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WINNER OF THE 2016 FT & McKINSEY BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR
AWARD, this is the biography of one of the titans of financial
history over the last fifty years. Born in 1926, Alan Greenspan was
raised in Manhattan by a single mother and immigrant grandparents
during the Great Depression but by quiet force of intellect, rose
to become a global financial 'maestro'. Appointed by Ronald Reagan
to Chairman of the Federal Reserve, a post he held for eighteen
years, he presided over an unprecedented period of stability and
low inflation, was revered by economists, adored by investors and
consulted by leaders from Beijing to Frankfurt. Both data-hound and
eligible society bachelor, Greenspan was a man of contradictions.
His great success was to prove the very idea he, an advocate of the
Gold standard, doubted: that the discretionary judgements of a
money-printing central bank could stabilise an economy. He resigned
in 2006, having overseen tumultuous changes in the world's most
powerful economy. Yet when the great crash happened only two years
later many blamed him, even though he had warned early on of
irrational exuberance in the market place. Sebastian Mallaby
brilliantly shows the subtlety and complexity of Alan Greenspan's
legacy. Full of beautifully rendered high-octane political
infighting, hard hitting dialogue and stories, The Man Who Knew is
superbly researched, enormously gripping and the story of the
making of modern finance.
The first book of its kind: a fascinating and entertaining
examination of hedge funds today Shortlisted for the Financial
Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award 'An enormously
satisfying book: a gripping chronicle of the cutting edge of the
financial markets and a fascinating perspective on what was going
on in these shadowy institutions as the crash hit' Observer
Wealthy, powerful, and potentially dangerous, hedge-find managers
have emerged as the stars of twenty-first century capitalism. Based
on unprecedented access to the industry, More Money Than God
provides the first authoritative history of hedge funds. This is
the inside story of their origins in the 1960s and 1970s, their
explosive battles with central banks in the 1980s and 1990s, and
finally their role in the financial crisis of 2007-9. Hedge funds
reward risk takers, so they tend to attract larger-than-life
personalities. Jim Simons began life as a code-breaker and
mathematician, co-authoring a paper on theoretical geometry that
led to breakthroughs in string theory. Ken Griffin started out
trading convertible bonds from his Harvard dorm room. Paul Tudor
Jones happily declared that a 1929-style crash would be 'total
rock-and-roll' for him. Michael Steinhardt was capable of reducing
underlings to sobs. 'All I want to do is kill myself,' one said.
'Can I watch?' Steinhardt responded. A saga of riches and rich
egos, this is also a history of discovery. Drawing on insights from
mathematics, economics and psychology to crack the mysteries of the
market, hedge funds have transformed the world, spawning new
markets in exotic financial instruments and rewriting the rules of
capitalism. And while major banks, brokers, home lenders, insurers
and money market funds failed or were bailed out during the crisis
of 2007-9, the hedge-fund industry survived the test, proving that
money can be successfully managed without taxpayer safety nets.
Anybody pondering fixes to the financial system could usefully
start here: the future of finance lies in the history of hedge
funds.
From an award-winning financial historian comes the gripping,
character-driven story of venture capital and the world it made
Innovations rarely come from "experts." Jeff Bezos was not a
bookseller; Elon Musk was not in the auto industry. When it comes
to innovation, a legendary venture capitalist told Sebastian
Mallaby, the future cannot be predicted, it can only be discovered.
Most attempts at discovery fail, but a few succeed at such a scale
that they more than make up for everything else. That extreme ratio
of success and failure is the power law that drives venture
capital, Silicon Valley, the tech sector, and, by extension, the
world. Drawing on unprecedented access to the most celebrated
venture capitalists of all time, award-winning financial historian
Sebastian Mallaby tells the story of this strange tribe of
financiers who have funded the world's most successful companies,
from Google to SpaceX to Alibaba. With a riveting blend of
storytelling and analysis, The Power Law makes sense of the seeming
randomness of success in venture capital, an industry that relies,
for good and ill, on gut instinct and personality rather than
spreadsheets and data. We learn the unvarnished truth about some of
the most iconic triumphs and infamous disasters in the history of
tech, from the comedy of errors that was the birth of Apple to the
venture funding that fostered hubris at WeWork and Uber to the
industry's notorious lack of women and ethnic minorities. Now the
power law echoes around the world: it has transformed China's
digital economy beyond recognition, and London is one of the top
cities for venture capital investment. By taking us so deeply into
the VCs' game, The Power Law helps us think about our own future
through their eyes.
"Splendid...the definitive history of the hedge fund, a compelling
narrative full of larger-than-life characters and dramatic tales."
-- "The Washington Post"
Wealthy, powerful, and potentially dangerous, hedge fund moguls
have become the It Boys of twenty-first- century capitalism.
Beating the market was long thought to be impossible, but hedge
funds cracked its mysteries and made fortunes in the process.
Drawing on his unprecedented access to the industry, esteemed
financial writer Sebastian Mallaby tells the inside story of the
hedge funds, from their origins in the 1960s to their role in the
financial crisis of 2007 to 2009.
Never has the World Bank's relief work been more important than
in the last nine years, when crises as huge as AIDS and the
emergence of terrorist sanctuaries have threatened the prosperity
of billions. This journalistic masterpiece by Washington Post
columnist Sebastian Mallaby charts those controversial years at the
Bank under the leadership of James Wolfensohn--the unstoppable
power broker whose daring efforts to enlarge the planet's wealth in
an age of globalization and terror were matched only by the force
of his polarizing personality. Based on unprecedented access to its
subject, this captivating tour through the messy reality of global
development is that rare triumph--an emblematic story through which
a gifted author has channeled the spirit of the age.This edition
features a new afterword by the author that analyzes the
appointment of Paul Wolfowitz as Wolfensohn's successor at the
World bank
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