Nassim N. Taleb is  Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering at New York University Polytechnic Institute and Principal at Universa Investments. He is known for a multidisciplinary approach to the role of the high-impact rare event ("Black Swan") –across philosophy, economics, finance, engineering, cognitive science, and history. His current program is to design ways to live in a world we don't quite understand and help "robustify" the world against the Black Swan. Taleb is, among other books and research papers, the author of the NYT Bestseller The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. His books have more than two and a half million copies in print in 31 languages, making him one of the most read and most translated essayists in history. Before starting his career as a scholar of risk he spent 21 years as a derivatives trader. He has an MBA from Wharton and a PhD from the University of Paris.