Street Freak: Money and Madness at Lehman Brothers [Hardcover]

Jared Dillian (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 13, 2011

When Jared Dillian joined Lehman Brothers in 2001, he fulfilled a life-long dream to make it on Wall Street—but he had no idea how close to the edge the job would take him.

Like Michael Lewis’s classic Liar’s Poker, Jared Dillian’s Street Freak takes readers behind the scenes of the legendary Lehman Brothers, exposing its outrageous and often hilarious corporate culture.

In this ultracompetitive Ivy League world where men would flip over each other’s ties to check out the labels (also known as the “Lehman Handshake”), Dillian was an outsider as an ex-military, working-class guy in a Men’s Wearhouse suit. But he was scrappy and determined; in interviews he told potential managers that, “Nobody can work harder than me. Nobody is willing to put in the hours I will put in. I am insane.” As it turned out, on Wall Street insanity is not an undesirable quality.

Dillian rose from green associate, checking IDs at the entrance to the trading floor in the paranoid days following 9/11, to become an integral part of Lehman’s culture in its final years as the firm’s head Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) trader. More than $1 trillion in wealth passed through his hands, but at the cost of an untold number of smashed telephones and tape dispensers. Over time, the exhilarating and explosively stressful job took its toll on him. The extreme highs and lows of the trading floor masked and exacerbated the symptoms of Dillian’s undiagnosed bipolar and obsessive compulsive disorders, leading to a downward spiral that eventually landed him in a psychiatric ward.

Dillian put his life back together, returning to work healthier than ever before, but Lehman itself had seemingly gone mad, having made outrageous bets on commercial real estate, and was quickly headed for self-destruction.

A raucous account of the final years of Lehman Brothers, from 9/11 at its World Financial Center offices through the firm’s bankruptcy, including vivid portraits of trading-floor culture, the financial meltdown, and the company’s ultimate collapse, Street Freak is a raw, visceral, and wholly original memoir of life inside the belly of the beast during the most tumultuous time in financial history. In his electrifying and fresh voice, Dillian takes readers on a wild ride through madness and back, both inside Lehman Brothers and himself.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“[A] disturbingly candid memoir . . . the highly personal journal of a poor kid who quit the U.S. Coast Guard to chase his dream of becoming a trader. . . . His narrative crackles with authenticity . . . the dominant tone is unsparingly confessional and even modest. Dillian’s snail’s-eye view is what makes his book a valuable companion to previous volumes on Lehman. . . . From hair-trigger decisions to trashy banter, Dillian captures how the market feels from inside the belly of a trading room. . . . [A] blunt and sometimes hilarious account.” —Bloomberg

“This revealing, personal memoir of a volatile period in the dual lives of a big-time trader and the fallen American giant Lehman Brothers is depicted in the fueled words of Dillian, a major figure at the company. . . .Writ[ing] in a style that veers from gonzo lucidity to precise trader chatter . . . Dillian offers a candid look at the demise of a corporate behemoth.” —Publishers Weekly

“Thank God for the 3rd element, because if it wasn’t for lithium Jared Dillian might still be in the psych ward looking for his shoelaces. Instead, we get Street Freak, the best Wall Street memoir in a bunch of years. This guy can really f***ing write. Street Freak is more than just a great read, though. For anybody who’s ever gone off the rails, or thought they might, it’s a comforting reminder that there’s always a way back.” —John Rolfe, coauthor of Monkey Business: Swinging Through the Wall Street Jungle

“Always vivid, by turns hilarious and sad, this is an electrifying memoir about not only money and madness, but the madness of money. It left me wondering yet again about the shifting boundaries between sanity and insanity.” —Siri Hustvedt, author of The Summer Without Men

“A scathing critique of selfish, scrambling men so driven to earn a buck that they lose all sight of the world beyond the tickers. . . . Dillian hardly fit the mold of the rich, Northeastern prep-schooler, and his outsider status served as a great attribute, offering him a clearer view of an industry both morally and economically bankrupt.” —Kirkus Reviews

"A bipolar math whiz [and] amusingly caustic writer whose new memoir pulls no punches about a financial career that nearly cost him both his sanity and his life." —Fortune.com

About the Author

Jared Dillian is the founder of the subscription-based, daily financial market report The Daily Dirtnap. He worked on the Pacific Options Exchange from 1999 to 2000, and was a trader for Lehman Brothers from 2001 to 2008, specializing in index arbitrage and ETF trading. Dillian is a graduate of the United States Coast Guard Academy and earned a Masters in Business Administration from the University of San Francisco.  He lives in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Visit JaredDillian.com. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Touchstone; First Edition edition (September 13, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1439181268
• ISBN-13: 978-1439181263
• Product Dimensions: 1.2 x 6.5 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (70 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #573,231 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jared Dillian grew up in southeastern Connecticut in the eighties and nineties, became a Coast Guard officer and spent some time at sea. While in the service, he developed a passion for finance, attended business school, and secured a job as a trader at Lehman Brothers. He joined the firm in 2001, shortly before 9/11, and left at the bankruptcy in 2008. STREET FREAK is the story of those years. He now publishes a financial market newsletter from South Carolina: The Daily Dirtnap. www.dailydirtnap.com

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 32 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A blow-your-brains take on what it's really like to trade September 7, 2011

By M. Park

Format:Hardcover

Street Freak doesn't just put you in the Aeron chair of a single trader making markets in every ETF under the sun. It goes beyond the cologne, the order-in sandwiches and flatulence of the Lehman trading floor and puts you deep inside the brain of Jared Dillian--a "poor, smart and determined" Wall Street outsider with an undiagnosed bipolar disorder.

The characters are real and the trades are real. A department head is "a walking molecule of testosterone... who patrolled the aisles, rotating his shoulders and practically his entire torso just to tell people to go f--- themselves." And Jared recounts some of his biggest winning and losing trades with play-by-play accuracy.

While has-been traders like this reviewer will jaw-drop at how Jared literally moved markets on the "Street," it's the dark and deeply personal episodes of the "Freak" that make this a special read. Jared was a great trader, but luckily for us he's an even better writer.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great read even if you don't work on Wall Street! September 22, 2011

By Elevator Club

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I picked up "Street Freak" and was immediately hooked. I couldn't put it down. The amazing thing is that I've never worked on Wall Street. Dillian does a terrific job of pulling the reader into the chaos, the adrenaline, and the stress of a trading desk -- and he does it with a punchy sense of humor. I found myself alternately laughing out loud and sweating with nervous tension. As a bonus, Dillian provides juicy details on how much Wall Street guys actually make.

And, thankfully, this is more than just a book about Wall Street. Dillian is refreshingly honest about what was going on in his head through all of this. He leads us through the ups and the downs of both his personal and professional life, culminating in his eventual diagnosis with bipolar disorder.

I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to get wrapped up in a great story.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The first honest Wall st memoir September 15, 2011

By JGLOW

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book is a gloves off, brutally honest account of what life is like working on Wall St. Dillian nails it by not hiding a thing about his experience and being brave enough to tell the world his perspective from the "dark side." Anyone who has worked in a sales or trading function, buy or sell side, will appreciate reading this piece. In addition, if you have no connection with Wall St other than the picture that politicians have painted by berating the group, I think this book will help shape your opinion. There is a lot of baggage that comes along with working on the Street that most people are not fully aware of and Street Freak gets to the heart of many of these conflicts.

I like to think of Dillian as the next Michael Lewis with a sprinkle of Bret Easton Ellis: Liar's Poker meets American Psycho.

Hats off to him for having the balls to say how he really feels!