I recently read House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street by William D. Cohan. It deals with the fall of Bear Stearns. The book is divided into three sections. The first deals with the collapse. The second goes through the background of the various leaders (starting from the founders) of Bear Stearns. The third section deals with the background story before the collapse, mainly dealing with the hedge fund issues.
I found the first two sections fascinating; however, the last section sort of lost me. I suppose this might be due to the fact that the 2008 collapse of Bear Stearns is what I found so interesting and I lost a degree of interest after reading about the collapse.
Here are my takeaways. 1. I-Bankers love to PARTY. 2. Bear Stearns executive leadership didn't understand all aspects of their business, which doomed them. 3. Key players got fired, which forced others to step into new roles and they didn't have enough time to get up to speed. 4. Lack of management controls versus greed doomed Bear Stearns. 5. I'm not saying there wasn't greed, just that I don't believe this was the main reason why they failed.
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