Ben Mezrich, "Rigged: The Story of an Ivy League Kid Who
Changed the World of Oil, from Wall Street to Dubai," (Harper Collins: New
York; 2007), 294 pages.
Rigged is Mezrich's latest book about
kids with Ivy League university educations that go on to make fortunes. In this
relatively unexciting and unexceptional story, a Harvard University graduate
goes to work for the New York Mercantile Exchange to establish the Dubai
Mercantile Exchange.
The most revealing aspect of this book is its expose of the itty-gritty
details on how the Dubai Mercantile Exchange was founded, as well as the
broader subject of establishing a new business in the Arab world. Readers will
discover the importance of working with an Arab partner familiar with the
business practices in the West and the Arab world. Readers will also see how
such partners can help negotiate difficulties with obtaining approval of
religious leaders in circumstances where business practices have some conflict,
or potential conflict, with Islamic law. Finally, we see how it is sometimes
necessary to appeal to the lower instincts of established industry stalwarts in
order to develop new operations.
If this book has any shortcomings, it would be Mezrich's tendency to
stray into hagiography and hyperbole. He praises almost without criticism and
glorifies the protagonist's success without much broad perspective. Michael
Lewis fails spectacularly in writing books that discourage bright young kids
from going to Wall Street to get rich. Mezrich has no such moral imperative: he
writes books like Rigged that are sufficiently entertaining to
encourage bright kids to go to Ivy League school so they can "change the
world," which means, find new ways, or new twists on old ways, to make a
fortune working on Wall Street.
No comments:
Post a Comment