Maestro : Greenspan's Fed and the American Boom
by Bob Woodward
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Book Summary Information
Author: Bob WoodwardEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-11-06
ISBN: 0743205626
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Book Reviews of Maestro : Greenspan's Fed and the American Boom
Book Review: Management of Risk Outside An Entrepreneurs' Control
Summary: 5 Stars
Venture backed companies are always "at risk" until they reach sufficient cash flows to fund their growth. Risks outside the control of a venture's management team include the public equity and debt markets. Even with great potential and execution, a company's fortunes can be dealt a death blow by what is going on in these markets.
The public equity market is critical in determining the valuation of a privately held company. One looks to the equity market for comparable public companies (further along in their development) for establishing valuation. If the company category is out of favor or declining or if the "window" for a public offering is closed, valuations are reduced and capital can be very difficult to raise. Likewise, if valuations are high and the "window" is open, valuations are higher and money is easier to get. I was forced in my role as a CEO to look at the events impacting the market in an attempt to 'time' financings. As most will tell you, this is an impossible task.
As one who managed a start-up from concept to commercialization, raising money from both private and public investors, I found the Maestro to be a fascinating book. I lived ('survived' may be a better choice) through many of the ups and downs of the public market that are detailed in this book. When Greenspan and others were on the edge of the abyss, my company was there as well!
It was instructive to learn about how Greenspan worked behind the scenes to set policy in motion to correct the economy and the public markets. His actions had a direct influence on the course, not only of mine, but of all development stage companies - impacting both positively and negatively the greatest source of US job growth over the last several decades.
Woodward does a very good job articulating the tension that existed when disaster struck and the leadership Greenspan and Company provided in working to a positive result. An unexpected learning for me was the positive and courageous role President Bill Clinton filled in numerous 'against the grain' decisions. I came away with a more positive view of his presidency.
Those who are dependent on public markets and those who want to understand the management of macro-economics in today's world will find this a good and instructive read.
Summary of Maestro : Greenspan's Fed and the American Boom
Perhaps the last Washington secret is how the Federal Reserve and its enigmatic chairman, Alan Greenspan, operate. In Maestro, Bob Woodward uses his proven interviewing and research techniques to take you inside the Fed and Greenspan's thinking. Woodward presents the Greenspan years as a gripping narrative, a remarkable portrait of a man who has become the symbol of American economic preeminence.Bob Woodward called his biography of Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan Maestro for two reasons. First, Greenspan is a musician. He started out as a Julliard-trained jazz sax man. "He wasn't a good improviser," Woodward reports. And while the other guys got stoned all night, Greenspan "read economics and business books and eventually became the band's bookkeeper." He also cultivated powerful pals, like Ayn Rand, whose coterie dubbed the dour young man "The Undertaker."
More profoundly, Greenspan is a maestro, a conductor, exquisitely attuned to every instrument in the political and economic orchestra. He rules by consensus, but with a firm hand and notoriously inscrutable words. Marvelously, Woodward relates that Greenspan had to propose twice to his wife, the violinist-turned-TV news star Andrea Mitchell, before she understood: "His verbal obscurity and caution were so ingrained that Mitchell didn't even know that he had asked her to marry him." Woodward gives us the inside story of what Greenspan really thinks and how he outmaneuvered the most ruthless politicians on earth in some of the hairiest times imaginable, from the 1987 stock market crash to the 1994-95 Mexican crisis to the stomach-churning turn of the century. It turns out that for all his awesome knowledge of monetary minutiae, the Fed chief literally relies on "a pain in the pit of my stomach" to make decisions. "At times, he found his body sensed danger before his head," writes Woodward. The Fed chief also adapts Einstein's technique to economics, hunting for discrepancies as keys to deeper theories. Einstein made breakthroughs out of bent light; Greenspan deduced productivity gains that government statisticians had overlooked for years. (The gains appeared when Greenspan made the statisticians calculate productivity by business sector, the way it's done in the real world.)
Woodward's prose is cool and rational, not exuberant. But if you're into economics and politics, you'll find a rich gossip trove here. Who knew Reagan had a draft of a presidential order to shut down Wall Street trading at hand in 1987? Scary! Reading Maestro is better than sitting with Greenspan in his famous tub as he charts your future--it's like being right there inside his head. --Tim Appelo
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