This is a story about how Ross Perot of EDS (Electronic Data System) rescued two of its two employees from Iran when the revolution happened in 1979 that overthrew Shah’s government. The chaos that ensued was simply incredible and mind boggling.

EDS was involved in setting up and running Iran’s social security system. When the government ran out of money and didn’t pay for their service coupled with the Shah’s departure from power, they decided to retreat back to Dallas, TX. The last two US employee, Paul and Bill, became the hostages of the tenacious antagonist of the story, Dadgar, who jailed them without an accusation/indictment, then managed to chase them to the edge of the border.

Ross Perot tried to rescue them through diplomatic means without success. So he resorted to hiring a squad of people consisted of Bull Simon and other EDS recruits to go into Iran trying to bust them out of the jail. Thanks to the revolution, the mobs and the quick wit of Rashid, an EDS Iranian employee, they escaped the prison and ran into the rescue team. Now the hard time of getting out of Iran in the middle of anarchy where warlords of each village would stop them from reaching the Turkey border.

The readers can glean from this book what it is like to be in a modern revolution, which doesn’t happen often. The lawlessness in a middle of government transition from that of a dictator to that of a religion zealot, combined with the race conflicts made this country a tinder box until this day. It’s amazing how ordinary people live through that era and it’s probably difficult for Americans to comprehend in our stable and law-binding (mostly) society.

I am impressed by the courage of the EDS people to go into the line of fire to rescue a colleague. Employees nowadays would not be least expected to do anything like that.

This book should serve as a warning to the big corporate executives that doing business within a country lacking legal infrastructure is difficult like in this case.

In summary, this is a well researched story that read like a thriller novel. Ross Perot really showed his leadership and pure guts in getting his people out of Iran. I total changed my opinion of him since his run for Presidency back in 1992. The audiobook was quite enjoyable. Ken Follett did a great job in writing this book. Someone should make a movie from this book. Simply mesmerizing!

Nassim Nicholas Taleb has a real winner in this book. This is a consummation of all the thoughts and beliefs, including the book “The Black Swan” he authored. I had a review on that book.. There are numerous concepts that Taleb presented which I will not attempt to summarize; I’ll just cover my key learning/takeaways:

My key takeaways:
1. Being anti-fragile means the more you get beaten the better you get. It’s not just being “robust” or “rigorous” but thrive on the punches being thrown at you. It’s an antidote to the “Black Swan” events, like Mother Nature.
2. The strategy of being anti-fragile as applied to your livelihood or survival is to have a barbell strategy – a steady risk-adverse job with consistent income while pursuing a risk-seeking opportunity on the side. I interpret it as having a dual-path income streams: one that pays the bill and another that has a potentially huge upside. I believe this can be applied to your investment portfolio as well.
3. Via Negativa is an interesting chapter about taking things away to increase your anti-fragility.
4. “Never trust the words of a man who is not free.” Trust a mobster (e.g. Meyer Lansky) but not a civil servant (e.g. Lawrence of Arabia).
5. On ethics, “If you see fraud and do not say fraud, you are a fraud.”
6. Fat Tony’s character is rather interesting – he’s an epitome of the author himself. I like his straightforward and take no-prisoner style.
7. Redundancy is a form of anti-fragility; it gives you the option to be opportunistic. Like having extra oil reserve can be profitable during a oil squeeze.
8. Post-traumatic growth may allow a person live up more than his/her potential after subjecting to traumatic stress – like author’s lifting weight and turning into a “bodyguard.”
9. Some criticism (stresser) can be validating your position – it means you’re generating envy from others. A corporation or government may be fragile when they try to “instill” confidence – unlike a book author can generate publicity by making a news, e.g. beating up an economist.
10. What kills me make others stronger – like plane crashes result in better design for all travelers due to the lessons learned in designing a safer product.
11. Evolution like randomness (like random mutations) to a certain point.
12. Organic products tend to be more reliable than the mechanical.
13. Bottom-up governing (like Switzerland) is more anti-fragile than the top-down bureaucracy due to randomness that strengthen the structure. A taxi-cab driver’s income has more variation than a civil servant or bank worker (or a turkey until before the Thanksgiving) but it’s more anti-fragile.
14. Iatrogenics is doing more harm when trying to be helpful like certain medicines and Fed’s policy during 2007 to iron out the “boom-bust cycle,” and etc. Sometimes, procrastination (like seeing a doctor while healthy or for an elective procedure) may be a good thing.
15. Forecasting or trusting the forecast could be downright harmful to the risk-takers.
16. Having the “optionality” (like going to a “drop-in” party, not obligation, or living in a rent-controlled apartment) allows one to be antifragile. In author’s term, option = asymmetry (benefits more than losing) + rationality (keeping what’s good and ditching the bad). “Life is long gamma” = Life benefits from volatility and variability.
17. Author’s dislike of academia is clear throughout the book. He doesn’t believe it fosters innovation and antifragility except for the administrators and the professors themselves.

Overall, this is a real masterpiece. It’s funny and full of ideas that make you think once you get over Taleb’s sense of humor and his abrasiveness. It’s a must read for everyone for his/her career, investment, and how he/she perceives the world and the systems driving it.