When Genius Failed

“When Genius Failed” is really good. Lot of parallels to tech where folks are visionaries right up until the day that they’re not and how things that we don’t truly understand can go haywire

Editing: Editor of Genius by A. Scott Berg >>> Max Perkins was the editor of Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, F Scott Fitzgerald, and other famous 20th century writers. Great, great, book. Bartending: Cosmopolitan by Toby Cecchini >>> Very well-written memoir of a bartender in New York in the late 1980s. He invented the Cosmo in NYC while working at the Odeon — on a lark, without thinking much of it. The drink took off, but I think he's still a working bartender in NYC. Cooking: Kitchen Confidential by Bourdain Painting: Interviews with Francis Bacon by David Sylvester Music: Meet me in the Bathroom by Lizzy Goodman Tech: Chaos Monkeys by AGM And seconding swyx's recommendations for all things Michael Lewis, who can spin a good yarn about any profession — whether it's baseball managers, junk bond salesmen, or high frequency traders, etc.…

Ex finance guy here - Liar's Poker for 1980s Wall Street, When Genius Failed for 1990s, More Money Than God for 2000s, Flash Boys for 2010s - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar%27s_Poker - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Genius_Failed - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_Money_Than_God - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_Boys obviously these do not represent all of finance but its a nice decade-by-decade recap of talking points, i figured i'd try to do it and was surprised how nicely it broke out

"The End of Alchemy" by Mervyn King is a great book that explains fiscal/monetary policy and the modern banking system from the ground up. King was the head of the Bank of England during the last recession. This was the book that made me "get it". "When Genius Failed" by Roger Lowenstein is the story of the fall of Long Term Capital Management which was basically the biggest hedge fund failure ever. Teaches you a lot about modern high finance and systemic risk.

Did read _When Genius Failed_. Is indeed a great read.

Here's a few I've really liked that have a broader subject matter than only what you asked for. I figure that if you like to read you'd like these books. --- NON-FICTION --- Darkness Visible A Mathemematician's Apology Omnivore's Dilemma Fermat's Enigma The Code Book Born to Run Judgement of Paris Siddhartha Killing Pablo The Victorian Internet Lone Survivor I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman Papillon Into Thin Air Born on a Blue Day Touching the Void Got Fight The Conquest of Happiness --- FICTION --- Switch Bitch Lost Horizon The Cuckoo's Egg The Simlarillion The Time Traveler's Wife The Alchemist The Count of Monte Cristo A Canticle for Leibowitz Neverwhere My Uncle Oswald Stories of Your Life and Others Invisible Cities Life of Pi Atlas Shrugged --- WALL STREET / FINANCE --- When Genius Failed Liar's Poker Buffett (Lowenstein) Bull! Black-Scholes and Beyond (textbook) Fixed Income Securities (textbook) The Road to Serfdom The Smartest Guys in the Room Fortune's Formula The Fourth Turning Inside the House of Money --- ENTREPRENEURSHIP / COMPUTERS (non-textbook) --- Masters of Doom It's Not About the Bike Dot. Bomb Founders at Work The PayPal Wars…