and they do it right - you brought the booty! And when you run a company - well, you get your share of envy, fear and adoration. But it all comes to you by mistake. You don't make money for Salomon. You don't risk. You are just a hostage to your miners. They take risks. They prove every day that they manage risk better than other players. The money comes from players like Meriwether, and Gutfreund could not influence this process in any way. That is why many have understood the matter to mean that the wild offer to the chief speculator of the company to gamble for a million dollars was for Gutfreund's way of showing that he is also a player. And for this there was nothing better than the poker of liars. For merchants, this game was full of magical meaning. John Meriwether and others like him thought that liars' poker was very similar to bond trading. The game tests the character of the merchant. It hones his instincts. A good player is a skilled trader, and vice versa. We all thought the same.

Liar poker is played by several people - from two to ten. Everyone clutches a dollar bill to their chest. In style, this is something like a game of "believe - do not believe." Everyone is trying to fool the partners about the number of the dollar bill they are holding in their hand. The player who starts the game makes the first bet. He says, for example, "three sixes." This means that in the numbers of all dollar bills that the players hold in front of them, including his own, there are at least three digits "six".

When the first call is made, the game goes clockwise. The one on the left can do one of two things. He can pick up the game. There are two ways to raise it: the same number of large numbers (three sevens, eights or nines) or more than any (four fives, for example). Or you can “close” the game - say something like “I don’t believe”, and then all the players lay out their banknotes and count the number of sixes.

The stakes go up until the players agree to check the last bid. As the game progresses, a good player is busy playing all possible probabilities in his mind. What, say, is the statistical probability that among 40 random numbers (five eight-digit dollar numbers) there will be three sixes? For a great player, mathematical calculations are the tenth thing. The main thing for him is to read what the faces of other players hide. It is especially difficult to play when everyone knows how to bluff.

It is a game of trade in much the same way that a tournament duel is a game of war. A liar poker player answers roughly the same questions and solves the same problems as a bond trader. How risky is the situation? Am I on a roll today? How dexterous is today's enemy? Does he have any idea what is going on and what he is doing? And if not, how can you use his ignorance? Are the stakes very high, is he bluffing or is he in a really strong position? Is he pushing me for a stupid bid, or is he holding four fours? Each player is looking for in the behavior of others weaknesses, predictable and formulaic moves, and he himself strives not to show weakness and not repeat moves. The bond traders at Wall Street's Goldman Sachs, First Boston, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, and others are all playing some form of liar's poker. But the coolest game, at the highest stakes, thanks to John Meriwether, is on the Salomon Brothers trading floor.

The code of conduct for a poker player of liars is somewhat reminiscent of the code of conduct for a hired killer - he does not refuse a single order. Due to the requirements of the code of conduct - and for him it was a code of honor - John Meriwether could not refuse the proposed game. But at the same time, he knew that all this was complete game. There was no winning for him in this game. If he wins, it will offend Gutfreund, and nothing good can be expected from this. And if he loses, then you have to shell out a million dollars, and this is even worse than offending the boss. Meriwether was undeniably the best player, but in a one-on-one game, anything can happen. Much depends on luck. Meriwether spent days avoiding stupid deals, and it was not at all possible for him to get stuck in this one, where he would have to put his own money.

“No, John,” he protested, “if you want to play big, I'd rather raise the bet. Ten million dollars. And don't cry.

Ten million dollars. From such a bet, anyone will take their breath away. Meriwether started playing poker before the game even started. He was bluffing. Gutfreund considered a counterproposal. He wanted to say yes. The very thought of such a game gave him a thrill of joy. (It's good to have money.)

On the other hand, ten million is a lot of money. If Gutfreund loses, he'll be left with something like 30 million. His wife Susan was enthusiastically spending her $15 million on redevelopment of their Manhattan apartment (and Meriwether was well aware of this). And since Gutfreund was the boss, Meriwether's code of honor didn't apply to him. Who knows, maybe he did not even know about the very existence of this code. Maybe he challenged him to a game just to gauge his reaction? (Even Meriwether was amazed and baffled by the King's moves.) In short, Gutfreund retreated. He put on his characteristic artificial grin and said:

- You are crazy.

No, thought Meriwether, everything is very, very Fine.

Chapter 2
I want to become an investment banker. If you had 10,000 shares [that's right!], I would sell them for you. I will make a lot of money. I will love my job very much. I will help people. I will be a millionaire. I will have a big house. And I will be proud of him and love him.

"What do I want to be when I'm an adult." A seven-year-old student from Minnesota, March 1985
In the winter of 1984, I was living in London, preparing for my master's degree in economics at the London School of Economics, when suddenly I received an invitation to dinner with the Queen Mother. The invitation came through a distant cousin of mine who, some years before, had somehow improbably popped up in marriage to a German baron. I did not belong to the circle of people who are regularly invited to dinner at St. James's Palace, but the baroness, fortunately, was one of them. I borrowed a tuxedo, a bow tie, got on the subway and went. It was the first adventure in a chain of incredible events that culminated in an offer to work for Salomon brothers.

Instead of the promised dinner with the royal family, we were slipped a charity dinner to raise money for charitable foundations from almost eight hundred insurance agents. We were seated in heavy ebony chairs in a huge reception hall covered with wine-coloured carpet. From the walls, like spectators in a classical theater, looked blackened by time, portraits of the royal family. It just so happened that two of the directors of Salomon Brothers were in this gigantic room. I found out about this only because, by the will of fate, I was put between their wives.

When we got tired of looking around in the hope of seeing someone from the royal family, the wife of the eldest of these directors, an American, took control of the dinner in her experienced hands. When she found out that I was finishing my studies and dreaming of a job in an investment bank, she gave me a real interview. I was teased, ridiculed, ridiculed and unsettled for almost an hour, and only after satiating her curiosity did she leave me alone. Having carefully studied all my achievements for 24 years of life, she asked - why do I not want to work for Salomon Brothers?

I tried to keep calm. I was afraid that if I showed too much enthusiasm, the nice woman would realize that she had made a terrible mistake. Shortly before I read John Gutfreund's legendary saying that on the Salomon Brothers marketplace only one who "wakes up every morning ready to bite a bear" can succeed. I said that such a life does not seem very attractive to me. I told her how I see life in an investment bank. (The description included a large office with huge windows, a pretty secretary, generous hospitality pay, and constant contact with the captains of the industry. There are indeed such jobs, including Salomon Brothers, but they are not respected. This is the so-called "corporate finance"This is not at all like live trading in securities, although investment banks do both. Gutfreund's marketplace, where stocks and bonds are bought and sold, is the center of a tumultuous and hectic life, where they take risks and make money. At traders there are no secretaries, no offices, and they never meet with company executives.The corporate finance department, which helps to obtain loans for corporations and governments, which are called clients here, is, on the contrary, an extremely uncrowded and almost sterile space.Because you don’t have to risk money here, those involved in corporate finance are seen as parasites by merchants, but aside from the brutalWall Street