Summary And Analysis Of "Liar's Poker" By Michael Lewis

After reading Liar’s Poker, Michael Lewis makes it clear that approval on Wall Street is far more desirable than money. Earning money is something that everyone in the office can do, but earning respect is a longer and more treacherous journey. As Lewis states, “success at Salomon meant having your name shouted over the hoot”. With the help of a few mentors and the screwing over of several customers, Lewis was able to fulfill his obligation of becoming, as they put it at Salomon, a Big Swinging Dick. We largely see Lewis’ desire for approval in chapter eight, From Geek to Man. The chapter revolves around his road to respect within the Salomon office. In total, his transformation took just over six months, which was a quick turnaround for any individual in such a competitive firm.

The chapter begins with Lewis explaining what a geek means at the Salomon office in London. A geek, defined by the traders meant “‘any person who sucks farts from swans’” or “‘a person immediately out of the training program and in a disgusting larval state between trainee and man”. While the latter is more logical, the two are really one in the same in this environment. This hierarchical system on all of Wall Street aggressively victimizes the less experienced and praises the higher-ups. It’s a brutal system as Lewis explains when describing a book entitled Salomon Brothers: advance to Leadership, which was given to the employees. Lewis states, “the book was a fine little specimen of clumsy fascist propaganda” which praised those at the top, like Gutfreund. Of course, the trainees had to memorize it.

At first, Lewis is happy to even be considered a geek, if it means his training period is over. He begins to understand that the only way to climb the ladder of approval is by impressing all those around you. When Gutfreund, the CEO of Salomon, makes appearances at each of the offices, employees put on a show in order to hopefully get some recognition or approval. Lewis explains in a short excerpt about one of his friends that happened to be visiting the Tokyo office during the time that Gutfreund was there. Lewis’ friend has a brief discussion with Gutfreund and says when he finished the conversation “‘all the Japanese were staring at me as if I had just had a personal conversation with God and he had made me a saint’”. This example shows the obsession over approval and the brainwashing power of corporate hierarchy. Lewis goes on to speak about Dick Leahy and Leslie Christian, executives in the bond options and futures portion of the firm. Following the training program, these two took Lewis under their wing and gave him some advice on how to make it in the early stages at Salomon. Essentially, it was to find a way to make money, learn, and don’t sell your soul to the company. These two personally “aligned their self-interest with the interests of the firm as a whole”, which was out of the ordinary, but in a good way.

Much of Lewis’ road to social approval comes from learning and emulation. Not the type of knowledge found in a textbook but more so “learning an attitude: how to sound on the telephone, how to deal with traders, and most important, how to spot the difference between a financial opportunity and a rip-off. One of Lewis’ first mentors was Dash Riprock, who was far more experienced than Lewis, even though he was two years younger. He “was a proven money maker”, “had a kind heart”, and from him, Lewis “learned about trading, selling and life”. For this reason, Lewis wanted to be like Dash. He states “soon I found myself jackknifed in my chair, twirling pencils in the corner of my mouth, plugging my ear with my fingers, talking too fast and quietly for my customers to follow, and generally looking much like Dash”. Lewis admits that many people at Salomon would poke fun at him and analyze his characteristics, mainly the negative ones. Even Dash made comments, but more in a joking manner. In describing Dash, he says “like all of us, he lived by the law of the jungle, and the law of the jungle said geek salesman are red meat for traders. No exceptions”.

During the time Lewis acknowledges he is a geek, he makes several sales that essentially screw over all of his customers. It is not until later in his strive for approval in which he starts making sound deals. Finally, after endless cold calling in search for customers, Lewis finds Herman, a German man from a bank in London. After several conversations with him, Lewis finally closes the deal, trading AT&T bonds. He recalls hearing on the loudspeaker “‘Mike Lewis has just sold three million of our AT a T’s for us, a great trade for the desk, thank you very much, Mike’”. Lewis continues to say “I was flushed with pride. Flushed with pride, you understand”. At this point, Lewis feels like he is beginning the transformation from a geek to a Big Swinging Dick, especially after being called by his first name. He does realize he is far from achieving the latter nickname. Although Dash informs Lewis that this trade with screw over Herman, Lewis ends up confronting the trader that gave him misinformation. At the end of the day, Lewis realizes he screwed over a customer, and that it might in factbujammingt on the other hand he says, you dream in the language. It seems odd now to think of dreaming of money-making schemes”. At that point in Lewis’ life though, his main goal was to make it to the top, and when you are up against every other person in the firm, you must do all you can to better yourself. That is how you earn approval. Lewis goes as far to say “I thrived on praise more than most and thus sought to please” anyone and everyone he could. After being guided by both Dash and Alexander, Lewis starts to get the hang of things and begins branching into the big leagues. Part of his technique was that he was “willing to disobey my superiors, and that caused them to sit up and take notice far more quickly than if I had been a good soldier”.

In this environment, you have to stand out, or no one will even care to hear your opinion. Part of that means standing up for yourself, as Lewis demonstrated. He later says, “pretty soon Salomon management was leading me to the clients of other salespeople, in hopes that with larger customers I could do gargantuan pieces of business”. It was at this point that Lewis stopped feeling like a geek, particularly when other traders at Salomon started asking him for advice. This was a moment that made Lewis realize he was beginning to have the approval and respect of others. He notes that he “became a normal, established Salomon salesman”, and that “people stopped calling me geek and started calling me Michael, which I preferred”. Lewis’ final transformation from geek to Big Swinging Dick happens during the sale of Olympia and York bonds, worth eighty-six million dollars. After discovering the possibility of the deal, Lewis shares his plan with Alexander. Alexander helps craft the correct position to take in which Salomon would greatly benefit, but more importantly, Lewis states, “I would be a hero”. He faces a dilemma when speaking to the trader for the Olympia and York bonds. After this interaction, Lewis is turned off and feels he is in a moral rut, not trusting that the deal would be wise. Yet, after word spreads around the floor, everyone is hounding Lewis to make the deal. He decides against it until the Human Piranha calls him. This was the first time he had spoken to him since Lewis’ training period.

The Piranha tells Lewis that the customers would not be hurt during the transaction. Having such high approval for the Human Piranha, Lewis states “I trusted him”, and that he is “a man of his word”. After hearing the go-ahead from such a respected figure in the mind of Lewis, he goes through with the deal. The aftermath of this deal changed Lewis’ existence at the firm. All the executives, such as “Strauss, Massey, Ranieri, Meriwether, and Voute each called separately”, congratulating him, and saying “how bright his future was a Salomon Brothers”. He remembers feeling that “I was being blessed by the gods… I saw this ritual enacted several times in my time at Salomon Brothers, but never taken to such a ridiculous extreme as when I sold those godforsaken bonds”. It wasn't until Lewis received the call from the one and only Human Pirana, that he realized he had made it. On the phone, the Human Piranha says, “‘You are on Big Swinging Dick, and don’t ever let anybody tell you different’”. At this moment, Lewis is filled with excitement, joy, and the feeling of complete and utter approval from everyone around him. He states, “it brought tears to my eyes to hear it, to be called a Big Swinging Dick by the man who, years ago, had given birth to the distinction and in my mind had the greatest right to confer it upon me.

It was a beautiful moment in Lewis’ career, that signifies his desire for approval over money, as he demonstrates in transforming from a geek to Big Swinging Dick.