Optionality

Taleb discusses optionality, freedom of choice, as a means of robustness and antifragility. Simply, the more options you have, the more freedom you have to respond to unforseen circumstances, and the less fragile you are to sudden events. Financial independence is a big form of it, but there are others.

Certain fields do not have negative forms, there’s no opposite of someone buying your book, so authors have more options because they have less downside.

Some Rules for Optionality

1. Look for optionality and rank things according to their optionality
2. Look for things with open ended, not closed ended, payoffs
3. Do not invest in business plans but in people, people who could change careers six or seven times
4. Make sure you are barbelled, whatever that means in your business