Honey and the Goodfellas
What do you say when your dog relieves itself on the Guccis of a connected lawyer who lives across the street?
What the Lawyers Won’t Tell You
You know what I mean. Buzzard brokers build their businesses on the AUM carcasses of departing colleagues. Sure, managers sprinkle around the accounts. But they assign the biggest, most profitable relationships to advisers who are really, really good at retaining assets.
Honey and the Goodfellas
It was just another day the first time I bumped into the mob. Just another day in a calm suburban bubble, where the gentle summer breezes whispered through leafy elms, “We’re safe here.” Our village was a mile-and-a-half square, a small tangle of conventional lives...
The Greatest Cold Call of All Time
I was drinking coffee at my desk, reading the tape, and nosing around for reasons to delay my morning regimen of smile-and-dial. I had recently joined a big shop on Wall Street–it was the mid-'90s, the heyday of rollups…
Who Owns You?
Goodbye, Thundering Herd. So long, Morgan Stanley and UBS . It was fun while it lasted. The best, most visionary advisers are taking clients from the big uglies of Wall Street and delivering them to the promised land of RIAs.
Title Maker
I struggle with titles. They keep me up at night. Distilling the essence of a novel into a few words can be agony. Or ecstasy. Some of the all-time greats suffered their own travails. Did you ever see Trimalchio in West Egg on anybody’s shelf? No—that’s because the...
Vonnegut: Go Bag or Kool-Aid?
Every financial adviser faces a choice at some point in his or her wealth-management career. Do I build a portable business or do I embrace the firm's platform?
Part Two: Will You Shut Up?
I’m sorry. To really appreciate this story, it’s necessary to read: Part One: Will You Shut Up? Are We There Yet? Personally, I find serial posts annoying. I want gratification. I want it now. And I find the cliffhangers annoying because they make me wait. But this...
Norb Vonnegut
The New York Times describes my novels as “money porn,” “a red-hot franchise,” and “glittery thrillers about fiscal malfeasance.” Through fiction I explore the dark side of money and the motivations of those who have it, want more, and will steamroll anybody who gets in their way.