All Swans Are Black

The old playbook is dead. We have entered an era defined by nonlinear dynamics, where AI startups outpace trillion-dollar giants and a single digital token reshapes financial reality overnight. In All Swans Are Black, economic historian Dror Poleg argues that unpredictable, high-impact events are no longer the exception, but the rule. Poleg explains how the shift from tangible factories to intangible assets like software and stories has fractured the relationship between effort and reward. To navigate this chaos, he provides a practical toolkit for a world where nobody knows anything: Leave slack: Maintain flexibility to survive downturns while staying ready for sudden upside. Make asymmetrical bets: Lean toward actions where the cost of failure is low but the potential reward is uncapped. Find patterns: Stop overanalyzing why things happen and start identifying the recurring patterns that actually drive results. Stay hungry: Assume that whatever helped you get ahead today will not be enough to keep you there tomorrow. Blending rigorous research with his experience as a combat veteran, executive and tech founder, Poleg shows you how to stop trying to predict the future and instead, learn to flourish under uncertaintystart flourishing within its uncertainty.