Hasnae Taleb

Being smart doesn’t stop you from making a bad decision with money. Sometimes it just makes you better at defending it.

You spend weeks researching an investment. You understand the business, check the numbers and put your money in. Then new information comes out that undermines your reason for buying it. Had you known this earlier, you probably wouldn’t have invested. It should be straightforward to reconsider.

Except now it’s your money. You’ve told people how confident you are. You’ve already imagined what this investment could do for your life. Accepting that something has changed means accepting that you might have been wrong. So you keep researching. You dismiss the uncomfortable information and spend more time listening to people who agree with you. You can explain, very convincingly, why you should stay.

Eventually, you say, “I’ll sell when I get back to what I paid.” Think about that for a moment. You started by asking whether this was a good investment. Now your decision depends on getting out without feeling that you failed.

We talk about making money as though the smartest person should always do best. Intelligence matters, of course. But knowing what to do is very different from being able to do it when your pride, your security and years of hard work are involved. That is where emotional stability becomes so important.

It means you can admit you misjudged something without deciding you’re a failure. You can accept a loss without feeling you have to make it back by Friday. You can watch someone else make money without treating their success as an emergency in your own life. And when you’re doing well, you can still question your judgment rather than assume everything you touch will work.

Moral of the story: Learn the numbers. Understand the risks. But pay just as much attention to how you behave when things don’t go your way. Your job is to look after your money, not defend every decision you’ve ever made with it.

6 days ago | [YT] | 88

Hasnae Taleb

Throughout my career, I have been lucky enough to sit and work with some of the most prominent figures in the world. Ministers, ambassadors, CEOs of some of the largest companies on the planet, top athletes and founders who built billion dollar businesses from nothing. People whose names open doors most of us will never even see. And after all these years of watching them up close, I can tell you one thing for sure. They all share a single trait that almost nobody else in the room ever has.

They are the most humble people I have ever met.

Humble in the way that actually matters. They listen more than they speak. They ask questions instead of giving answers. They take notes when everyone else is trying to sound impressive. They treat the driver, the assistant and the waiter with the same respect they give to the person sitting across from them at the table. And no matter how much they have already achieved in their life, they still walk into every conversation like a student.. Curious, open and genuinely willing to learn something new.

The people who stay stuck are usually the opposite. They already know everything. They interrupt. They correct. They fill every silence with their own voice. They mistake being loud for being important, and being defensive for being strong. And then they spend years wondering why the world keeps moving forward without them.

Here is something nobody really tells you when you are young. The higher people rise in life, the smaller their ego tends to get. Because by the time they reach the top, they have already been humbled a hundred times by their industry, by the market, by their own mistakes, and by how complicated the world actually is. They know that nobody becomes truly great alone. They know that the day you stop learning is the day the world quietly stops needing you. And they know that curiosity, not intelligence, is what really separates the extraordinary from everyone else.

Moral of the story: If you want to know how far someone will actually go in life, do not look at their title, their followers or their bank account. Look at how they listen. Look at whether they still ask real questions. Look at whether they are still willing to learn from people who know far less than they do. Because at the end of the day, the world does not belong to the loudest, the smartest or the most connected. It belongs to the humble ones who never stopped growing.

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 44

Hasnae Taleb

I’ve always found it fascinating that the people who perform at the highest level in sport often think exactly like the people who perform at the highest level in business.

Discipline, pressure, competition, consistency. The ability to lose, learn and show up the next day ready to do it again. I was reminded of that at the UAE Pro League Awards.

I spent the evening surrounded by some of the UAE’s top athletes, football leaders and business minds. Different industries, different journeys, completely different worlds and yet the conversations kept coming back to the same thing: how do you keep raising the standard when you’re already performing at the highest level?

That’s what I love about sport. It teaches you very quickly that talent can get you into the game, but discipline is what keeps you there. And I think the same is true in business.

A few moments from a great evening.

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1 month ago | [YT] | 84

Hasnae Taleb

The biggest lie people are told about money is that it belongs to the smartest person in the room. It’s not true.

I have worked with some of the sharpest minds in finance, people with degrees from the best universities in the world, people who can build a financial model in their sleep. And many of them still lose money. Meanwhile, I have watched people with none of that pedigree quietly build serious wealth over the years. The why has nothing to do with intelligence, but everything to do with emotional stability.

In my opinion, people don’t lose money in the market because they lack knowledge. They lose it because they lack discipline. They panic when the market drops. They chase when it runs. They double down when they should be still. They freeze when they should be acting. The moment your emotions take the wheel, the strategy is finished. That is why the greatest investors I have ever met obsess over their routines long before they obsess over their returns. They wake up on time. They train their bodies. They protect their focus. They keep the promises they make to themselves. They understand that a disciplined life is what creates a disciplined investor. A sharp mind is what builds a sharp wallet.

I have seen billion dollar portfolios collapse because a single person could not manage their own mind for 30 minutes during a crisis. And I have seen ordinary people build extraordinary wealth simply because they refused to let noise dictate their decisions. Money runs from stress, from panic, from emotional decisions made at the worst possible moment, and grows where there is focus, clarity, discipline, and emotional control.

Moral of the story: If you want to build real wealth in your life, do not start with the market. Start with yourself. Fix your mornings. Fix your habits. Fix the way you respond to pressure. Build the person first. The portfolio will follow. At the end of the day, the market is just a mirror. Whatever you carry inside will eventually show up in your account.

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2 months ago | [YT] | 148

Hasnae Taleb

If there is one thing I wish every young person understood before they spend another dollar, it is the power of investing. Most people grow up believing money is something you earn, spend, save, and protect. Almost nobody is taught that money can actually work for you, that it can grow on its own, and that the right financial decisions made early in life can change the trajectory of a family for generations. That is the part of the story nobody tells you and it is the part I want to share today.

When I started my career on Wall Street, I assumed everyone around me already understood how investing worked. The truth is, even very smart and very successful people often have no idea how powerful the market can be when you simply give it time. I have met doctors, lawyers, engineers, and brilliant entrepreneurs who built incredible careers but never invested a single dollar outside their checking account. And almost every one of them later said the same thing. “I wish I had started sooner.”

The S&P 500, which is simply the index of the 500 largest companies in the United States, has returned roughly ten percent per year on average over the last several decades. If you had invested $10,000 into an S&P 500 ETF like VOO or SPY thirty years ago and never touched it, you would be sitting on close to $175,000 today. And if you had instead invested $500 every month into the same ETF starting at the age of 25, you would retire with more than $1.1 million.

The beauty of ETFs is that they have made all of this accessible to anyone. You no longer need to be wealthy or connected to invest in the world’s biggest companies. With a low-cost ETF, you can own a small piece of Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia and hundreds of others for less than the cost of a dinner out. And for those who want stronger long-term growth potential and can handle some volatility, technology-focused ETFs like QQQ, which tracks the largest companies on the Nasdaq, have historically delivered even higher returns over time, though never in a straight line.

Moral of the story: Investing has always been about being early, being consistent and being patient. The market does not care about your background, your accent, your family name or your degrees. It rewards anyone who shows up and refuses to leave. Start small if you must, but start. And then let time do what time has always done best.

3 months ago | [YT] | 95

Hasnae Taleb

I want to talk to anyone who is young and feels behind financially, because the biggest lie people in this industry keep selling is that building wealth is complicated. They tell you that you need to be a genius. That you need insider information. That you need the right family, the right network, the right access. None of that is true. And this lie has cost too many young people the only thing they actually have on their side, which is time.

When I started my career on Wall Street, I believed the same lie. I thought wealth belonged to the loud ones, the bold ones, the brilliant ones who walked into a room and dominated it. I sat in the rooms everyone talks about wanting to be in. And after years of watching how money actually moves, I came out with one truth: the wealthiest people in this industry were never the smartest. They were the most patient. They were the ones who showed up every single month and refused to touch their portfolio for thirty years.

Here is the math that should change the way you think about money. An 18-year-old who simply puts $250 a month into the S&P 500 and leaves it alone can retire with over one million dollars. Not because they picked Nvidia or bitcoin at the right moment. But because they gave time enough room to do its work. That is the secret nobody is teaching young people.

The problem is that nobody wants slow. Everyone wants the stock that will double next week, the crypto that will change their life overnight, the shortcut, the secret, the room they think exists somewhere that they have been kept out of. I have been in those rooms. I sat in them for years. And I can tell you with full honesty, there is nothing inside them that beats time.

Moral of the story: Most people overestimate what they can make in a year and underestimate what they can build in twenty. Wealth is rarely created in a moment. It is built slowly, through thousands of small and boring decisions repeated over decades. So if you keep waiting until you have more money, until the market calms down, until life makes sense again, please stop. You are just waiting. Start with $50, start with $100, start with whatever you have, but start. And then stay. That is the entire game.

3 months ago | [YT] | 136

Hasnae Taleb

What a special few days here in Tangier. 🇲🇦

There are journeys you plan for… and then there are journeys that reconnect you with something deeper. This was one of those.

Being part of the National Forum on Investment and Moroccans of the World, surrounded by people carrying vision, ambition and love for home.. it moved me in ways I didn’t expect.

Walking through Tangier Med, you can feel the energy of a nation building with intention. The scale of it all is powerful. Ships moving, factories rising, industries evolving.. cars, aerospace, infrastructure. A statement about where Morocco is heading and what’s possible when belief meets execution.

I also had the privilege of sitting down with Minister Karim Zidane, the General Secretary and the Investment Ministry team to speak about the future, the Investment Charter, the role of the diaspora and how those of us who built careers abroad can reconnect our experience, networks and capital back into the country that shaped us.

One thing I’ve realised over the years is that distance doesn’t weaken your connection to home. If anything, it deepens it. You leave, you grow, you learn… and eventually you understand that part of your purpose is to give something back. And right now, Morocco feels like a country stepping fully into its moment.

Grateful for every conversation, every insight, every person I met along the way. Forever proud. ❤️🇲🇦✨

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3 months ago | [YT] | 151

Hasnae Taleb

I still remember the day I heard about the stock market for the first time.

I was in an economics class. The professor started talking about microeconomics and then mentioned stocks. He said: "Anybody can buy stocks.". I raised my hand and asked: "Even someone like me? A student with a couple hundred dollars in savings?" He said yes. And something inside me caught fire.

I went straight to my room that day and started researching. What is the stock market? How do people buy and sell? I opened paper trading accounts. I tried strategies. I made every mistake a beginner makes. I followed gurus who turned out to be scammers. I traded penny stocks, my first was a pharma company which does not even exist anymore. Eventually, I put in $1,200 of real money and I treated it like my life depended on it because in many ways, it did. That money was supposed to support my education.

Years later, after Morgan Stanley, after Nasdaq, after being part of funds worth billions of dollars, here is what I know for certain: 80 to 90 percent of retail traders fail, and it is purely because of the lack of discipline. They see a screenshot of someone’s profit on Instagram and think that is the norm. They trade with leverage and no stop-loss. They follow signals from strangers. They buy when everyone is buying and panic when everyone is selling.

Trading is a skill. Like playing the piano or driving an F1 car. You would not enter a race without training. But people enter the markets every day without understanding risk, without a system and without any discipline. And then they blame the market.

Moral of the story: If you want to trade, treat it like a craft. Educate yourself. Pick the instruments that suit your risk appetite. Do not put all your eggs in one basket, you may diversify with ETFs. Follow real experts who work at real firms, not strangers flexing on social media. And above all, remember: the first lesson on Wall Street is not how to make money. It is how to protect it.

4 months ago | [YT] | 137

Hasnae Taleb

For the past three years, I’ve been working on something that challenged me more than I expected.. my first book. What started as an idea turned into a real journey. There were moments I questioned everything, changed the direction multiple times and pushed myself to go deeper each time. I knew it couldn’t just be another book. It had to be honest and it had to reflect the reality of what happens behind the scenes, in rooms most people never get access to.

This book is built from every step along the way. From my beginnings in Morocco to the trading floors of Wall Street to building and negotiating deals in Dubai. Every experience shaped it. We’re now in the final stages and while there’s still a bit more and more time before the official launch, I’m excited to start sharing more soon.

For now, I’ll let you guess the topic…

4 months ago | [YT] | 145

Hasnae Taleb

My mother has never seen a trading floor. She has never read a financial statement. She does not know what a derivative is but she gave me the one piece of advice that carried me through Wall Street, through Nasdaq, and through every business I have ever built.

The night before I left Morocco for America, she looked at me and said: "Please remember all the sacrifices I have given you. Do not fail me."
That sentence lived in my head every single day. When my classmates went out to party, I was in my room studying. When I had the chance to take shortcuts, I heard her voice. When I went days without eating to save money for school, I heard her voice.

Growing up, I watched her run a household on almost nothing. Every penny was accounted for. She could make a week of groceries stretch into two. She never called it risk management. But years later, sitting on the trading floor, I realized she had taught me the most important lesson in finance: protect what you have before you chase what you want.
The first thing they teach you on Wall Street is not how to make money. It is how to not lose it. My mother already knew that. She just did not have a Bloomberg terminal.

Every big financial decision I make, every trade, every investment, every business pivot, I ask myself the same question she taught me: what is the worst thing that can happen? And can I survive it? If the answer is yes, I move forward.

Moral of the story: The best education does not always come from the best schools. Some of the sharpest risk managers I know never studied finance. They studied survival. Never underestimate the wisdom of someone who built a life from nothing. They understand risk better than any textbook ever will.

Who taught you the most important lesson about money?

5 months ago | [YT] | 154