He blew up once, the well-publicized 1997 event. In 2001 he started trading customer capital again. 9/11 hurt him badly, just like it did anyone long equities. But as far as I know, he made it through. Neither he nor Taleb have made many hundreds of millions. As well as I am able to know, Vic has made nine figures at least once, though. They met when Taleb was facilitating some of Vic's trades... Taleb was a natural buyer of small options then when running a book, and then later with his fund. Vic was and is a seller of them. However, it wasn't as if Taleb was just saying, "Whatever Niederhoffer does I want the opposite." To wit, when Niederhoffer blew out in 1997, it was from being long and then doubling (and tripling, and...) down in Thai stocks. Taleb wasn't on the other side. Though it's never talked about, Empirica folded in (I think) 2005. Taleb claims to have grown tired of trading and managing money. That's not impossible, but it's certainly not how that kind of thing normally goes.
This New Yorker article? http://www.gladwell.com/2002/2002_04_29_a_blowingup.htm His "Fooled by Randomness" gives one plenty to think about.
BLSH, I'm curious what the source for this information is. Niederhoffer's performance has been fairly well approximated since the days of NCZ but I've never even seen Taleb or Empirica show up on any performance listings.
Bernoulli, I tried to find the cite, and was unsuccessful. Maybe someone can help me. I read, or at though I read, that Taleb had made 180 million at Empirica. I typically don't just make numbers up, so either I read that somewhere, or there is another explanation why I believe that to be the case. I'm not saying I'm correct, but I don't know why the 180 million figure stands out. *The interview was too short, superficial and not worth watching, because of the format of the Colbert Report.
Was the New Yorker article I posted the one being discussed or is there another one? If there is I would be interested in reading it. Thanks. The interview in my mind was pretty much a non-event. I was, after all, Comedy Central. Pretty superficial inteview.
I saw it. It was pretty boring. Colbert's schtick gets old after awhile. I wish he would have shut up and let Taleb talk instead of trying to inject jokes every 2 seconds. I'm not sure why Taleb picked that show to promote his book. I think Taleb did a good enough job defining what a black swan was.
I'd have to agree with the naysayers, Taleb had a good thought once, and has been riding it mercilessly since. I did enjoy FBR quite a bit and it started me down some good trains of thought, but his pompous and condescending attitude are just too much to "bear". It's as if he feels everyone else is a complete idiot and he's the only smart one around. And quoting esoteric literary material only makes it more obvious. Aside from my opinion of him as a blowhard, it is very curious why such a 'master' has no track record to speak of. His 15 minutes are almost up.