Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb), the author of “The Black Swan” and “Antifragile," joins episode 83 of The Julia La Roche show alongside veteran Wall Street Journal reporter Scott Patterson (@pattersonscott), author of “Chaos Kings: How Wall Street Traders Make Billions In the New Age of Crisis.”
“Chaos Kings,” which features Taleb, recounts the story of Universa Investments, a Miami-based investment firm specializing in risk mitigation, deploying a tail-risk hedging strategy to limit losses from an outsized market event, like a Black Swan. Taleb is the Distinguished Scientific Advisor at Universa.
Led by Mark Spitznagel, Universa is among the best-performing investment managers of the last 15 years, reaping massive gains from market crashes. During the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, Universa delivered a stunning 4,000% return during the first quarter when markets sharply sold off. The firm has posted a 15-year average annual return on capital north of 100%.
0:00 Show open
1:00 Chaos Kings story
6:40 A problem with infrequent but large losses
9:45 Precautionary Principle
12:29 Tail risk hedging
15:30 Flaws of modern finance
17:17 Mark Spitznagel learning to “love to lose”
19:00 Fragilities, hidden risks, big picture macro environment
23:43 Addressing misconceptions around Black Swans
25:30 Optionality
30:16 Experience and execution of the strategy
31:49 Black Swans v. Dragon Kings
34:30 Predicting an event is one thing; benefitting is another thing
36:00 Sornette’s Dragon Kings
38:50 Universa’s 4,000% gain
41:45 Getting to know Nassim Taleb
46:01 Rethinking investing
49:01 New age of crisis
54:40 Parting thoughts
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#016 Marc Benioff On The New Era For Business
#015 Activist Short-Seller Dan David On 'The China Hustle' And Uncovering Frauds
#014 Nik Bhatia On The Coexistence Of The Dollar And Bitcoin
#013 Epsilon Theory's Ben Hunt On The Narratives Everywhere
#012 Jim Bianco: This Is The New Normal. Get Used To It.
#011 Anthony Scaramucci On Failure, Bitcoin, and Trump
#010 Kyle Bass On Energy, China, Inflation, And More
#009 CrowdStrike's Adam Meyers On The Biggest Cyber Threats
#008 Alan Patricof on 50 years of investing, Burning Man and the NYC Marathon at 87, and living to 114
#007 Ryan Williams On Unlocking Access To Commercial Real Estate Investing
#006 Greg Lukianoff on Free Speech and 'Free Speech Culture'
#005 Hugh Hendry on Why We’re Already in the 4th Depression
#004 Former Assistant Treasury Secretary Gerry Parsky on Lessons from the 70s and Parallels to Now
#003 David Cote on Winning Now, Winning Later
#002 Bill Browder on Surviving Putin's Wrath
#001 Morgan Housel on The Psychology of Money
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