Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street

Written by Michael Lewis

Narrated by Michael Lewis

The classic Michael Lewis book that defined an era of greed, gluttony, and outrageous fortune, available for the first time unabridged and read by the author.

In 1986, before Michael Lewis became the bestselling author of The Big Short, Moneyball, and Flash Boys, he landed a job at Salomon Brothers, one of Wall Street’s premier investment firms.

During the next three years, Lewis rose from callow trainee to New York- and London-based bond salesman, raking in millions for the firm and cashing in on a modern-day gold rush. Liar’s Poker is the culmination of those heady, frenzied years---a behind-the-scenes look at a unique and turbulent time in American business. This new audio edition produced by the same team that produces his #1 podcast Against the Rules, is unabridged, read by the author, and features archival news footage from the era, original scoring and sound effects, as well as a bonus episode from the companion podcast.

From the frat-boy camaraderie of the forty-first-floor trading room to the killer instinct that made ambitious young men gamble everything on a high-stakes game of bluffing and deception, Liar’s Poker is both “the funniest book on Wall Street I’ve ever read,” (Tom Wolfe) and the launchpad for Michael Lewis’s storied career.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pushkin Industries
• Release date: Feb 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9798985080209

Michael Lewis

Michael Lewis grew up in New Orleans and has degrees from Princeton and the London School of Economics. Formerly a bond salesman with Salomon Brothers, he is the author of the runaway international bestseller, Liar’s Poker. He holds an adjunct professorship at the University of California – Berkeley’s journalism school and lives in Berkeley with his wife, Tabitha Soren.

Reviews for Liar's Poker

[tallent.joey · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It is a pretty good story on how up Wall Street was in the 80s, but it doesn’t really teach anything that more just tells a good story

[George · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Very interesting read! It's a glimpse of the life in wall Street, on 90s. As it turns out, it's most relevant today. Money ? makes the world go round in wall Street. Nobody talks about it and everybody dreams of it; people can easily forget who they really are, their beliefs and values and being tremendously greedy!
It's important to know that a wall Street firm is a jungle; eat or be eaten, survive, trust noone and climb the ladder of power in order to be respected.
There are many lessons to be learned within its pages. Maybe the most important one is, the money is created from thin air; someone had an idea to turn mortgage securities into bonds and voilà a new money market rose.
It's a good evidence that resourcefulness, cunningness and thinking out of the box beats college education every day. You don't need a college degree to join such a firm (it might be difficult without one), just your mind and selling skills (you didn't know you had).
If you even disagree with that world and it's against your values; still you can learn a lot

[Mihir · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great, like everything else Michael Lewis writes. I highly recommend this to fans of The Big Short and Den of Thieves.

[Felipe Campos · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I first read this book in my 20’s when i was working in banking and the professional atmosphere was very similar to what Michael has described and honestly that is what i paid more attention back then. Now i am in my 40’s and is interesting to see how much it has changed but also how he described the beginning of a market that would later colapse with the subprime. Definitely a must if your work in finance.

[Mike H. · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I feel like I've heard about this book for years. It does actually live up to it's highly regarded reputation. Listening to it adds another dimension that wouldn't be possible reading it. Highly enjoyable read or listen though.

[willszal-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I was recommended this book in 2018 by a friend who was writing code for financial derivatives in Tokyo in the 1980s. I looked around for an audio edition at the time, but came up empty-handed. I just checked again, and it has just been re-issued by the author! Apparently the original copyright had expired, and the author saw the opportunity for a re-issue.

If you respect Lewis' later work, such as "The Big Short," and "Moneyball," you'll love this early look into his start on Wall Street in the 1980s! Unlike his later works, this is technically a "memoir," as it is a first-hand account of Solomon Brothers while Lewis was employed there.

You should look for the companion podcast if you read the book, "Other People's Money," although I was only able to find it on YouTube (for some reason it seem to have been blocked from podcast apps).

In the podcast, Lewis mentions that he had written the book as an indictment of Wall Street, when many of his readers have taken the opposite interpretation, iconizing the era. You might call this the naïve of "critical thought." When we give something attention, we implicitly center it. It is like the thought experiment, "don't think of the pink elephant," which, inevitably brings such a creature to mind. Ultimately, there is no way to both name something, and decenter it (this is part of the magic and power of language and attention). So a book about Wall Street—even if it illustrates what some might call juvenile tendencies—has the effect of valorizing Wall Street.

Lewis also discusses in the retrospective: Wall Street today is both nothing like and everything like what is described in the book. There is something about myth here. Lewis was able to capture something about the essence of Wall Street in this book. Even if the people and the landscape look totally different now, you can still see a living lineage in evolution. In one discussion, a female financier posits that Wall Street was more inclusive in the 1980s than today, and suggests that this might be because "diversity and inclusion" has now been siloed off. I think there is something to this: diversity and inclusion need to be addressed at the core of a business operation, not as an add-on (you could say the same about sustainability).

If you haven't heard already, this book is also a prescient view into the origin story of the subprime debt crisis, in that Solomon Brothers (specifically Lou Ranieri) invented the securitization of mortgages (with the prompting from the Federal Reserve).

I will say—one thing that bothers me about Lewis' tone in the book: he speaks as though he doesn't "have a horse in the race," as though he was an innocent bystander. Yes, he was young, but no, you can't say that he was powerless. Sometimes (I see this a lot in Silicon Valley), the more power someone has, the less they feel like they have the ability (or the responsibility) to affect the trajectory of their industry. You could say that Lewis ultimately did step up, not as a fiduciary, but as a journalist. But, as I point out above in the critical thought paradox, this doesn't actually have the ability to change anything.

[markm2315 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Repetitive. Not nearly as entertaining as his other books.

[reenum_4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Liars' Poker is the quintessential business novel. Everyone businessman I know has either read it or heard of it. So, I decided that I should check it out.

This book is an account of Michael Lewis' time at Salomon Smith Barney in the mid 80s, at the height of the junk bond craze. He perfectly describes the atmosphere of competitiveness and the vast rewards everyone was reaping as a result of the boom.

What came as a surprise to me is that Lewis describes the mortgage bond market, an obtuse and vague instrument, very clearly and in a way most non-business people could also understand. This explanation also serves to show why these junk bonds ultimately collapsed.

Then, of course, are his hilarious descriptions of his orientation, his bosses and coworkers. To read about these outlandish characters is worth the price of the book alone.

So, to close, this book is a classic for a reason. It is informative and well written, but manages to be hilarious at the same time, a feat few authors can achieve. Read this book at all costs.

[parthurbook · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Entertaining and well written. The middle section (the formation of the mortgage bond department) the best part - indeed, could stand alone. Final couple of chapters a disappointment: A synthesis of someone else's book about another major figure in 1980s finance, and a rush at the end for Lewis to leave Salomans. An early book from Lewis's portolio, and he has got better as his work evolved. But "Liar's Poker" is worth a read for more than would-be completists.

[aldusmanutius · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I feel like I should like Michael Lewis more than I actually do.

[ericcostello-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A classic of financial history, and a minor classic of humour. Lewis in part tells a history of the bond market in the 1970s and 1980s, and in part, a personal history of his time selling bonds in London for Salomon Brothers, one of the leading bond firms of its era. Lewis is quite sharp in showing how Salomon, through mistakes in management and culture, lost its leading position in the bond markets (more or less, blowing through its intellectual capital). There's also a great deal of hilarity in the caveman culture of Salomon of the era (well, it'll be hilarious to you if you're not a Bernie Bro). Lewis' style is very engaging, and he doesn't spare himself in a few just areas. The title is inspired, in that you can read it literally, in the game that Lewis describes, or in general, as to the way Salomon operated. Definitely recommended for students of financial history, and in general recommended.

[D3US · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A well-written book about Wall Street with certain touches of humor. It's not necessary to have knowledge of economics, but if your knowledge is null, you will need to look up some things. (Translated from Spanish)

[firstword · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Michael Lewis is an excellent writer. He completely draws you into the scene with detail and description and leads you along well paced journey to understanding the world of wall street with it's characters and events. A true insider's tale. Parts of the book are funny and doesn't lose you with the mechanical aspects of the markets and how big corporates function. Some regard this as required reading if you work in the industry. I wouldn't disagree.

[gayla.bassham · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Probably Lewis's best book.

[benjamin.lima · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The more things change, the more things stay the same. So much of what I thought was novel or curious about Wall Street in the 1990s and 2000s was right there in the early 1980s, same as ever.

Also, Michael Lewis is unequaled at the art of turning numbers into human drama.

[bravenewbks · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Finished this on the plane to Rio. Definitely know more about mortgage bonds, bond trading, and Wall Street in the 80s than I did before. I felt three stars represented how much enjoyment I got out of the book, but considering that the subject matter is of about 1 star of interest to me, I cannot really imagine enjoying any book on this topic more, so maybe it deserves more stars.

[asktheticketguy · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I am a big fan of Michael Lewis so it is hard for me to be objective in a review but I do think this book is brilliant.
Personally I have not ready a better book that sums up the greed and gluttony of 1980's Wall Street.
One thing that I found fascinating, especially with our recent financial collapse and history to compare and contrast, is that this book so clearly shows that as smart and as slick as some people can be in their quest to get rich in the financial markets ultimately Wall Street is simply one big giant casino and the people that work there are for the most part simply gamblers.

[ehines_20 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a really interesting snapshot of Wall Street in the Reagan era. The Street is now, decidedly, no longer the province of the old-money-wannabes. Now we have the many more ethnic names and much more of a fraternity atmosphere. The white shoes have been largely displaced by the "big swinging dicks." If you look on Wall Street firms as serious businesses applying arcane knowledge to the market in order to reap profits, you will be sadly disappointed by most of what you see in this book. The essence of Wall Street is a bluff game, like Liar's Poker, and it isn't insight into the market that gets you ahead so much as a gift for theatrics and a keen judgment of other people's weaknesses. There are hints of what was to come--Lewis Ranieri features pretty heavily in the book. He is the man who invented the mortgage bond, and he hired a number of PhDs to figure out was of managing and manipulating the risks in such bonds. At the time Lewis is writing, the mortgage-backed security (MBS) was known primarily as an instrument through which home ownership could be democratized. And it was: there were far more people who *could* carry a low-rate mortgage than would get one offered to them. By making the risk on such loans more predictable (by bundling them) MBSs made those loans possible. But the risk manipulation Ranieri used for good would soon be employed by people who a) didn't understand the math well; and b) had significant incentive (commissions) little disincentive (prospective personal losses) to creating bad deals. Deals where risk was masked, not managed. These PhDs (quants) would be the definitive figures in the next generation on Wall Street, and in its next series of disasters.

[seriousgrace · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

For some reason people can't bring up Liar's Poker without mentioning Bonfire of the Vanities as well. It's almost as if Liar's Poker is the nonfiction counterpart to the fictional Bonfire of the Vanities. Yes, they are both about the innards of life on Wall Street in the mid 80s, but one could stand without the attachment of the other and still be entertaining.
Michael Lewis retraces his beginnings with Salomon Brothers, first as a bright eyed trainee, then as a bond salesman. It is his knack for writing that makes Liar's Poker such a treat to read. It is bitingly funny, wicked and fun. My favorite part is about the new guy, so nervous about his first day on the job that he does nothing but ride the elevator up and down until he has the courage to finally get off, exit the building and disappear forever.

[suzemo · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I write this review with the caveat that I am neither a financial-bonds-market type of person, nor am I interested in reading dry non-fiction.

I have heard this book described of as "funny" and "entertaining", but to be honest, I never found it to be either in any way.

The author was a bond salesman for Salomon Brothers, and gave great insights into how the bond markets work, what happened in the 80s and, most interestingly, into the culture at Salomon Brothers. While the culture of the company was most interesting to me, I still had a very hard time finishing this book, and at no point did I find anything amusing or entertaining about the book. I'm sure it was more interesting to people more familiar with the financial sector.

[ohernaes · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great storytelling. Finds oneself drawn into this world and wanting to be a Big Swinging Dick. At times during the story, at least. Lewis was lucky to have good mentors. His ability as a storyteller probably also contributed: “Most of the time when markets move, no one has any idea why. A man who can tell a good story can make a good living as a broker. It was the job of people like me to make up reasons, to spin a plausible yarn. And it’s amazing what people will believe.”*

Good lesson: Worked as a journalist part time during his time at Salomon, something which made him keep the perspective of an outside world.

I always wonder about such accounts where some, here: the bankers, screws the customers, why is there not competition that drives this away? Not that I doubt that a lot of such things were done. Maybe part of the answer is in this quote: “The men on the trading floor may not have been to school, buth have Ph.D.’s in man’s ignorance. In any market, as in any poker game, there is a fool. The astute investor Warren Buffett is fond of saying that any player unaware of the fook in the market probably is the fool in the market.” But is this true? Isn’t there an equilibrium strategy in poker?

It seems strange that they reasoned around deals in such an anecdotal way, for example reasoning after the Chernobyl disaster that demand for other forms of energy than nuclear and for uncontaminated food crops would go up. Aren’t these sort of implications were automated? Maybe it was not like that in those days? But surely they are now?

*The quote continues: “Most of the time [...] people will believe. Heavy selling out of the Middle East was an old standby. Since no one ever had any clue what the Arabs were doing with their money or why, no story involving Arabs could ever be refuted. So if you didn’t know why the dollar was falling, you shouted out something about Arabs.”

[jrgoetziii · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not quite what I thought it would be but one has to give Lewis credit for great humor and an ability to make the arcane readable. His descriptions of high finance make complete sense, which is hard to do, while simultaneously carrying an implicit criticism of the inherent illogic behind them. While this is not of the caliber of Moneyball, The New New Thing, or The Big Short, it's still a very good book and well worth a few days of reading. (If Lewis is taking you longer than that then there's a problem.)

[becky444 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A brilliantly written and closely observed dissection of the mentality of bond traders in the years before they nearly brought down the world's financial system. A must read.

[jbd1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The first book I read in flipback format was Michael Lewis' Liar's Poker (Hodder & Stoughton, 2011). Not the sort of thing I'd generally pick up, but I wanted to try out the format and the book proved well worth the reading. Funny, but also absolutely scary in the way it portrayed Wall Street culture of the late 1980s from the perspective of a bit-player in the drama (Lewis as a twenty-something employee of Salomon Brothers).

[addunn3 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The book covers the short career of Michael Lewis as a Salomon Brothers trader during the 80's. Excellent incite into the financial workings of Wall Street. It is also a bit scary that this mentality is behind the financial structures of the world.

[browner56 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In his great novel “Bonfire of the Vanities,” Tom Wolfe lays bare the hubris and deceit that defined Wall Street in the 1980s. Of course, that was fiction, which at least raises the possibility that all of the actions described were just a figment of the imagination. In “Liar’s Poker,” Michael Lewis tells much the same tale with the difference being that this time the story is true. Before he became a celebrated journalist and author, Lewis worked as a bond salesman at Salomon Brothers and this volume chronicles what he observed and experienced on that job.

More than 20 years after its publication, the events and personalities that Lewis writes about are no longer shocking. However, they are still entertaining and occasionally very funny. If nothing else, he provides great insight into the inner workings of one of the most influential institutions operating during a historically significant time in the financial markets. While Lewis has gone on to write a number of other interesting books on various topics (e.g., “The New New Thing,” “Moneyball,” “The Blind Side”), this one is still my favorite.

[flobmac · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

fairly interesting view of life for a city trader

[steverambach · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

What is it like to be a trader on Wall Street? What is the difference between Wall Street and Main Street? Well, this is the book to read. Michael Lewis takes one through step by step on how he got hired, how he was trained, and then what was it like working for Salomon Brothers. Oh yes, I need to mention the background was the downturn of the market in the 80's. An excellent book.

[wubsy_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Liar's Poker is a clever autobiography / biography of life at Solomon Brothers. The characters that populate the book are mad and brilliantly rendered by Lewis. At times it is laugh out loud funny, and Lewis obviously had mixed feelings about his time at the firm. He talks about the power of money with real knowledge, and the technical parts of the book are easy to follow but not dumbed down. Lewis expects the reader to understand which is refreshing. The echoes of the recent economic downfall of Wall Street are all too evident, and reading it now gives the book a funny sadness. It told me that life is more often about luck than judgement, and that luck is never ever permanent.

[karenzukor · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Well written description of bond trading madness.