When Integrity Becomes Strength
Nassim Nicholas Taleb recently wrote that people who consistently succeed “never, practically never, do anything in bad faith.” His advice was simple: take the last 5% of bad faith you tolerate in yourself — the tiny shortcuts, rationalizations, and evasions — and reduce it to zero.
For me, the idea felt familiar. Taleb had stumbled into a principle that sits at the heart of Torah, the heart of medicine, and the heart of building a company whose mission is to fight liver cancer.
The Torah Saw It First
In Parashat Mishpatim, the Torah does not simply forbid lying. It commands:
“מדבר שקר תרחק” —
Distance yourself from falsehood. (Exodus 23:7)
A life of integrity is not about avoiding big lies; it’s about eliminating even the smallest pockets of bad faith. Chazal call truth “the seal of God.” Truth is what makes a person — and a society — resilient. Falsehood, even in small doses, makes everything fragile.
Taleb describes the same phenomenon in secular language:
bad faith destroys systems from within; radical honesty makes them antifragile.
Orthopraxy: Judaism’s Practical Genius
Judaism is not primarily a faith of ideas. It is a faith of orthoprax — right action. We shape ourselves through the tiny, daily disciplines of integrity: accurate weights, honest speech, fair dealings, transparent motives. The Torah teaches that God is found in the details of moral clarity.
Taleb would say the same thing using a graph:
Small acts of truth compound; small acts of dishonesty metastasize.
Medicine: Trust Is the First Treatment
As a physician, I know that medicine collapses without trust. A patient doesn’t measure your sincerity by your CV. They sense it in your candor, your willingness to admit uncertainty, your refusal to cut moral corners.
Good faith is the first intervention.
Bad faith is the first toxin.
“Distance yourself from falsehood” could sit comfortably inside the Hippocratic Oath.
Building a Company to Fight Liver Cancer
The same principle forms the backbone of any biotech venture dedicated to saving lives. When the goal is to bring hope to patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, there is no room for exaggeration or convenient blindness.
A cancer-fighting company must be built on radical honesty:
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honesty in the data
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honesty in limitations
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honesty in risk
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honesty in conversations with regulators, collaborators, investors, and, ultimately, patients
Science can be brilliant, and technology can be elegant — but without integrity, the entire enterprise is fragile. When a company is built on good faith, it becomes structurally sound enough to carry the weight of human hope.
A Culture Starved for Good Faith
We live in an age where cynicism is fashionable and moral shortcuts are often shrugged off. In such a world, Taleb’s advice is revolutionary — and deeply Jewish:
Reduce bad faith to zero. All of it.
That simple commitment forms the foundation of Torah life, medical ethics, and responsible scientific innovation. It is also the only durable path forward for anyone trying to bring new treatments to people who are fighting for their lives.
In Torah language:
emet strengthens. Sheker collapses.
In Taleb’s language:
Good faith is antifragile.
In my own experience, whether treating a patient or building a therapy for liver cancer, it’s the same truth: