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There is going to be nothing that will "explain" why or which companies could be the big winners. Trying to is falling into the narrative fallacy trap Taleb wr
by maxdemarzi 14y ago
There is going to be nothing that will "explain" why or which companies could be the big winners. Trying to is falling into the narrative fallacy trap Taleb writes about.
Best strategy is to "win" in other ways, and let the cards fall where they may.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- icandoitbetter 14y agoBest strategy is to "win" in other ways, and let the cards fall where they may. So you're saying that the probability of picking up the big winners would be the same if YC accepted applicants at random? Edit: I have sympathy for the Black Swan theory, but I also believe that the startup market is way more tractable than, say, the CDO market – that there do actually exist investment strategies that will increase your chances of hitting the billion dollar jackpot.
- pmarca 14y agoTaleb has an exact translation of what Paul is talking about -- Taleb would, and has, described what Paul is saying as "construct a portfolio of cheap high-risk long-dated options, each of which has a high probability of losing all of your money but also uncapped upside". "Uncapped upside" being the key, of course. Taleb's new book coming out soon will describe all this in a lot more detail -- should be very interesting.