First published 2010
Sebastian Mallaby chronicles the rise of hedge fund titans from the 1960s through the 2008 financial crisis. Drawing on three hundred hours of interviews, he profiles figures like Ken Griffin, who began trading convertible bonds from his Harvard dormitory before founding Citadel. Julian Robertson recruited young college athletes to his fund and raced them up Rocky Mountain peaks. Paul Tudor Jones compared market crashes to rock and roll, while Michael Steinhardt terrorized employees with brutal remarks. These managers cracked market mysteries using insights from physics, economics, and psychology to generate massive fortunes. Their innovations created exotic financial instruments and transformed capitalism itself. Mallaby argues that hedge funds repeatedly survived crises that destroyed traditional banks, brokers, and insurers. While institutions like Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and AIG collapsed or required bailouts during 2008, hedge funds weathered the storm better than their competitors. The book reveals how these firms will shape tomorrow's financial landscape.
Genres: history, business, politics, economics, non-fiction, finance
Vibes: informative, insightful, thought-provoking
Tropes: investigative-journalism, rise-and-fall
Setting: Harvard, Rocky Mountains
Period: 1960s, 2008-financial-crisis
496 pages · Hardcover · Penguin Press