F.I.A.S.C.O. [antikvár]

Preface From 1993 to 1995,1 sold derivatives on Wail Street. During that time, the seventy or so people I worked with in the derivatives group at Morgan Stanley in New York, London, and Tokyo generated total fees of about $ 1 billion - an average of almost $15 million a person. We were arguably the most profitable group of people in the world. My group was the biggest moneymaker at the firm by far Morgan Stanley is the oldest and most prestigious of the top investment banks, and the derivatives group was the engine that drove Morgan Stanley. The $I billion we made was enough to pay the salaries of most of the firm's ten thousand worldwide employees, with plenty left for us. The managers in my group received millions and millions in bonuses; even our lowest level employees had six-figure incomes. And many of us, including me, were still in our twenties. How did we make so much money? In part, it was because we were smart. I worked with the greatest minds in the derivatives business. We mastered the complexities of modern finance, and it is no coincidence that we were called "rocket scientists." This was not the Morgan Stanley of yore. In the 1920s, the white-shoe investment bank developed a reputation for gentility and was renowned for fresh flowers and fine furniture, an elegant partners' dining room, and conservative business practices. The firm's credo was: "First class business in a first class way." However, during the banking heyday of the 1980s, the firm faced intense competition from other banks and slipped from its number one spot. In response, Morgan Stanley's partners shifted their focus from prestige to profits - and thereby transformed the