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July 31, 2026
9 Free Financial Modeling Lessons
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Big Deal - Bruce Wasserstein - bit of a high level overview from early 1800s through 1999 with great interjections when BW talks about his perspectives and the strategies used when he worked on some of the deals. Funny parts where he lauds Skilling and Enron and MCI/Worldco because ook was written in 1990s.
Accidental Investment Banker - Jonathan Knee - more of a first person perspective through 1980s, 90s and 00s. Knee joined MS as an Associate/VP, stayed through the DW merger then jumped to GS before leaving to be an early MD at Evercore.
There are quite a few like that focus on a specific time frame like Milken's building of Junk Bond market or the advent of the GFC.
Barbarians at the Gate - while this is mostly about the leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco, this book also covers the beginning of private equity when Kohlberg took young Kravis and Roberts under his wing and started doing small-scale PE-style deals (when all three were at Bear Stearns).
As the above poster mentioned, Milken's building of the junk ("high yield") bond empire is crucial to the development of LBOs. A couple of good books that focus on this era are Den of Thieves and Predator's Ball.
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