I find it very ironic that someone who spent a full 30 years in this disgusting business and profited from it grandly suddenly has such high moral rectitude and is dispensing advice about it to the rest of us ... from the comfort of his leather armchair and estate in Greenwich, no doubt. Michael Thomas was to the manor born, drew on nepotism (to get his job both at the Met and Lehman's) and has retired in luxury from it. Now he wants to redeem himself by saying how appalling it all is. A little late, in my book.
By age 31, he was made general partner at Lehman Brothers, making $300,000 a year, which was a lot in those days. After the world of high finance had had enough of him, and he of it, he turned his hand to writing novels. His first book, Green Monday, published in 1980, was a critical and commercial success; it spent some two months on The New York Times’ best-seller list and landed his face on the cover of Institutional Investor magazine. ...
Michael Thomas was born in New York City in 1936. He went to Buckley, then Exeter, then Yale. Freshman year he read Duveen, by S. N. Beharman, and decided he wanted to be an art dealer. His father, Joe Thomas, a managing partner at Lehman Brothers, had a healthy disdain for money and suggested that was a lot more dignified than banking. ...
Bobby Lehman helped him get a gig as the curatorial assistant in the department of European Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, making $6,000 a year. He felt like his life was pretty much set. Two years later, he was locking horns with some asshole who was up to no good at the museum.
Mr. Lehman asked him if might like to try out finance. How much? Six thousand five hundred. Deal!
http://www.observer.com/2009/style/michael-thomas-finds-it-againMarried to Brooke Hayard, no less. How lush!
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