Hacker News Comments on
Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk
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The author credits marine insurance with influencing the growth of trade, but missed a crucial point - insurance made possible long-distance trading in boring, low-margin commodities. The author barely mentions what was being shipped. The Dutch became known as "Herring-tamers". The Dutch also innovated in cost accounting, to make sure the low-risk low-margin operations were profitable. Covered on HN at [1].
Related: "Against the Gods, the remarkable story of risk" (1998, Bernstein).[2] That, too, is a history of marine insurance, but covers more of the Lloyds of London view. That book is clearer on the role of insurance in making boring businesses profitable. Early shipping was focused on high-value cargoes, and voyages were referred to as "ventures". This is where the term "venture capital" comes from, as does the phrase "waiting for their ship to come in". Investors put in money for a voyage as a risky investment. The thesis mentions that in the pre-insurance era, people were buying shares in ships, and one investor had shares in 78 different ships. Note the similarity to the YCombinator business model.
(Yes, I'm getting bored enough to write this.)
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18761704
[2] https://www.amazon.com/Against-Gods-Remarkable-Story-Risk/dp...
⬐ mr_overallsI came here to plug the same book. I read "Against the Gods" as part of an effort to understand business topics on a more fundamental level, and was not disappointed.As a self-identified "tech guy", my eyes previously glazed over when someone mentioned financial topics like insurance. However, I came to understand insurance as deeply tied to human efforts to move civilization forward in a stochastic and uncertain world. Fantastic book.
I strongly recommend "Against The Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk" (1996) [1] for a fascinating, historical perspective on people's growing understanding of probability and statistics over the last few millennia.The author, Peter Bernstein [2], was brilliant and his other works also merit your attention if you are interested in economics and finance.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Against-Gods-Remarkable-Story-Risk/dp...
No, they used stochastic to reduce risk and find patterns in the markets.http://www.amazon.com/Against-Gods-Remarkable-Story-Risk/dp/...
You prefer the old fashion way?
Aren't startups gambling with other people's money? What's the success rate there? 1 in 100?
Ha! Just this morning I was reading about the development of probability theory and risk management in "Against the Gods" by Peter Bernstein [1]. I just finished the chapter on the Bernoullis contributions. Interesting read![1] http://www.amazon.com/Against-Gods-Remarkable-Story-Risk/dp/...
⬐ jackgavigan'Against the Gods' is an excellent book. I can't recommend it highly enough to anybody who is at all interested in any kind of risk, or the financial markets.
There is a great book out there called ' Against the Gods ' by Peter Bernstein. http://www.amazon.com/Against-Gods-Remarkable-Story-Risk/dp/... It has the fantastic story of how a lot of mathematical computations are a product of the effort to quantify risk.