Customer Reviews

The Biggest Game of All : The Inside Strategies, Tactics, and Temperaments That Make Great Dealmakers Great

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This book is a waste of time and money. A successful player in the telecom industry (among other things, he was a senior executive of Global Crossing: so draw your own conclusions), the author presumes to set himself up as an expert on great management and negotiation technique-- but the book seems to be more an excuse for name-dropping and self-congratulation than an attempt to provide any original insight or advice. A notable example of his vaunted negotiation skill is that, in connection with a merger, he did not disclose material information to an acquirer, because the acquirer didn't ask precisely the right question. Thus, a key part of his strategy is to know when to keep his mouth shut: too bad his editors didn't remind him of that. Analyst's recommendation: Avoid.

I bought this book because of a favorable mention in The Economist. I am truly astonished, and am rethinking my Economist subscription.

All tell-all war-story business books are self serving. Never, however, has one been so shamelessly and ineptly so. The book is an astonishingly collection of self-aggrandizement, payback, groveling, condescension, and Monday morning quarterbacking. Hindery portrays himself as the lone genius at the center of each deal, his wisdom all too often ignored, but always correct. People who have fired him or otherwise crossed him (e.g. Mike Armstrong of AT&T, Steve Rattner of Quadrangle, some poor WSJ reporter) are fools or knaves. The people to whom he now owes fealty (George Steinbrenner, Brian Roberts) are repeatedly bootlicked for their genius.

There's not a lot of wisdom for the ages here, either. The first chapter is the give-away. Written in 2002, he praises Gerry Levin at AOL-TW as a visionary, and criticizes the severe stumbles of Amazon and Yahoo!. Oops.

The book suffers from some sort of strange editing Alzheimer's. The same comments appear again and again in the same chapter, often in the same words, as if Hindery and his ghost-writer can't remember what he said 5 minutes before.

After a while, this all becomes very amusing, and it should be read in that vein.

If you enjoy war stories on mega deals within the media industry, this one is for you. The author enjoys telling the tale, and you should fill your coffee cup or wine glass, and maybe light up a cigar for full reader ambience. Most of the material is less applicable to classroom or lecture hall, but rather the stuff discussed in country club locker rooms and men's-only grills.

As for strategies, tactics, and lessons applicable to deal making today, the author rarely wanders from the ten commandments of dealmaking listed on the book jacket. Applying the lessons to deals within privately held or small businesses is a stretch at best. I found myself skipping much of the material and heading directly to the end of the chapters. There you will find helpful sections starting with "Looking Back", that actually dissect and reflect on the deal being discussed.

My advise: Wait for the Cliff Notes to come out. Not worth wading through the book for the finely sprinkled parcels of wisdom applicable in most deal making.

Is that the smell of hubris emanating from this steaming dunghill of a book? In his uniquely narcissistic way, Professor Leo first-name-drops his way through this instruction manual on how the masters "do a deal". He concludes his introduction by humbly voting himself into the pantheon of dealsters. Not surprisingly, he fails to mention the commonly held view that most of his deals have been driven by expedience or the pursuit of grandiosity rather than any particular economic or commercial agenda. His deal skills more closely resemble your college roommate's drunken quest to add notches to his bedpost than the deliberate acts of the business genius he sees in his mental mirror. The streets are crowded with investors who have trusted his judgement and had confidence in his skill. The TCI shareholders who didn't sell immediately saw their holdings shrink. The Global Crossing shareholders saw their holdings evaporate. Things aren't looking much better for the YES shareholders.

The body of the book is slim compensation for those few who can muster the iron will and stamina to claw their way through the introduction. While Ms. Cauley may have done a dutiful job of fact checking (or may not have, for that matter), there is no evidence anywhere that the work is the result of any sort of in-depth study, analysis or scholarly effort. That would be too time-consuming for our deal stud on the go. This work is nothing more than the accumulated off-the-cuff proclamations of an egomaniac.

If you need a little break from scraping away the flesh on your body with 50 grit sandpaper, you might find this book a pleasant diversion.

I bought this book because of the favorable review by Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, and The Economist. I found the book interesting on many levels and annoying on a few others. The main annoyance was with the general tone of the book. The first part of the book is a homage to many of the people that Hindery has known in the business. It almost sounds solicitous. However, the book recovers from this with a great treatment of how to do deals and insight into how some of the deals he was a part of transpired. I finished the reading of this book with the feeling that while some of the book was a waste, the book as a whole was not a waste of time. Therefore I rate it with 4 stars and encourage any aspiring dealmaker to go and negotiate a good price on the book and learn. The 10 rules for negotiating a deal are excellent.

This book is a must-read for anyone involved in mergers and acquisitions in the cable or media industries, a should read for people doing M&A in other industries and a worthwhile read for anyone with an interest in business and investing. The author sat at the deal-making table with some of the best negotiators in the media and communications industries. His general advice about negotiating strategy and tactics is quite familiar, but he brings a unique insight into the motivations and manipulations of CEOs and investment bankers. Academics have long puzzled over why CEOs implement value-destroying M&A deals. Here's a first-hand, eyewitness account of how these big deals come to be. Even if you have little faith in the astuteness of executives, the author's revelations will surprise you. Just when you thought nobody could be that stupid, here comes an anecdote about another boardroom leader who was. The detail, it must be said, gets exhaustive at times, but if you love deals, we think that you'll be too absorbed to care.

The Biggest Game of All is an average book by cable executive Leo Hindery: the most exceptional thing about it is its ludicrously long post-colon subtitle. You are unlikely to learn a whole lot about business, but the book is an interesting memoir of a career spent as a dealmaker in the cable industry.

Hindery details many deals. Three stand out. Hindery, then a conservative and involved in the formation of Fox News, admits that it was by design a conservative counterpart to the liberal CNN. A signature page signed by mistake at the tail-end of a hectic negotiation cost Hindery millions of his own dollars. Hindery was also involved in the formation of the New York Yankee's network (YES). Focused sports network, such as the Big 10 Network, have become big business. There is a lot of hubris present, but there is also lessons to be learned from all the war stories.

Borrowed this book from the library. By page two the author tells us he couldn't 'afford not to buy MediaOne', and then proceeds to sell out a partner to 'win' his deal.' Suffice to say I was done reading before reaching the end of page two.

To Hindery business is a 'Big Game' played with other people's money. Haven't we seen and heard enough of that for one generation?

I wasted my time borrowing this book. You could do worse.

I learned about this book watching Kudlow & Cramer interview the author. The war stories related are downright fascinating, especially the chapters covering TCI, AT&T and Comcast. Depending upon which side your on, some of the negotiations are not very pretty, but they led to closings. Mistakes were made, which are made crystal clear. But deals got done.

I wanted to know who the author considered "great dealmakers" and what they had done to be so named. Some are household names. He focused, however, on those in the Media World, where he has established himself.

The chapters on Mike Armstrong and Barry Diller are of special interest to me. I like the book and recommend it to those interested in learning from the inside how some major deals were done. In the end, that's what matters to change agents.

What a fun ride this book is! I loved it! I've read dozens of business books...and this is by far, one of the most entertaining and informative I've had the pleasure to read.
The writing is well crafted to weave the personalities in and behind these billion dollar deals that literally shape our world. Insightful, valuable and funny...I found that some chapters had to be finished before I could put it down. The cover says it all..it's like being a fly on the wall in these big power deals. Kudos to Leo Hindery and Leslie Cauley!