25 years later. He is extremely cynical about how WS has evolved since the publication--not without justification, I think.
One of the strongest ironies surrounding that book and other negative media about WS is that, far from acting as a cautionary guide, many bright kids coming out of college in the intervening years took it as a how-too book--minus the strippers, of course.
Michael Lewis: It had the opposite effect of what I expected. I didn't think of it as a moralistic tale about Wall Street ... but I did think that for someone who had some other idea of what to do with their lives, it would demystify it, and maybe they could go on and do what they were supposed to do.
Instead, I swear after six months, I had a thousand letters from kids saying, "I'm a junior at Ohio State and I've read your how-to book about how to get ahead on Wall Street. Is there anything you left out? Because you made me even more interested in doing it." |
This has apparently been true about several major negative pieces about WS, such as the movie "Wall Street." That was depicted in the movie "Boiler Room," which had young scam artist brokers memorizing lines from the earlier movie.
I connected most with the insight into guy's who worked their way up out of the mail room like Rainieri, and the insiders view into how the money is made and lost, etc, more than the crazy stories of debauchery, which exist in many industrial centers of wealth and power, though are/were especially common in Wall St. of the 80s.
Overall, it was groundbreaking for how it opened the kimono on that culture. And so well-written and entertaining. He's an fantastic writer no doubt, and have read many of his books and articles since.
His funniest book that didn't sell that well was The New New Thing, which had me laughing out loud, which is very rare.
I have the Big Short at home (know many of the stories, but have not read it).
Did not read Moneyball, not that interested in baseball.
Have not read Flashboys yet, but one of the key players (a good guy) was my boss for about a year at a well known investment bank...and I worked with and knew a few others based on the 60 minutes piece.
Link - ( New Window )
The evidence is how incredibly awful she was in her discussion of the municipal bond sector. A truly world class merger of ego and incompetence. Would she be so smart one time, and so incredibly stupid the next if left to her own devices in both cases? I am guessing "no."
Enzo...yes I remember that postscript
for those who liked it...essential to know the second coda story of LTCM...kinda of a bridge in a way to trends which played out again and again up to 2008...and then morphed again into a story of the brilliantly misguided.
and as prologue the almost quaint Barbarians at the Gate captured the same kind of hyper greed for a smaller stakes played by a crasser breed.
Agree Manh...like Abby and other over promoted guru's of WS...I thought Meredith eventually spent too much time with sell side "analysts" who contrived sophist arguments but forgot it was a hall of mirrors.
remember Henry the K
The evidence is how incredibly awful she was in her discussion of the municipal bond sector. A truly world class merger of ego and incompetence. Would she be so smart one time, and so incredibly stupid the next if left to her own devices in both cases? I am guessing "no."
MG - I grew up in the world a bank analyst. Whitney was a competitor of ours. It is fact that hedge funds fed her the housing bubble data and analysis, particularly Steve Eisman, as he was originally her mentor at Oppenheimer.
To Meredith's credit, and maybe this is why Eisman used her, she was and is very good with the media - she markets herself well. Also pretty cool that she married a professional wrestler.
But I know several people that know her well - she is anything but a genius. Helps to know the right people though.
Bloomberg - ( New Window )
Well surely it's just a matter of time until her 6th derivative guesstimates pay off big...