Skin in the Game

The final volume of Taleb's Incerto series argues that the single most important principle for a functioning society is skin in the game — people who make decisions must bear the consequences of those decisions. Bankers who get bailed out, consultants who never implement their own advice, and politicians who never serve in the wars they start all lack skin in the game, and this asymmetry is the root cause of systemic fragility. Taleb's framework applies to investing, management, ethics, and epistemology.