The Spider Network, David Enrich
The Spider Network, David Enrich
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The Spider Network
The Wild Story of a Math Genius, a Gang of Backstabbing Bankers, and One of the Greatest Scams in Financial History

Author: David Enrich

Narrator: Mike Chamberlain

Unabridged: 15 hr 31 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 03/21/2017


Synopsis

The Wall Street Journal's award-winning business reporter unveils the bizarre and sinister story of how a math genius named Tom Hayes, a handful of outrageous confederates, and a deeply corrupt banking system ignited one of the greatest financial scandals in history.In 2006, an oddball group of bankers, traders and brokers from some of the world’s largest financial institutions made a startling realization: Libor—the London interbank offered rate, which determines the interest rates on trillions in loans worldwide—was set daily by a small group of easily manipulated functionaries, and that they could reap huge profits by nudging it to suit their trading portfolios. Tom Hayes, a brilliant but troubled mathematician, became the lynchpin of a wild alliance that among others included a French trader nicknamed “Gollum”; the broker “Abbo,” who liked to publicly strip naked when drinking; a Kazakh chicken farmer turned something short of financial whiz kid; a broker known as “Village” (short for “Village Idiot”) and fascinated with human-animal sex; an executive called “Clumpy” because of his patchwork hair loss; and a broker uncreatively nicknamed “Big Nose.” Eventually known as the “Spider Network,” Hayes’s circle generated untold riches —until it all unraveled in spectacularly vicious, backstabbing fashion.The Spider Network is not only a rollicking account of the scam, but a provocative examination of a financial system that was crooked throughout, designed to promote envelope-pushing behavior while shielding higher-ups from the consequences of their subordinates’ rapacious actions.

About David Enrich

David Enrich is the Business Investigations Editor at the New York Times and the bestselling author of Dark Towers and Servants of the Damned. The winner of numerous journalism awards, he previously was an editor and reporter at the Wall Street Journal. His first book, The Spider Network: How a Math Genius and Gang of Scheming Bankers Pulled Off One of the Greatest Scams in History, was short-listed for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year award. Enrich grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts, and graduated from Claremont McKenna College in California. He currently lives in New York with his wife and two sons.


Reviews

Goodreads review by ☘Misericordia☘ on March 19, 2019

A very cool research on a very space cadet issue that our modern world, no matter how sophisticated we think it be, was prone to at up until a very recent point. (And probably still is, I don't see this process becoming separate from judgement!) Q: Spread out across time zones and continents, a group......more

Goodreads review by Athan on April 08, 2017

Yesterday, (April 6, 2017) the very same Southwark Crown Court that had previously sentenced Tom Hayes to 14 years in prison arrived at a very different decision in the case of his Barclays counterparts, Ryan Reich and Stylianos Contogoulas, making for some very poignant reading as I was finishing T......more

Goodreads review by Michael on July 11, 2017

The most disturbing thing about this book wasn't the fraud. It was the culture that incentivized and looked the other way while the fraud was committed. I lived in this world (the world of "Wall Street") for more than 20 years. I saw the culture from the inside and Enrich absolutely nailed what it f......more

Goodreads review by Sharon on February 19, 2019

This is the true story of a young man, Tom Hayes, who may or may not have understood that manipulating stocks was wrong. He apparently had Asberger Syndrome and, with an ability to hyper focus, bordering on obsession, Hayes was out to achieve success by any means possible. Why might he not have under......more

Goodreads review by Ms.pegasus on September 08, 2021

Demands for accountability became particularly loud after the 2008 financial meltdown. In particular the cries were directed at Attorney General Eric Holder, after his “too big to fail” pronouncement. Surely someone should have gone to jail for causing such a debacle. Author David Enrich touches on......more