The Devil Genius of Wall Street - The Biography of Jay Gould

Author: René Han
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2007-01-01
Features: He is the king of the money grabbers; He is ranked alongside J.P. Morgan and Cornelius Vanderbilt; His status in that era surpassed Bill Gates of our time; He was both the greatest financial and business genius of his time and a demon who provoked widespread hatred; Although Gould committed every crime that the financiers of his generation had committed, he actually caused no greater harm to society than the financiers or industrialists who lost to him—in the past few centuries, those financiers or industrialists had enjoyed a higher reputation than Gould. After losing to him, his business rivals provided the media with various distorted materials to portray Gould as the demon of Wall Street.
I hope everyone sees a real, uned Gould, whether as a financier or as a man. In narrating Gould's business career, I did not intend to be his prosecutor or defense attorney; I only wanted to present the facts to everyone. As for Gould's private life, I mainly wanted to fill the huge gaps left by previous legendary writers. In short, I will strive to portray Gould in a true, objective, and complete manner in time; a mysterious Wall Street bandit, a calm corporate manager, and the emperor of an era. – Excerpted from the Preface
Jay Gould, the founder of modern business, the undisputed giant of 19th-century American railroads and telegraph systems, and the manipulator of the stock market in the "Gilded Age." His raid on the gold market in 1869 triggered the Great Panic, known as "Black Friday." The new methods he created for manipulating markets, raising capital, and acquiring competitors have become many of the standard operating models of today's financial markets.
While accumulating extraordinary wealth and achievements, Gould also bore a greater reputation for ill fame than his peers or rivals. At the time, the media relentlessly attacked him. When discussing modern American financial history, Gould was always considered the number one demon. He was cruelly and wrongly distorted by the media throughout his life and never received justice even after his death.
But in this book, you will see a successful, detail-oriented entrepreneur, a workaholic who fiercely integrated the dying railroad industry and transformed it into a highly profitable network, and a real, uned CEO.
This is a biography that provides an objective and fair evaluation of Gould. It skillfully and vividly combines his real and peculiar life with the rich social background of the Gilded Age, portraying the dazzling life of this 19th-century misunderstood, important, and complex entrepreneur through a brand-new and comprehensive discussion.