Goodbye Gordon Gekko

Summary

We never really know how it’s going to turn out. One day a community organizer, the next day President. One day CEO of Lehman Brothers, the next day the piñata for greed and ambition run amok. Life is full of decisions, choices, and unexpected twists and turns; how you pick yourself up and react to thee unanticipated circumstances will make all the difference.

According to author Anthony Scaramucci, it is time to say goodbye to Gordon Gekko, the rogue character famously portrayed by Michael Douglas in the classic movie Wall Street. In Goodbye Gordon Gekko, Scaramucci explores opportunities for leading a rich life in a difficult, radically changed economy. Believing that the financial crisis was caused by a nation of Gekko-wannabes tripped up by status anxiety and egocentric tendencies, he argues that you can be happy and financially profitable as ling as you stay true to yourself and stick to your values and principles. Scaramucci offers hope, urging you to pass through the happily-ever-after portal so that you can find your fortune and all that is fortunate.

With years of experience at Goldman Sachs, and having co-founded two successful alternative investment management companies, the author provides a behind-the-scenes view of life on Wall Street—the wins and the losses, the rights and the wrongs, the successes and the failures, the good mentors and the difficult colleagues. Through these entertaining and insightful stories, featuring advice from a diverse cast of characters ranging from Li Ka-shing to John Weinberg to his Italian nana, Scaramucci identifies the temptations and roadblocks that accompany our professional ambitions and personal choices, revealing the rules for leading a profitable and fortunate life.

What does this mean in practical terms? As Scaramucci shows, it means ridding yourself of egotistical tendencies and developing the self-awareness to bounce back from failure. It means building a circle of competence made of those you trust, mentoring and celebrating others, and giving back to your company and country, all the while targeting success. It means seeing capitalism as an art and businesses as creations and vocations, not simply as levers to feeding your ego. Goodbye Gordon Gekko provides a road map to help people achieve true wealth defined beyond a checking account.