What is an example of black swans?

The 2008 crash: Almost no one saw it coming, it changed everything, and afterward everyone claimed it was inevitable.

Where do you see black swans in everyday life?

The 2008 crash; A pandemic; The viral hit; The startup unicorn; The turkey before Thanksgiving.

Stop trying to predict rare events and instead ask "could I survive one?" — robustness beats forecasting.

The Black Swan · Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Curated by Paulo de Vries · reviewed 2026-05-30

A black swan is a rare, unpredictable event with huge impact that looks obvious only in hindsight. You can't forecast them, so build to survive them.

The 2008 crash
Almost no one saw it coming, it changed everything, and afterward everyone claimed it was inevitable.
A pandemic
A once-in-a-century shock that reshaped work, travel, and economies overnight.
The viral hit
One post explodes from nowhere and makes a career, while a thousand 'sure things' flop.
The startup unicorn
The outlier that returns the whole fund — impossible to pick in advance, obvious once it happens.
The turkey before Thanksgiving
Taleb's image: every fed day 'proves' the farmer is friendly — until the one day that wasn't in the data.

Stop trying to predict rare events and instead ask "could I survive one?" — robustness beats forecasting.
Keep a buffer (savings, slack, backups) so an unforeseeable shock is an inconvenience, not a catastrophe.
Beware tidy explanations of past surprises; they create false confidence that you'll see the next one coming.

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