The Best of Braverman: A Monkey's Review

I've been looking forward to writing this particular Monkey's Review for a long time.

Whether you've been religiously reading Uncle Eddie's daily posts for years or are just visiting WSO for your first time today, you owe it to yourself (and your career!) to pick yourself up a copy.

The Best of Braverman is a compilation of Eddie's finest moments over a four-year-plus writing career with WSO. And to sweeten the deal for us long-time fans, he's thrown in several unreleased adventures, including the story of his first Wall Street interview (with Merrill Lynch) and the one that makes the entire purchase price of the book worthwhile: life on the run in Mexico when a young Mr. Braverman discovered what his old firm was doing...and decided to get even.

"I fully expected to be met by two guys in the parking lot waiting to tune me up with a baseball bat," he writes at one point in that story.

This, of course, means that he chose a very prudent course of action.

If you've ever found one of his posts valuable or interesting, chances are it's here: The "Sell Your Options Dearly" series. The "Scam Science" series. "For One Day Longer."

And my personal favorites, the "Man Week" material (which in my despair I believed to be lost after failing to find them again on WSO). Reading them again brought back memories of magnificent times spent among brothers.

Like the other writers he admires--like James Altucher and Richard Dawkins--Eddie is both knowledgable and irreverent, a combo that has made his front-page spot so special to WSO. Trader, entrepreneur, tech fiend, and now father of two, Eddie manages to find time to share his stories and wisdom with us monkeys, and we are lucky to have him (though perhaps not as lucky as @rufiolove, for obvious reasons).

You may not want to follow ALL of his recommendations to the letter, and I don't think Eddie would necessarily want you to. He wants you, more than anything else, to think. Even if you disagree with everything else in "Best of Braverman," thinking is not as fashionable as it used to be, and if you do that, Uncle Eddie has achieved his purpose.

So get one. Get one for yourself, for your coworkers, for your boss, for your drinking buddies, for your significant other. And if the subtitle is any hint, there's more to come in the future.

Here's hoping for a "Best of Braverman, Volume 2!"

Congratulations, Eddie.

Monkey’s Review 1: Barbarians At the Gate
Monkey’s Review 2: The Financier
Monkey’s Review 3: Decision Points
Monkey’s Review 4: Debunkery
Monkey’s Review 5: When Genius Failed
Monkey’s Review 6: Monkey Business
Monkey’s Review 7: Death Of The Banker
Monkey’s Review 8: A Journey
Monkey’s Review 9: Damn It Feels Good To Be A Banker
Monkey’s Review 10: The Quants
Monkey’s Review 11: All About Hedge Funds
Monkey’s Review 12: The Unlikely Disciple
Monkey’s Review 13: Adventure Capitalist
Monkey’s Review 14: The Hedge Fund Book
Monkey’s Review 15: Investing In Hedge Fund of Funds
Monkey’s Review 16: Hilarity Ensues
Monkey’s Review 17: The Prince
Monkey’s Review 18: Markets Never Forget (But People Do)
Monkey’s Review 19: The Money Culture
Monkey's Review 20: An Empire of Wealth
Monkey's Review 21: The New Tycoons
Monkey's Review 22: A Bold, Fresh Piece of Humanity
Monkey's Review 23: Ahead of the Curve (2 Years At HBS)
Monkey's Review 24: How To Be A Gentleman
Monkey's Review 25: Ten Roads to Riches

 
Best Response

Wow, thanks man! Glad you enjoyed it.

"That's Why God Made Mexico" (the chapter you referred to above) is probably the chapter I've received the most feedback about. Readers absolutely love it for some reason, but it was the hardest chapter of the book to write. I did my best to make light of the fact that I was on the hook for $14 million and had to spend over a year of my life on the run in Mexico and the Far East, but the truth is it was one of the darkest periods of my life.

Just imagine: my parents were good enough to spend Thanksgiving with me that year in a lobster village in Mexico because I was afraid to come back to the States for even a weekend. They told me about people calling them looking for me, one guy who was obviously not a cop even came to their house looking for me, and my mom was really shaken up.

And I put myself there. A thousand percent I put myself there. Which is what made it so hard to write that chapter and what ultimately held the book up for almost two years. Admitting I was so stupid, and that my life was so out of control, that forcing a firm owned by some very bad people to take a massive trading loss just to salve my bruised ego is difficult for me even to this day.

Ultimately I'm really glad I didn't run from it, though (the chapter, I mean; I totally ran from the bad guys). It's raw and it's funny and it would be a really cool story if it happened to somebody else.

Screw it. Chicks dig scars.

Thanks again for the great review!

 
Edmundo Braverman:

"That's Why God Made Mexico" (the chapter you referred to above) is probably the chapter I've received the most feedback about. Readers absolutely love it for some reason, but it was the hardest chapter of the book to write. I did my best to make light of the fact that I was on the hook for $14 million and had to spend over a year of my life on the run in Mexico and the Far East, but the truth is it was one of the darkest periods of my life.

Just imagine: my parents were good enough to spend Thanksgiving with me that year in a lobster village in Mexico because I was afraid to come back to the States for even a weekend. They told me about people calling them looking for me, one guy who was obviously not a cop even came to their house looking for me, and my mom was really shaken up.

Wait, what?

Ok, definitely buying the book

Commercial Real Estate Developer
 

@edmundo Braverman. The book is awesome. Its great hearing about the old broker stories. As I actually know a few guys who worked at stratton oakmont, would never trust them with my money but they are great at sales and super aggressive.

 

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Metal. Music. Life. www.headofmetal.com

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