Street Freak

Like Michael Lewis&;s classic Liar&;s Poker, Jared Dillian&;s Street Freak takes us behind the scenes of the legendary Lehman Brothers, exposing its outrageous and often hilarious corporate culture and offering a &;candid look at the demise of a corporate behemoth&; (Publishers Weekly).In the ultracompetitive Ivy League world of Wall Street, Jared 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, at Lehman Brothers insanity was 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, yet 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 nearly ended his life. In his electrifying and fresh voice, Dillian takes readers on a wild ride through madness and back.