Blog
Prose, reflections and notes.
Alongside the poems and translations of Bayt al-Hikma (House of Wisdom), this is where I write in prose: on literature and language, the places and people that shaped me, and the questions that follow me.
Literature
Five Favourite PoetsFour languages, twenty poets, and the verses I return to.Explore the poets
Finance · Financial risk management
Black SwansFat tails, Black Swans and why financial risk models keep failing. First published on LinkedIn in 2019.Explore the essays
- Jun 2019
The Tail Risk of Being Bowled: Why Chief Risk Officers Must Play Cricket
What cricket batting teaches banks about fat tails, Black Swans and why risk management is about survival, not profit.
4 min read - Jun 2019
Law of Large Numbers: Can a Billionaire Be 14 Miles Tall?
Why the Law of Large Numbers converges quickly for height but painfully slowly for wealth, and what that means for risk models.
6 min read - Jul 2019
Black Swan Risk: Why Financial Regulators Never See It Coming
What makes an event a Black Swan, why it dominates everything else, and why the Basel accords still leave it out.
6 min read - Jul 2019
The (ab)Normal Normal, Part I: Where Two Giraffes Can Have a Horse
The Normal distribution, the curve of nature, and why it fails in the informational world of finance.
10 min read - 2019
The (ab)Normal Normal, Part II: All Models Are Wrong
How physics envy and the Great Scientist effect led finance to build its models on the Normal distribution.
10 min read
Technology
Technology
Essays on banking technology, AI agents and runtime governance are on their way.