Nassim Nicholas Taleb likes to pick fights. Tim Geithner, Alan Greenspan, Paul Krugman: all catch the ire of the trader-turned-scholar, as these economists failed to anticipate the financial crisis, while Taleb, sensing the fragility of Fannie Mae--and the financial industry in general--did. And in so doing, made millions.
纳西姆·尼古拉斯·塔勒布喜欢挑起争端。蒂姆?盖特纳（Tim Geithner）、艾伦?格林斯潘（Alan Greenspan）、保罗·克鲁格曼（Paul Krugman）这些商人出身的学者因为没有预料到金融危机而受到公众的指责，但塔勒布提前预感到房利美和金融业整体的脆弱性。他的书赚了几百万美元。
The crisis was the kind of extreme event that he described in The Black Swan, his 2007 investigation into the power of volatility, that for its pugilistic prescience earned Taleb fame and infamy. In Antifragile, Taleb is still fighting--oranges, soccer moms, and the federal reserve are all lambasted (the first is "Mediterranean candy, " the other two protective to the point of harm), and he’s still prescient, the kind of thinker that in his vigor is able to shift a reader’s worldview, though his mission is simple.
塔勒布在2007年研究了经济波动的威力，他在《黑天鹅》一书中将经济危机描述为一种极端事件。他对经济危机的准确预测，提高了知名度，同时也给他带来骂名。塔勒布在《抗脆弱》一书中仍旧延续了嘴上不饶人的风格，橘子、足球妈妈和联邦储备都被他骂得狗血淋头。不过，他仍然表现得像一个有先见之明的思想家，要用他的力量转变读者的世界观，而他的任务很简单。
"I want to live happily in a world I don't understand, " he writes in the prologue to Antifragile, a paean to randomness. "You get pseudo-order when you seek order; you only get a measure or order and control when you embrace randomness."
“我想要快乐地生活在一个不了解的世界中，”他在《抗脆弱》的序言中写道，作为对不确定性的赞歌。“当你在寻找秩序的时候，你只会得到虚假的秩序；当你拥抱不确定性时，你才能找到解决之道或秩序本身。”
The antifragile--his coinage--is what embraces randomness and its cousins, volatility and time. We’re familiar with objects that don’t like volatility--consider your nearest piece of porcelain--and things that for their robustness can withstand change, like the Brooklyn Bridge. But there isn’t even a word, Taleb would have us know, for that which actually benefits from disturbances. That's the antifragile: a fine pair of leather shoes, your body (think exercise and vaccines), and evolution have it.
他创造出来的抗脆弱这个词，就是拥抱不确定性以及波动性和时间。我们很熟悉那些毫无波动性的物体，比如离手边最近的一件瓷器；我们也熟悉那些可以承受变化的稳固的东西，比如纽约的布鲁克林大桥。但塔勒布告诉人们，还没有词语用来描述那些受益于不确定性的事物。这个词就是“抗脆弱”：一双好的皮鞋、人的身体（需要锻炼和疫苗）以及进化都具有抗脆弱性。
The other key piece of the Antifragile puzzle is linearity and its prefixed sibling, nonlinearity. The linear is familiar: One plus one does equal two, except when it doesn't; the function of a doubled amount can be far greater. Taleb likes the illustration of either a 10-pound rock being thrown or 10 pounds of pebbles being heaved at you. That's what he'd call "accelerated damage, " the kind he learned of in Fannie Mae.
抗脆弱的另一个关键概念是线性和非线性。大家都知道线性是什么：一加一等于二，除了这个等式不成立的时候，量增加了一倍而结果远远超出。塔勒布喜欢举一个例子，想象抛去一块10磅重的大石头，或者背负一块10磅重的鹅卵石。这就是他所谓的“加速损坏”，他认为这是房利美的问题所在。
It's in one's interest to know if one is vulnerable to the volatility of accelerated damage--fragility--or of the rarer accelerated benefit, antifragility, or otherwise robust to change. This managing of vulnerabilities forms the core of Taleb's thought, and it has many business applications. Which is why Fast Company was eager to correspond with Taleb about a few of the topics we're most passionate about: career choices, the nature of entrepreneurship, and what business strategy looks like in an opaque world (a hint: it looks a lot less like theorizing, a lot more like tinkering).
真正让人感兴趣的是，一件事物是否易受加速损坏波动性的影响（即脆弱性），或者易受较少加速增益波动性的影响（即抗脆弱性），还是能够耐受各种变化。如何管理脆弱性构成塔勒布思想的核心，其思想可以广泛地应用到商业之中。这就是为什么《高成长公司》急着要访问塔勒布，谈论人们所最关心的职业的选择、创业的性质以及何种商业策略不为外人所见（提示：它更像是修修补补，而不是高深理论）。
Some people, and their jobs, are fragile, while others benefit from the madness of the world. General Petraeus' scandalous fall evidences fragility; while Lady Gaga grows stronger with scandal--the pop monster is antifragile.
某些人以及他们的工作是脆弱的，而另一些人则受益于疯狂的世界。彼得雷乌斯将军的丑闻在证据面前不堪一击，而Lady Gaga则在丑闻中茁壮成长，这个流行音乐界的大咖是抗脆弱的。
But it's not just for the celebrities. Taleb advocates bimodal strategies in working life: to have one very stable gig and one volatile vocation by moonlight.
这个概念不仅仅限于名人。塔勒布提倡在工作中采取双重策略：有一个非常稳定的工作，和一个私下的不稳定的职业。
"Never go for medium profession, " he told Fast Company via email. "Literary writers should have a menial job or (if possible) a sinecure, and write on the side. Otherwise writing for a living under other people's standards debases their literature. The same for artists. The best philosophers were not academics, but had another job, so their philosophy was not corrupted by careerism."
“永远不要选择中立的职业，”他在给《高成长公司》的email中写道。“文学作家应该有一个糊口的工作，如果可能的话找个闲职，同时再进行创作。如果不是这样，就会想通过写作达到其他人的生活标准，从而降低文学作品的质量。艺术家也是一样。最好的哲学家都不是学者，他们都有另外的工作，所以哲学不会受到职业的影响。
Literature, art, philosophy: These are fields where the successful (whatever the measure of success is) are a relative (and daresay random) few, so to have a robust but not mentally taxing day job is an asset. But what about your everyday business people?
文学、艺术和哲学领域的成功者，无论以怎样的标准去衡量成功都是相对稀少的（或者说是随机的），所以有一个稳定的但没有精神负担的工作是一种优势。但那些每天工作的平常人呢？
To get a picture of how randomness plays a role in professional life, Taleb compares two brothers: one an office worker, the other a taxi driver. Volatility is present in the career of each: while the office worker has randomness “smoothed away” by the regularity of salary and employment, he is like a turkey in mid-November, fragile to risk presently out of view. On the other hand, the taxi driver--who Taleb describes as being of the class of artisan, much like a carpenter or plumber--experiences a natural randomness in his daily fluctuations of fares, but is less prone to large shocks. Indeed, Taleb writes, the self-employed artisan can be antifragile: a weeklong earnings decline tells the taxi driver to try a new part of town, while a mistake made in the cubicle farm will be kept on the permanent record. As well, the office worker has one main employer and thus rigidity, while the taxi driver has many--giving him more options, greater flexibility to adapt to his environment.
塔勒布为了形象地说明不确定性如何在职业生涯中起作用，举了两兄弟的例子：一个是上班族，另一个是出租车司机。波动性在两个人的工作中都是存在的，但上班族的不确定性被稳定的薪水和雇佣关系所遮盖了，他就像是一只11月中旬（感恩节前）的火鸡，对未知的威胁是脆弱的。而出租车司机（在塔勒布眼中，他就像木匠或管道工之类的工匠）则会在每天的收入波动中经历自然的不确定性，但不易受到巨大的冲击。塔勒布写道，自雇人员实际上是抗脆弱的：为期一周的盈利下降会让出租车司机换个地方拉活，而在格子间农场所犯的错误将会被永久记录。而且，上班族都有一个主要的雇主，从而其工作更具刚性；而出租车司机有很多的雇主，这给了他更多的选择和更大的灵活性以适应环境。
A national entrepreneur day?
设立全国企业家日
To get an idea of how the individual contributes to the ecosystem, consider the dining scene in Manhattan: While the odds are dim if you want to make it as a restaurateur, they’re bright if you’re looking for a bite to eat. To put it in Taleb’s terms, the fragility of the individual contributes to the robustness, or even antifragility--if the group is evolving and not staying the same--of the whole. "We need to respect failed entrepreneurs, " he tells Fast Company. "This would make more people take risks and generate growth." At the end of the fourth chapter of the book, he proposes a National Entrepreneur Day, one furnished with this message:
想了解个体如何影响整个生态系统，你可以想象饭点儿在曼哈顿找饭辙的场景：如果你想找个餐厅，那找到座位的几率是微乎其微；但如果你只是想填饱肚子，那还是非常容易的。用塔勒布的话说，如果团体作为一个整体是不断发展而不是静止不变，个体的脆弱性会让整体更具稳定性，甚至让整体是是抗脆弱性。“我们要尊重失败的企业家，”他对《高成长公司》如是说。“这将让更多的人承担风险，促进经济增长。”塔勒布在该书的第四章中提出了应当设立全国企业家日，并打出以下标语：
“Most of you will fail, disrespected, impoverished, but we are grateful for the risks you are taking and the sacrifices you are making for the sake of the economic growth of the planet and pulling others out of poverty. You are the source of our antifragility. Our nation thanks you.”
“你们中的大多数人将会一败涂地、不受尊重、不名一文，但是我们会感谢你，感谢你为这个星球的经济增长和消除贫困所担当的风险和做出的牺牲。你们是抗脆弱性的力量之源。国家感谢你。”
Beyond rippling with Taleb's signature bombast, the quote makes a fair point, one that he rephrases elsewhere in the book: that just as there's no such thing as a failed soldier (so long as he fights with courage), there's no such thing as a failed entrepreneur, even if the company goes belly up. All those failed East Village eateries ensure that you've got the right place for Friday night; "What kills me makes others stronger, " he says, in the same way that the deaths of individuals help along evolution.
虽然塔勒布的话有些夸大，但其中的道理是正确的，这也是他在书中反复阐述的事情，就好比只要勇敢战斗就没有失败的士兵，同样也没有失败的企业家，即使他的公司关门倒闭。所有那些在东村餐馆（East Village）失败的人都会在周五晚上得到正名；“我的失败使别人更加强壮，”他觉得这与个体的死亡会有助于进化类似。
Less thinker, more tinker
少谈点主义，多做点实事
The lessons of Antifragility are hard on the soothsaying CEO. As Bob Pozen cautioned against the hubris of career planning (and advocated what he called step-by-step optionality), Taleb rails against the rigidity of forecast. "Our forecasts are fragile and strategies do not take into account that fact, so people get locked-in as in an highway with no exit, " he wrote to me. "Any strategy with optionality is like a highway with multiple exits, " with optionality being the ability to take an option and branch from the projected trajectory.
《抗脆弱》的经验教训对预测一个CEO还是有困难的。鲍勃·波曾告诫要防止在职业生涯规划中傲慢情绪（并提倡他所谓的走一步选一步），塔勒布则反对一成不变的预定策略。“我们的预测是脆弱的，而制定的策略并没有考虑到这一事实，最后的结果就是人们被困在一个没有出口的高速公路上”，他在给我的信中写道。“任何有选择余地的策略就像有多个出口的高速公路，”这里的选择是作为采取某个选项的能力并可以从既定的方案中分支出去。
So what does an optionality-based strategy look like for a company? Some thinkers are already on the way. Connected Company coauthor Dave Gray has a game plan for turning an enterprise into an engine of possibility; Click Moment author Frans Johansson exhorts "the wisdom of small bets, " speaking of the effectiveness of creating a minimal viable product that interacts with the random--and serendipitous--forces of the market, allowing us to live happily in a world we don't understand, unlike that contented turkey in mid-November.
那么对于一个公司来说，以选择性为基础的战略是什么样子？一些思想家已经提出了一些建议。《关连公司》的作者之一大卫·格雷有一个游戏计划，使企业转变成为充满机遇的经济发动机；《单击瞬间》的作者弗兰斯·约翰逊建议采取“小赌怡情的智慧”，他讲述了创建与市场中随机和偶然因素互相作用的最小可行性产品的有效性。这些都可以使我们快乐地生活在一个未知世界里，而不是像11月中旬还悠然自得的火鸡君。
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