Nassim Taleb
Skin in the game
Read the position, not the opinion
Skin in the Game; the doctor heuristic Taleb credits to Gerd Gigerenzer
He revived a very old filter. This piece asks why advice from someone who bears none of the consequences should be discounted automatically.
What actually happened?
Taleb puts it crudely and clearly: don't tell me what you think, tell me what you have in your portfolio. The book argues one thing — a judgement is credible only when the person judging shares the consequences. The doctor heuristic quoted there he credits to the psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer. His historical exhibit is Hammurabi: if a builder builds a house and it collapses and kills the owner, that builder shall be put to death. The builder knows where the flaws are hidden better than any inspector ever will.
Asymmetry is where bad advice breeds
When the upside belongs to the adviser and the cost to the listener, advice drifts systematically towards the aggressive and the complicated: being wrong does not hurt, being right gets credit. So the first filter is not the content, it is the structure. What has this person staked?
Ask the consultant whether half the fee can ride on the outcome of the plan they are recommending. The plans of those who say yes get simple very fast.
Ask what they would do, not what you should do
What should I do puts the other person into persuasion mode: thorough, respectable, liability-free. What would you do puts them into survival mode. The same expert often gives two different answers, and only the second one is worth anything to you.
Asking a surgeon whether to have the operation, and asking whether he would have it done to his own mother, frequently produce different answers.
Declare your own position before you speak
The principle is only complete when you turn it inward. Pushing a large recommendation, say what you have staked and what you carry if it fails. A strong opinion with no consequence attached deserves your own discount too. That is signal-to-noise, not virtue.
Push hard for a direction and ask in the same breath to have your own review tied to it. A team hears the difference immediately.
How do I use it today?
Where you are: you have been handed advice that sounds thoroughly professional.
Ask first: what has this person staked in the outcome? Does the answer change when you ask instead what they would do themselves?
Where it goes wrong: using skin in the game to dismiss every outside view. Having no position is not the same as having no information. It only means a discount.
Lines to keep
Those who don't take risks should never be involved in making decisions.
Make the builder sleep in the house he built.
Same situation, other people are asking
He says all the right things and I'm not sure I believe him.He talks well. I've never seen him deliver.She is the strongest candidate and the way she operates worries me.Three months of doing everything right. Is that enough to go on?Can I trust this person · all 7 questions →If this one named what you are going through,
send it to someone who needs it, or keep it somewhere you will find it again.