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Executive Times |
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2008 Book Reviews |
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Never
Enough by Joe McGinniss |
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Rating: |
*** |
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(Recommended) |
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Click
on title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Reality If
you’re looking to read something about families before your next reunion, or
if you want to increase your appreciation of your own family, be sure to read
Joe McGinness’ new book, Never Enough.
Chances are no matter how dysfunctional your own family is, yours can’t
measure up to the Kissels. If Never Enough were a novel, you’d put it down in
disgust because there’s too much behavior that’s implausible. The joy of true
stories is that people do implausible things. So, Never
Enough is the book version of reality television. Without revealing too
much, brothers Robert and Andrew Kissel are both murdered, one in Hong Kong
and the other in Greenwich, Connecticut. A Hong Kong jury found Rob’s wife,
Nancy, guilty of his murder. Andrew’s case remains unsolved, but when he was
killed, he was having money, marriage and legal problems. Here’s an excerpt, from the beginning of Chapter 5, “Goldman Sachs,”
pp. 34-6: In
the 1990s, the poaching of investment banking stars became the rule rather than the exception on
Wall Street. Cadres of headhunters roamed the canyons like guerrilla bands.
If you were an investment banker and you weren't regularly offered a
higher-paying job at a more prestigious firm, there was something you weren't
doing right. Rob had been performing
brilliantly at Lazard. And Lazard, though slowly sliding from the first tier
of investment banks, remained a land of plenty for headhunters. In 1996,
Rob's was among the heads hunted and delivered to Goldman Sachs. If boys of
an earlier era had dreamed of one day wearing a New York Yankee uniform,
rookie investment bankers in the 199os yearned for the day when they could
hold in their hand a business card that said Goldman Sachs. By almost any
standard of measurement, Goldman Sachs was the leading investment bank in
the world. "Money is always
fashionable," Henry Goldman, son of the bank's founder, said late in the
nineteenth century. For the next hundred years, Goldman set the standard for
haute couture in the banking world. It achieved its preeminence by being, as
senior partner Gus Levy said in 1969, "long-term greedy." As a private
partnership, Goldman did not have to answer to shareholders who expected
spectacular earnings growth every quarter. Instead, the bank could formulate
strategies that would play out over years. The corporate culture at
Goldman stressed teamwork. The slogan "At Goldman Sachs we never say
'I'" was taken seriously. Nonetheless, the bank rewarded individual
performance with salary and bonus packages that were stupendous even by the
lavish standards of the industry. Rob was at the point in his career when
promising young bankers were given three- to four-year tours of duty
overseas. The world of finance was global, and banks wanted their rising
stars to gain experience in nerve centers other than Wall Street. In 1997, the most dynamic,
hypersensitive financial nerve center in the world was Hong Kong. The myth of
the "Asian miracle" still carried the force of doctrinal truth.
For more than a decade, led by Japan, Asian societies had been honing their
economic systems to the finest of points. The region had it all: the strong
work ethic, the focus on education, the thrifty populace, and the ability to
manufacture cheaply and export products that other countries were hungry to
buy. Asia would own the twenty-first century—all the magazines and TV news
shows said so. Everyone in the financial realm rushed to stake his claim.
Banks loaned money, mutual funds bought stocks and bonds, investors built
factories and office buildings, currency traders sold deutsche marks and
dollars to buy baht and won and rupiah. On the receiving end, men who'd been
driving motorbikes all their lives were suddenly debating the merits of
various models of Mercedes-Benzes. This was the future, the
experts agreed. Asia ruled. The good times were rolling and they were here to
stay. The first ones now would always be first. If it was already too late to
get in on the ground floor, there was plenty of space on the mezzanine. The
world's leading financial journals spoke with one voice: any dollar not
invested in Asia might as well stay under the mattress. Hong
Kong seemed the perfect place for a rising star like Rob Kissel to perfect
his skills. He rejoiced when he learned he'd be heading there. "They
only send winners," he told friends. "This means I'm on the fast
track to make partner. Hong Kong is the key to the mint." If
schadenfreude is up your alley, be sure to read Never
Enough. Steve
Hopkins, May 15, 2008 |
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The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the June 2008 issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Never Enough.htm For Reprint Permission, Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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