Muses of Murari

True to its title, the topics discussed in this book are not sequential drilling. You need more focus on reading, to get what author is trying to put his points. In one of the instances, the author, who himself claims as a voracious reader, tells that each new book, he reads, leaves new impressions in his mind. Few days back, I  read this book, which left me wondering all the incidents are pre-determined and not random in nature. Now, this book, tells us exact opposite and also more about alternative histories, probability of one’s success in markets, blasts conventional wisdom, here & there, ridicule MBA holders!

The author discusses most of the counter intuitive & arcane topics of probability and amazes me, explaining them with simple examples. He discusses something called skewness and how he uses the concept in his day to day trading. I don’t know to what extent I understood, but the stuff I grasped makes very sense.

The author tells, the successful people are equally competent with those who are not. But, what makes the person is successful is truly a chance or luck that would have helped him. He also argues how successful people, not recognizing the random nature, fail drastically at some points. He quoted couple of examples, how successful managers earned high reputation, by making profits consistently over the years. And one fine day, how they lost more than what they have earned in years, by just sticking to their adamant stance. One random event, strikes like sighting a black colored swan, it will have a huge impact. This, author calls it as Black Swan.

If one has succeeded in something, people will relate all the incidents in his/her life and spun stories that talks on so and so attributes that made him/her success. Is it not true? We have seen so many such stories about Warren Buffet. It is not that we discredit those who succeeded. We would have seen people, whom we think are not worthy of what they got in life. We also observe sometimes, some one was in right place & right time, so that things went a breeze and made him successful! Is it not random luck? Author discusses a good example – when you allow a large group of monkeys and force them to type using type writer, there is a good probability that, one monkey comes up with exact text of Iliad! Will that same monkey can write Odyssey, the next time? Bang on! Same way, author argues, if some one succeeded in a very large group, then he won’t consider who wins. It is just a chance that some one won.

I read this book with very long time interval, which made me loose many interesting points from my Grey cells. This book is a stimulating read. So re-reading this book is not a bad idea. Next time, when you do not succeed on something, quote this book to your girl friend!

P.S. : I was so impressed by the author, I bought his other book – The Black Swan

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• Thoughts on “The Long Tail”
• My views on “Autobiography of a Yogi”
• My views on “God Does Not Play Dice”
• Views on “Good to Great”
• My views on “Adventure Capitalist”