Good Guys and Bad Guys: Behind the Scenes with the Saints and Scoundrels of American Business (and Every thing in Between)

by Joe Nocera

Overview

The greatest columns and profiles by the bestselling coauthor of All the Devils Are Here.

What's it like to be a top tobacco executive when your kid asks you about smoking? How did a young liberal arts major become the hottest tech-stock analyst of the '90s, and why did he self-destruct? How did one family's dysfunction change the media landscape?

Some people think business journalism is all about balance sheets, income statements, and earnings per share. But if you want to answer the really interesting questions-about heroes and hucksters, visionaries and madmen, and other larger-than-life characters-you need a reporter like Joe Nocera.

For more than twenty-five years Nocera has shed new light on the giants of the business world-Warren Buffett, T. Boone Pickens, Bob Nardelli-as well as on the less famous but equally fascinating. He builds stories around their motivations, personalities, and deepest characters. And instead of just pigeonholing them as good guys or bad guys, he explores the gray areas in between.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781440632037
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/29/2008
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	943,062
File size:	432 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Joe Nocera is a columnist for The New York Times, and co-author of All the Devils are Here. He spent ten years at Fortune as a contributing writer, editor at large, executive editor, and editorial director. He has won three Gerald Loeb awards for excellence in business journalism and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 2006. He lives in New York.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 It's Time to Make a Deal: Texas Monthly, October 1982 7

2 Jobs Agonistes (Steve, That Is) 47

The Second Coming of Steve Jobs: Esquire, December 1986 49

Good Luck with That Broken iPod: The New York Times, February 4, 2006 65

Weighing Jobs' Role in a Scandal: The New York Times, April 28, 2007 68

3 The Ga-Ga Years: Esquire, February 1988 73

4 Michael Milken, Mitigated (Well, a Bit): GQ, December 1992 98

5 Charlie Merrill and His Stock: GQ, October 1994 107

6 Lawyers from Hell 125

Fatal Litigation: Fortune, October 16 and 30, 1995 127

The Lawyer Companies Love to Hate: The New York Times, July 2, 2006 157

7 How the Bancrofts Blew It 161

Disgruntled Heiress Leads Revolt at Dow Jones: Fortune, February 3, 1997 163

A Family's Benign Neglect at Dow Jones: The New York Times, August 4, 2007 175

8 Saint Warren of Omaha: Money, July 1998 179

9 The Rise and Fall of Henry Blodget 187

The Cheerleader: Money, June 1999 188

Led into Temptation? Who Wasn't?: The New York Times, September 3, 2005 191

10 The Smartest Guys in the Room 195

A Revenge Fantasy, Except It's Reality: The New York Times, January 28, 2006 196

Mr. Skilling, for the Defense: The New York Times, April 15, 2006 200

Fastow's Long Walk to Less Time: The New York Times, September 30, 2006 203

11 The Quantitative, Data-Based, Risk-Massaging Road to Riches: The New York Times Magazine, June 5, 2005 207

12 If It's Good for Philip Morris, Can It Also Be Good for Public Health?: The New York Times Magazine, June 18, 2006 224

13 The Cufflinks That Went to China 243

The Board Wore Chicken Suits: The New York Times, May 27, 2006 244

Overstock's Campaign of Menace: The New York Times, February 15, 2006 248

After Five Years, His Voice Can Still Crack: The New York Times, September 9, 2006 252

Give Me a Double Shot of Starbucks Nostalgia: The New York Times, March 3, 2007 255

Our Love-Hate Relationship with Wal-Mart: The New York Times, November 5, 2005 259

The Cufflinks That Went to China: The New York Times, January 21, 2006 262

14 Return of the Raider: Fortune, May 27, 2002 267

Acknowledgments 283

Index 287

Editorial Reviews

Nocera demystifies the world of business with original thinking, brainy reporting, and the ability to see around corners. . . . Nocera knows that persuasion isn't about haranguing, that it's better to lead the reader toward your conclusion and depart gracefully rather than hammer him over the head with it.
— Slate

Jack Shafer