"Senior management's job is to pay people. If they fuck a hundred guys out of a hundred grand each, that's ten miliion more for them. They have four categories: happy, satisfied, dissatisfied, disgusted. If they hit happy, they've screwed up; They never want you to be happy. On the other hand, they don't want you so disgusted you quit. The sweet spot is somewhere between dissatisfied and disgusted."

—Greg Lippmann of Deutsche Bank, in Michael Lewis' "The Big Short," pg. 63. Last week, Lippmann, who not only bet against the subprime housing market but spread word that others should bet against the subprime housing market, too (he was, Lewis, writes, the "Patient Zero" of those bets), left Deutsche Bank for a hedge fund founded by Fred Brettschneider.

All previous entries