Up Close and All In: Life Lessons from a Wall Street Warrior

Written by John Mack

Narrated by Mark Bramhall

From John Mack, former CEO of Morgan Stanley, an intimate personal memoir and riveting business story, recounting how he helped grow the company from 300 to 50,000 employees over four decades, transformed a notoriously competitive culture into a successful and collaborative one, and lead the company through the 2008 financial crisis.

During his thirty-four-year tenure at Morgan Stanley, John Mack’s goal was to build the strongest and most productive team on Wall Street. His ability to motivate his employees to do their best work, especially in times of crisis, was fostered by his willingness to slash through bureaucracy and stand up to powerful interests. A forceful personality, one journalist said Mack was “described as ‘charismatic’ so regularly that it could be part of his name.”

In Up Close and All In, Mack traces his personal journey from a one-stoplight North Carolina mill town to a fortieth-floor corner office on Wall Street—and shares the life lessons he learned along the way. He developed a titanium-strength stomach for risk, stress, and competition while landing accounts early in his career, as investment banks fought like wolfpacks to take advantage of new deregulation, fielding business raids, booms, and busts. As he rose through the ranks, he never forgot where he came from, relying on his instincts, doing what was right, and listening to his people on the front lines. This culture of trust and collaboration helped Morgan Stanley anticipate future trends before other firms, adapt quickly, and achieve record profits.

This gripping memoir includes both humbling lows—like when Mack made the difficult decision to leave Morgan Stanley in 2001—and exhilarating highs—such as when he made an eleventh-hour agreement with the Japanese bank Mitsubishi to save the company during the 2008 financial crisis, having refused to give in when top regulators pressured him to sell the firm for $2 per share.

With humor and honesty, Mack shares advice on both business and life: how to create a culture of team players, how to keep perspective during crises, how to make difficult decisions when all eyes are on you, and more. From a singular man who’s as unafraid to cry publicly as he is to anger some of the most powerful people in the world, this is an indispensable guide to living and leading well.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Oct 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9781797149639

John Mack

John J. Mack is the former Chairman of the Board of Morgan Stanley, and its former Chief Executive Officer (2005-2009). He joined Morgan Stanley in 1972, was named President in 1993, and served as President, Chief Operating Officer, and a Director of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. starting in 1997. Mack is a graduate of Duke University, where he is a member of the Board of Trustees. He also serves as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of New York-Presbyterian Hospital and the University Hospitals of Columbia and Cornell. He is a Director of IMG, Trustee Emeritus of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, a member of the Business Council and the Business Roundtable, the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum, and the NYC Financial Services Advisory Committee. He lives in New York.

Reviews for Up Close and All In

[joe F · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Mack the knife is a genuine hero on Wall Street

[buckmitchell · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Mack the knife’s story is worth the read. Great book about the world of finance told from the inside. Very good read.