Author and financial journalist Sebastian Mallaby is a senior fellow for international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations. His latest book, The Power Law, describes how Silicon Valley's venture-capital firms reshaped the global economy.
The Money Game by Adam Smith (1968).
Smith was the pen name of financial journalist George Goodman, and this was his breakthrough — a laugh-out-loud depiction of the financial culture of 1960s New York, when sideburned gangsters ramped stocks and only the inexperienced were foolish enough to make money. "Show me a portfolio, I'll tell you the generation," one character says. Perhaps this reminds you of crypto? Buy it here.
When Genius Failed by Roger Lowenstein (2000).
Ironically, this book is a triumph of genius: a lucid explanation of the quantitative trading strategies that doomed the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management. I once asked an LTCM veteran what Lowenstein had wrong — surely something. Nothing, came the reply. Buy it here.
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