Once upon a time, I was on a plane with Nassim Talib.

He's a philosopher of sorts and he writes fascinating books, most recently The Black Swan

and Anti-Fragile.

Hello, I'm Nassim Talib.

I'm an author and I would say a statistical engineer.

Talib is originally from Lebanon, he still goes back a few times a year.

He lives just outside of New York City now.

On this plane trip, he told me something I'd never heard before, which is that if you

look at 10 or 20 or 30 of the richest countries around the world that among the richest people

in those countries is someone from Lebanon.

When we met last, we were going from London to South Africa on this beautiful trip with

extremely hospitable people.

So we were going and then suddenly we started discussing Lebanese diaspora.

And when we started talking about this, about how successful the Lebanese diaspora is,

I had three quick reactions.

Number one, interesting if it's true, two, is it true, and three if true, why?

From WNYC, this is Freakonomics Radio, the podcast that explores the hidden side of

everything.

Here's your host, Stephen Dubner.

So the author Nassim Talib, who is Lebanese American, tells us that the Lebanese diaspora

has been incredibly successful.

And he's got some theories, some deep-seated historical theories as to why that is.

...