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I think the world is beginning to catch on to the increasingly tedious Nassim Nicholas Taleb. A few weeks ago, Janet Tavakoli blew the whistle on the claim made in GQ that Taleb “made $20 billion for our clients, half a billion for the Black Swan fund.” Taleb says he was misquoted (Felix comes to his defense).

On his website, Taleb writes:

Note that NUMBERS are wrong. This is not a business/finance, but a philosophy article written by a literary person the novelist Will Self. So read the article for ideas. Someone used the errors as a platform for her (failed) smear campaign.

Lame.

Saying that it’s a philosophy article not a finance article is not an excuse. If the numbers are wrong, then GQ should put out a correction. If Self stands by the quote, then he should stand by it. I don’t buy the argument that Taleb exists in some higher plane where ideas trump facts.

Posted by edelfenbein at June 29, 2009 12:17 PM