Gem of the day

Was Deepwater Horizon a 'black swan' event? Unsurprisingly, not even BP can make up their own minds about that:

• CEO Bob Dudley says no: "It would be a mistake to dismiss our experience of last year simply as a black swan, a one-in-a-million occurrence that carries no wider application for the industry as a whole," he told an industry conference in March.
• EVP and Group Chief of Staff Dev Sanyal says yes: "Nassim Nicholas Taleb – the writer, academic and trader – defines a Black Swan as an event that occurs outside the realm of regular expectations...And BP – as you know – experienced such an event with the accident two years ago in the Gulf of Mexico resulting in 11 fatalities. It was a tragic accident and one that we deeply regret," he said at a symposium in May.

That must be the kind of cognitive dissonance BP is talking about when they define "what BP is looking for" on their global careers website:

"BP is an organisation as diverse as it is distinct."