Customer Reviews

The Real Deal: My Life In Business And Philanthropy

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is actually quite an interesting book and a fairly good and fast read. However compared to the previous two books on Weill, this offers maybe only 5% new information and some extra personal view on events that were reported by other authors.

My main gripe with this book is that it shows everything in a very biased view. Everyones "leaving" Sandy for whatever reason gave him a feeling of betrayal and as someone who did not appricate what was done for them by Sandy.
Jamie Dimon is depicted as a strong personality, maybe inflexible (Joan Weill also cites this as reason for why everyone close to Jamie left him), but this is not considered the reason why everyone (and really everyone) close to Sandy left and did not continue working for him.
While a lot of associates were described as people who could not change the way they worked, Sandy himself writes about having "issues" leaving day to day runnning of Citibank to Chuck Prince.

And frankly, Joan Weills section on giving her perspective of things seems to be another attempt to defend the actions of Sandy Weill.

Maybe the only way for a really different perspective on this will be if other executives (especailly Jamie Dimon) ever pen down their side of the story.

Sandy Weill - A really interesting character - achieved a lot despite his humble beginning and background; a maverick who shook up the biggest financial industry. But as a book on him, I prefer other books, especially "King of Capital"

I read "The Real Deal" in the hope of gaining insight on how to be a good manager. The book did not help; the main "insight" I gained was the suspicion that Weill's success was largely due to his having strong people as operational assistants - eg. Cohen at Shearson, and Dimon at Citigroup.

The one other potential insight I took away from the book was Weill's endorsement of requiring top executives to hold most of their stock until retirement (thus avoiding the incentive for short-term manipulations); it was also somewhat interesting (and disappointing) to read of the key role played by politics at American Express while Weill was there.

Business memoirs are usually way too self serving to tell you anything useful, but this one is an exception. Weill has many dramatic stories and, despite the co-author, conveys enough of what appears to be his real thoughts to be interesting. This is one of the toughest and wiliest - no pun - players on Wall Street, but one actually feels for him when he describes the trap New York attorney-general Spitzer set for Citigroup just as Weill thought the bank's legal problems were under control. Analyst Grubman's emails were leaked, the scandal was all over the press, but Weill and Citigroup couldn't really respond. He was like a mouse trying to dodge a menacing cat, while forbidden to make any noise. So powerful a chief executive was forced into a pitiful situation--yet the government didn't have a case with the Grubman revelations and nothing came of it. In the meanwhile, Citigroup's stock tanked. Some poor innocent investor who happened to own it lost money as the prosecutors played with Weill until they decided there was no case against him. Life isn't fair and the government much less so. Not that Weill has reason to complain, all in all: he went to the bank and came out with a fortune. As distinguished a career as possible, through the ups and downs and despite the tribulations toward the end with Spitzer. Definitely worth reading.

September 11, 2011...I have read numerous books (The Fed We Trust, Reckless Endangerment, The Big Short, End Game among others) which dealt with the Great Recession of 2007-2009...and maybe continuing to this day. With this in mind, I wanted to revisit my review of Sandy Weill's and Judith Kraushaar's "The Real Deal." The book is still a must read but not for the lessons of leadership but, rather, the lessons of hubris. Now that we can understand Weill's recklessness with debt and push to eliminate the Glass-Steagal Act, this book provides a new perspective as to Weill's influence and greed. He was very much part of the problem the U.S. economy and taxpayers are facing today. He, however, made off with millions.

"The Real Deal" is a rich case study and fascinating story of Sandy Weill, one of the contributors to the structuring of the financial services industry over the past half century and the resultant the crash of 2008. The book provides insights to how he consistently stayed ahead of the events and built two leading, but flawed, companies from scratch. Weill pursued more transformational acquisitions, created more shareholder value, destroyed more shareholder value, and enjoyed more poorly based respect from his peers than any other contemporary.

Weill's career spans an age when:
* partnerships were dominant to the rise of the modern corporate form of ownership;
* the rules of regulation were rapidly changing (some of which he spearheaded including the elimination of the Glass-Steagal Act);
* there was a growing appetite for derivative investment which he helped feed;
* globalization and deregulation of the rapidly changed the financial services industry.

The book provides great detail on Weill from his early years through the creation of CitiGroup. He writes openly of his relationships with Jim Robinson at AmEx, John Reed at CitiGroup, and his protégés Peter Cohen and Jamie Dimon (who has survived as the smartest of the bunch). He addresses what he feels are the gaps and misperceptions in the public record on these relationships and his highly publicized, time-in-the-box with Elliot Spitzer.

An interview with Weill's wife, Joan, is also included. She is a shrewd observer having served as a personal sounding board for husband. She talks of the good times and the tough times; the influence of Arthur Carter; the difference in the casual Shearson culture and the formal AmEx culture (Robinson's wife even established a pecking order of who would ride with whom for a luncheon she hosted for the wives of executives); and several of Weill's strengths and weaknesses (smart, intuitive, pragmatic, able to integrate a lot of information, but also vulnerable, SELF-CENTERED, controlling, and far too loyal to people). And now we know his role in the undoing of the global financial system.

"The Real Deal" is a complete book as it is not just about strategy and execution. The authors painstakingly fully capture the human dimension - arrogance, mistakes, good fortune, and the trappings of wealth and prestige. Weill and Kraushaar have combined to provide an excellent retrospective read about one person who was a key player in the demise of the U.S. economy.

May 3, 2009
Much has happened to the financial system and CitiGroup since I wrote this review. What has transpired brings into question Weill's creation of the world's largest bank and wayward banking practices. The latter brings into question the core values established by Weill.

For all its girth, this book is shockingly shallow and a huge disappointment for anyone hoping to learn real secrets behind the author's successful business career. There is a lot of score-settling and finger-pointing at those who he felt mistreated him (like proteges Peter Cohen and Jamie Dimon), but very little in 'take-away' value about what to look for in building a successful business. I was reading this book simultaneously with Danny Meyer's "Setting the Table" and the contrast could not be more striking. In a much shorter but infinitely richer and more rewarding volume, Meyer painstaking reveals all his business success secrets; the reader feels totally cared for which emulates the experience of being in his restaurants, whereas the Weill volume left me feeling that Mr. Weill cared not one whit for his readers because it imparted so few useful insights.

I have read in the past biographies of famous businessmen of the 19th/early 20th century. Names of businessmen that can be easily recognized because their names were immortalized with their products and/or services (Chrysler, Gillette, Ford, Edison, Marconi, etc.). The driving force behind the success of those men was innovation/creativity in their products and services that resulted in great benefits to the public in general.

After reading this book, you can only conclude that Sandy Weill's driving force in life has been Greed. The only innovations and creativities displayed by Sandy where those directed to play or manipulate the stock market, and those for self-promotion. Create, merge, inflate the stock value and profit from the above.

It did not matter what the name of the company was, or the benefits to the customers, just merge make a big name, inflate stock value and reap the benefits of that. His practices were investigated by the Federal Trade Commission. He says he was exonerated, but very likely Feds were unable to put a case together.

Family life with his children did not appear to have any meaning. Although he names and blames many others for having poor inter-personal skills for team work within the company, I think he top them all. People who helped him to progress in his "career" within the company ended without jobs.

His name will be forgotten soon, if ever recognized. His only legacy will be the billions of dollars left to his progeny. Money created in a quite bizarre way, jumping from company to company, morphing in this and morphing in that. Is that business?

Good psychotherapy book for those who value other things in life, beside money and power.

Frank (bids2005@aol.com)

PS. The "philanthropy" word in the title of this book is deceiving. Philos= Love; Anthopo= Humans. Love for Humans, this is the only thing lacking in this book. He only loves money.

Sandy spends all his time blaming others for the problems he encountered with personal interactions and does not give any insight as to how he made and negotiated the actual M&A deals. 6 discs of Sandy patting himself on the back with no real content. Don't waste your time and money.

A self-congratulating collection of ramblings from a king who has been sent to exile by ungrateful underlings. The words me, myself, I and my are the most used ones throughout the book. Any problem that is out there is with someone else.

I have always admired what Sandy Weill did as a businessman, entrepreneur and philanthopist. His background and ability to weave together and build great businesses are a testament to his hard work and the teams he put together. I was very suprised, then, when many of Sandy's recollections and stories were on the betrayal of the team, the conflicts with his associates, co-workers and other business and personal acquaintances. Instead of being truly upbeat or inspiring, or even actionable - Weill sounded defensive, petty and thin skinned. Whether talking about Peter Cohen, Jamie Dimon, John Reed, or a host of others, Sandy gives passing praise and seems to focus instead on the personal disappointments. Worth reading if you have interest or inclination, but Weill did more, did better, and didn't do himself justice in the autobiography.

There are better books about him than this. While a lot of the stuff he says in the book is also in other books, it comes off twisted. And contradictive. One part of the book stands out in my mind in particular.

He talks about how James Dimon and how he couldn't join the board at Citi Group. He says in the book something like "I told Jamie if he can convince the board to let him be a member then he should do so." A few pages later, maybe 2, he talks about how Dimon got onto the board after all and Weill felt betrayed he would go behind his back like that to convince the board to letting him join.

That last paragraph sums up the book pretty much. Full of contradictions.