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I haven't written a book review since middle school. The ones I read usually annoy me: the reviews of fiction tell too much of the plot, and with non-fiction the obligatory "let me point out the book's factual inaccuracies to show how much I know" paragraph really bugs me. So take this not as a review, but instead as one procedural and one substantive observation on Kate Kelly's Street Fighters.

First, process: the action follows the trope of introducing a player, telescoping into that individual's backstory, and then returning to the present day. It's an old rhetorical device, as old as Homer (shout-out to Odysseus' Scar in Mimesis), and generally effective. Still, because the events Kelly describes take place over the course of a weekend, the constant zooming into the events of March 13-18, 2008 and zooming out to tell us how we got there can get a bit dizzying. A chronology would have been helpful.

Second, substance: I like that Kelly doesn't pretend to give us a clear answer as to why Bear fell. The main story she tells is of an 85-year old organization that grew rapidly under one personality and may have been undone by another. Alan "Ace" Greenberg, while not Bear's founder, plays that role in the book: he's cantankerous, tireless, and colorful. Under his guidance, Bear hires "PSDs," described as "those who were poor, smart, and held a deep desire to be rich." Readers with an idea of Wall Street's Ivy League snobbery probably sympathize with this vision of meritocracy: reward the smart and hungry. More idiosyncratic, but no less memorable, was Greenberg's 1985 paper clip memo: to keep costs down, Bear would no longer buy them. "Employees were expected to reuse the paper clips they already had on hand, replenishing them only with ones taken from new documents they received during the day...Rubber bands soon followed (if they broke, they were to be tied in a knot for future use)."

In contrast, the Kelly paints a picture of Jimmy Cayne, who engineered Greenberg's ouster and helmed Bear up until January 2008, as a probable pot-smoker (not that there's anything wrong with that), bridge-obsessed absentee-manager: "He build a vacation home near the New Jersey shore, and got in the habit of leaving work early on summer Thursdays" to enjoy a round of golf. (Nice work if you can get it.) Cayne played golf each Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning as well, never brought a cell phone or Blackberry on the course. He attended bridge games at least 3 times a year for tournaments lasting 10 days. His ~~hooky~~ bridge playing over the summer of 2007, when 2 Bear funds were failing, ultimately cost him the CEO's office; by the time of the events of the book, he was merely chairman of the board.

Business readers will hear in this tale of two managers echoes of that great business book, Barbarians at the Gate, which also traces the history a celebrated business, RJ Reynolds, which falls into the hands of a colorful manager who rejects the frugal ethos of the past and steers the organization astray. More recently, Ratatouille traces the same trajectory of storied enterprise undone by unworthy successors.

But Kelly doesn't lay the blame squarely on Cayne; there are no easy answers here. She considers and rejects the possibility that capital-raising earlier in the year may have saved Bear. She mentions but does not endorse conspiracy theories that hedge funds shorted Bear's stock and simultaneously refused to trade with the investment bank, hastening its demise. Instead, she concludes that "Bear failed because the credit crisis of 2008 killed every firm with a large mortgage business, too little diversification to offset the losses from bad loans, and the inability to be proactive. Those factors ruined Lehman Brothers, and, directly or indirectly, almost sank Fannie, Freddie, AIG, and Merrill Lynch--until the government, private industry, or both stanched the bleeding."

Oops, did I just give away the ending? A major book review faux pas. But of course, we all know how this story goes. Street Fighters is useful because it recounts the events of March 2008 with more depth than we had while living through it, and with the perspective and knowledge of the annus horribilis through which we've lived. Like Larry, we all want to know who killed the Bear. In the end, as Kelly says, we may never know.

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I haven't written a book review since middle school. The ones I read usually annoy me: the reviews of fiction tell too much of the plot, and with non-fiction the obligatory "let me point out the book's factual inaccuracies to show how much I know" paragraph really bugs me. So take this not as a review, but instead as one procedural and one substantive observation on Kate Kelly's Street Fighters.

First, process: the action follows the trope of introducing a player, telescoping into that individual's backstory, and then returning to the present day. It's an old rhetorical device, as old as Homer (shout-out to Odysseus' Scar in Mimesis), and generally effective. Still, because the events Kelly describes take place over the course of a weekend, the constant zooming into the events of March 13-18, 2008 and zooming out to tell us how we got there can get a bit dizzying. A chronology would have been helpful.

Second, substance: I like that Kelly doesn't pretend to give us a clear answer as to why Bear fell. The main story she tells is of an 85-year old organization that grew rapidly under one personality and may have been undone by another. Alan "Ace" Greenberg, while not Bear's founder, plays that role in the book: he's cantankerous, tireless, and colorful. Under his guidance, Bear hires "PSDs," described as "those who were poor, smart, and held a deep desire to be rich." Readers with an idea of Wall Street's Ivy League snobbery probably sympathize with this vision of meritocracy: reward the smart and hungry. More idiosyncratic, but no less memorable, was Greenberg's 1985 paper clip memo: to keep costs down, Bear would no longer buy them. "Employees were expected to reuse the paper clips they already had on hand, replenishing them only with ones taken from new documents they received during the day...Rubber bands soon followed (if they broke, they were to be tied in a knot for future use)."

In contrast, the Kelly paints a picture of Jimmy Cayne, who engineered Greenberg's ouster and helmed Bear up until January 2008, as a probable pot-smoker (not that there's anything wrong with that), bridge-obsessed absentee-manager: "He build a vacation home near the New Jersey shore, and got in the habit of leaving work early on summer Thursdays" to enjoy a round of golf. (Nice work if you can get it.) Cayne played golf each Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning as well, never brought a cell phone or Blackberry on the course. He attended bridge games at least 3 times a year for tournaments lasting 10 days. His ~~hooky~~ bridge playing over the summer of 2007, when 2 Bear funds were failing, ultimately cost him the CEO's office; by the time of the events of the book, he was merely chairman of the board.

Business readers will hear in this tale of two managers echoes of that great business book, Barbarians at the Gate, which also traces the history a celebrated business, RJ Reynolds, which falls into the hands of a colorful manager who rejects the frugal ethos of the past and steers the organization astray. More recently, Ratatouille traces the same trajectory of storied enterprise undone by unworthy successors.

But Kelly doesn't lay the blame squarely on Cayne; there are no easy answers here. She considers and rejects the possibility that capital-raising earlier in the year may have saved Bear. She mentions but does not endorse conspiracy theories that hedge funds shorted Bear's stock and simultaneously refused to trade with the investment bank, hastening its demise. Instead, she concludes that "Bear failed because the credit crisis of 2008 killed every firm with a large mortgage business, too little diversification to offset the losses from bad loans, and the inability to be proactive. Those factors ruined Lehman Brothers, and, directly or indirectly, almost sank Fannie, Freddie, AIG, and Merrill Lynch--until the government, private industry, or both stanched the bleeding."

Oops, did I just give away the ending? A major book review faux pas. But of course, we all know how this story goes. Street Fighters is useful because it recounts the events of March 2008 with more depth than we had while living through it, and with the perspective and knowledge of the annus horribilis through which we've lived. Like Larry, we all want to know who killed the Bear. In the end, as Kelly says, we may never know.

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