The Spider Network: The Wild Story of a Math Genius, a Gang of Backstabbing Bankers, and One of the Greatest Scams in Financial History
Written by David Enrich
Narrated by Mike Chamberlain
4/5
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About this audiobook
The Wall Street Journal's award-winning business reporter unveils the bizarre and sinister story of how a math genius named Tom Hayes, a handful of outrageous confederates, and a deeply corrupt banking system ignited one of the greatest financial scandals in history.
In 2006, an oddball group of bankers, traders and brokers from some of the world’s largest financial institutions made a startling realization: Libor—the London interbank offered rate, which determines the interest rates on trillions in loans worldwide—was set daily by a small group of easily manipulated functionaries, and that they could reap huge profits by nudging it to suit their trading portfolios. Tom Hayes, a brilliant but troubled mathematician, became the lynchpin of a wild alliance that among others included a French trader nicknamed “Gollum”; the broker “Abbo,” who liked to publicly strip naked when drinking; a Kazakh chicken farmer turned something short of financial whiz kid; a broker known as “Village” (short for “Village Idiot”) and fascinated with human-animal sex; an executive called “Clumpy” because of his patchwork hair loss; and a broker uncreatively nicknamed “Big Nose.” Eventually known as the “Spider Network,” Hayes’s circle generated untold riches —until it all unraveled in spectacularly vicious, backstabbing fashion.
The Spider Network is not only a rollicking account of the scam, but a provocative examination of a financial system that was crooked throughout, designed to promote envelope-pushing behavior while shielding higher-ups from the consequences of their subordinates’ rapacious actions.
David Enrich
David Enrich is the Business Investigations Editor at the New York Times and the #1 bestselling author of Dark Towers. He previously was an editor and reporter at the Wall Street Journal. He has won numerous journalism awards, including the 2016 Gerald Loeb Award for feature writing. His first book, The Spider Network: How a Math Genius and Gang of Scheming Bankers Pulled Off One of the Greatest Scams in History, was short-listed for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year award. Enrich grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts, and graduated from Claremont McKenna Collee in California. He currently lives in New York with his wife and two sons.
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Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump, and the Corruption of Justice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
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Reviews for The Spider Network
83 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I had been sort of aware of the Libor fixing scandal without ever really understanding the causes and effects of it. David Enrich skillfully navigates through this world balancing the needs to explain the intricacies of the scandal without weighing the reader down with too much detail. Going beyond this is a very real personal story of Tom Hayes and his family who being at the centre of the scandal seems very much to have been the fall guy for actions that went much further than one trader.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Very interesting read to see how the whole Libor thing unfolded and more interesting to see how the whole banking industry is built on greed and people who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near money. Sad part is that in the end the people who enabled the whole mess, the senior bank officers, all go free and prosper. I really shouldn't be surprised by that.