Nassim Taleb

Amazon FBA is picking up pennies in front of a steamroller

Shaan relays Nassim Taleb's metaphor (via Andrew Wilkinson) for Amazon selling: high probability of steady small gains, low probability of total death when Amazon suspends your account or cuts your category's take rate.

“it's like picking up pennies in front of a steamroller. So, you know, there's a high probability you can make a little bit of money, you know, consistently, every single time you reach down, you pick it up. And then there's, you know, low probability of complete death.”

Steal thisTreat any platform-dependent business as a pennies-in-front-of-a-steamroller bet: keep diversifying off it before the steamroller hits.

Antifragile: when a break makes the system stronger

Shaan invokes Nassim Taleb's 'antifragile' concept to frame the pandemic's lose-lose perception problem: a system that gets stronger each time it breaks, like air travel after every plane crash.

“Antifragile describes when— if you haven't read Nassim Taleb's book— antifragile is when a system breaks and the break makes the system stronger for the next one. So it's like plane crashes. Yeah, every time a plane crash happens, planes get safer overall. The next crash is less likely. That's an antifragile system.”