because I've also read The Black Swan four years ago which makes more sense as I progress through life.