Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the Lebanese-American essayist, mathematical statistician, and best-selling author of The Black Swan and Antifragile, has publicly refused an invitation to lecture in Azerbaijan, citing the continued unjust imprisonment of Armenian philanthropist and former Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) State Minister Ruben Vardanyan. Taleb announced the decision on his X account, saying he turned down the invitation despite organizers substantially increasing their offer.
“Was asked to go to Azerbaijan for a lecture. I declined (they yuugely upped their offer, not understanding my ethics, thinking it would make a difference),” Taleb wrote. “I will not set foot in Azerbaijan with Reuben Vardanyan jailed there.”
Taleb, a Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering, is one of the most widely read essayists of the past two decades. His five-volume Incerto series, which includes The Black Swan (2007) and Antifragile (2012), has been translated into dozens of languages and has shaped how policymakers, financial institutions, and academics think about risk, randomness, and uncertainty. His commentary on X reaches more than one million followers.
Vardanyan, a Russian-born Armenian businessman and philanthropist and co-founder of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, served as the first State Minister of Artsakh from November 2022 until February 2023. He was abducted by Azerbaijani forces on September 27, 2023, at the Lachin Corridor while fleeing Artsakh alongside more than 100,000 Armenians forcibly displaced by Azerbaijan’s military assault and ethnic cleansing of the region. On February 17, 2026, after more than two years of unjust imprisonment, the Baku Military Court sentenced Vardanyan to 20 years in prison on 42 trumped-up charges including terrorism, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, all of which he denies. The court did not read the full judgment during the hearing.
Amnesty International called the sentence a “travesty” and said the trial was “incompatible with fair trial guarantees.” Vardanyan’s legal team said the verdict was “legally unsustainable” and the product of proceedings “driven by political considerations and fundamentally incompatible with the standards of a fair trial.” On July 22, 2026, an application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on Vardanyan’s behalf after he declined to appeal within the Azerbaijani legal system, which he described as “staged and predetermined.”
Taleb has publicly advocated for Vardanyan’s release since December 2023, shortly after visiting Armenia to speak at the Science and Business Days conference in Yerevan. In a December 7, 2023 post on X, Taleb called Vardanyan a friend and wrote that he was being treated “not even as a prisoner of war, but as a ‘terrorist.’”
Vardanyan is one of 19 Armenian hostages unjustly held in Azerbaijan, seized in September 2023 during the ethnic cleansing that forced the entire Armenian population from occupied Artsakh. He remains imprisoned in Baku.