Taleb argues that we are built to be fooled by theories. He says, “Theories come and go, experience stays.” Fat Tony trusts experience and, in one anecdote, becomes rich in 1991 when he bets against the experts who believe the price of oil will rise with the first Gulf War. The theory is that a war causes hoarding and bottlenecks yet, as Tony notes, the date of the war was known so far in advance that too much oil had been hoarded. Tony is beholden to no theories. He simply looked at the figures, saw there were more barrels of oil than the world needed, and bet on the price falling, which is exactly what happened.

via The Lebanese Method | The Majalla Magazine.