Considering I still don’t understand most of the financial stuff in this book, this is the most engaging intro to investment banking I’ve read (in my almost zilch experience reading about investment banking). I drew a little diagram to understand bonds while reading, and the fact I bothered to get out my pen to understand a complex foreign system written about in a book read for leisure purposes speaks to the attention-grabbing nature of the writing, even when it was also absolutely confusing. Also there were many laugh out loud moments in the first half of the book. People interested in finance will of course find this interesting, as well as those interested in how to make boring complicated things interesting. But surprisingly due to the book tracing the author’s 20s, I find this book is a fun story for navigating work as new grads (in wholly disrespectful immoral self-serving ways) - particularly the dynamics people might encounter and how to deal with them.

This was a pretty fun account of life inside a Wall Street bank in the 80's, although I understand it is still somewhat applicable today. The storytelling is good, but I lost some interest in many of the characters and details as the book went on. I also didn't care for the crudeness (heavy amounts of swearing).

I first heard about this book in the early 2000's in an Economics class, so I've wanted to read it for quite some time. It's the 3rd Michael Lewis book I've finished.

Michael Lewis has a podcast, Against the Rules, in which he revisits Liar's Poker. It makes for a great epilogue.

Liar's Poker, by Michael Lewis, focuses on two main points: the development of the mortgage securities and explaining the Wall Street culture, and an autobiography of his time working in mortgage securities. The author begins the book fresh out of Princeton, repeatedly denied a job at every firm he applied at until he unwittingly gets lucky at a party with a partner’s wife. Later, in order to show the Wall Street culture, Michael Lewis tells the story of how Lewie Ranieri created the mortgage securities department at Salomon Brothers. Lewis finishes off with his own personal experience in Wall Street working for Salomon Brothers overseas in London, surviving a near hostile takeover, and then leaving when Wall Street stopped matching with his values.
Despite being written almost twenty years ago, a lot of Liar's Poker remains relevant today. Liar’s poker explores Wall street in the 80s when financial institutions were “largely unregulated”. Humor in Wall Street was sexual and/or sexist toward women with terms like “big swinging dick” thrown around often. As an eighth grader with very little real background and no classes in economics, I appreciate the fact that they dumb everything down to terms that anyone can understand if only they read closely. I have watched and read several financial movies, books, and documentaries about Wall Street and economics but none have come close to explaining it in a way that young people and adolescents can understand, much less find humor in. The humor of the book stems from being blunt and full of potty humor. My favorite of the potty jokes being “But everyone wanted to be a Big Swinging Dick, even the women. Big Swinging Dickettes.” One of my favorite examples of the books bluntness was “Warren Buffett is fond of saying that any player unaware of the fool in the market probably is the fool in the market” for how blunt and honest it is. Without a doubt, Liar’s Poker is one of the best books I’ve read although I would recommend it only to those with at least a basic understanding of economics and some time to kill.

Witty. Hilarious. Thoroughly enjoyed reading this one. An interesting peek into the world of trading in the 1980’s. The book is the author’s account of his stint at Salomon Brothers and the ruthless corporate games that ensued around then (included as a part, is also the story behind inception of mortgage and junk bonds, and the brains behind them). Now I haven’t read many corporate stories , but I’m sure what unfolds here is among the best.

The book also ends with a small note from the author on why he quit the bank after two successful years and a refreshing perspective on the money belief( refreshing not because it is something very new but cause it makes sense and needs to be reminded every so often to the humankind).

"The belief in the meaning of making dollars crumbled; the proposition that the more money you earn, the better the life you are leading was refuted by too much hard evidence to the contrary."

A very well-written page-turner that tells the true story of the financial world with humble tone, many witty remarks and valuable inside observation. Michael Lewis is the evidence of why a combination of a financial brain and a writer soul is irresistible!!!

Liar's Poker, part memoir part history, focuses on bond trading in the 80s, which doesn't exactly scream 'page turner'. But a page turner is exactly what Lewis delivers. He blends fast moving narrative, outrageous behaviour and actual financial history (I admit I have a professional interest in that part, I don't imagine everyone will find the origins of mortgage and junk bonds so gripping) into a book I didn't want to put down.

30 years later and the themes of greed, arrogance, and junior staff swallowing their integrity for the good of their employer are all just as relevant.

Highly recommend

Rise and fall of Salomon Brothers, the big swinging dicks of wall street!

Very well written by Michael Lewis (also the author of Moneyball and The big short) about the greed and gluttony of the 80's wall street. Lewis gives an insider's perspective of the bond trading floor (also centre of the universe) in this part memoir, right from landing the investment banking job, his training program at Salomon Brothers, and his transformation from a "geek" bond salesman to a big swinging dick.

“That was somewhere near the middle of a modern gold rush. Never before have so many unskilled twenty-four-year-olds made so much money in so little time as we did this decade in New York and London.” "If you guys weren't trading bonds, you'd be driving a truck. Don't try to get intellectual in the marketplace. Just trade."

Will highly recommend this (especially if you, like me, aspired to be an Analyst at Goldman Sachs or the likes at some earlier point :P )

4.5 Stars

A thrilling account of investment banking. The bottom line is don't do it lmao.

This book is far more interesting than a book about life as a bond trader in the 1980s has any right to be. Michael Lewis is a captivating writer who experienced the highs and lows of working for one of Wall Street’s largest investment banks in the 1980s. He married entertaining anecdotes about working on a fast-paced trading floor with historical context on the creation of mortgage-backed securities and junk bonds in a way that kept me wanting more until it was over. I will definitely be reading his book The Big Short to understand what happened during the 2008 housing crisis.

I resonated a lot with Lewis’ take on what he calls “the money belief” (keep in my mind that he was making $200k+ per year at the age of 24 in 1985). “For me, however, the belief in the meaning of making dollars crumbled. The proposition that the more money you earn, the better the life you are leading was refuted by too much hard evidence to the contrary. And without that belief, I lost the need to make huge sums of money.” Little is more elusive and illusory than the pursuit of “enough money.” I’m convinced that you can only be satisfied with the amount of money you have if you truly don’t care about how much money you have.

My own brief foray into day trading using Robinhood was enough to convince me that speculation is not for me. It’s definitely exciting, but I think anything that gives you an outsized amount of money compared to the amount of effort you put into it inherently leads to an unhealthy view on money. From an eternal perspective, stumbling upon a large sum of money is no different than stumbling upon a large sum of video game currency. It can provide you with some temporary happiness, but when you leave the game it doesn’t mean anything.

I looked up the following terms while reading this book: dilettante, nouveau, pleb, penury, bête noire, reductio ad absurdum, gourmand, parochial, Teutonic, niggle, Canaletto, golden handshake, oleaginous, geld, xenophobia

Michael Lewis lives up to his reputation with this book. It’s quite entertaining and provides an interesting perspective on Wall Street’s culture (at least in the 80s), which is often not as serious as it seems from the outside. It also provides some interesting insight into the early roots of the global financial crisis. I think I would have enjoyed if Lewis had included more high-level reflection on the role of institutions like Solomon Brothers and the effects of glorification of Wall Street - much of what sticks with me years after reading are the silly stories about various shenanigans in the office.

I downloaded the audible book after listening to Michael Lewis's interview with Tim Ferris and I'm so glad I did. First, the audiobook had great production value. It had recently been rerecorded by Pushkin industries and not only was it narrated by Michael Lewis himself, but it also had sound effects and music incorporated throughout the book.

I loved the story. Interesting to think that a book from the 80s is still relevant today. While I realize this was not the intention of Michael Lewis, boy, do I want to become an investment banker on Wall Street!

Will be reading the rest of his books over the holidays.

10 hours 16 mins on Audible

Really fascinating, and I learned a lot!