Likes Michael Lewis.

Transcript context

…I’ll just read one quote from the book where Lewis writes about the famous 41st floor home of the bond traders at Salomon. He says, "Because the forty-first floor was the chosen home of the firm's most ambitious people, and because there were no rules governing the pursuit of profit and glory, the men who worked there, including the more bloodthirsty, had a hunted look about them. The place was governed by the simple understanding that the unbridled pursuit of perceived self-interest was healthy. Eat or be eaten. The men of 41 worked with one eye cast over their shoulders to see whether someone was trying to do them in, for there was no telling what manner of man had levered himself to the rung below you and was now hungry for your job. The limit of acceptable conduct within Salomon Brothers was wide indeed... Here it was capitalism at its most raw, and it was self-destructive…" I love Michael Lewis. I can make every single one of his books a carve-out at some point. So great. Despite this immense success in the bond market, Salomon and Gutfreund had gotten themselves in a pickle here. Because it's working too well, all these traders, all these wolves of Wall Street are generating so much money, but they're demanding that they're going to get paid all the money. All of it gets paid out in bonuses to all the traders who are constantly demanding more and threatening to leave for other firms that the corporation itself, the recently public company, Salomon Brothers, the profits are actually declining.…

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