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Black Swan

Technical Strategy Buzzword Finance

A rare, unforeseeable, massive-impact event, per Taleb. Corporate use has expanded it to include foreseeable events nobody budgeted for, which is most of them, which is not what the book said.

Heard in the wild

“They called the supplier bankruptcy a black swan; the credit rating had said otherwise for a year.”

Tone check: Technical

Genuine black swans are rare. The phrase mostly launders negligence into philosophy — Taleb has said so, loudly.

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