The Memoirs of the Dean of Wall Street

It's not undue modesty to say I had become something of a smart cookie in my particular field. Still, I was capable of doing some foolish things in other areas of Wall Street.
-- page 180 of the first edition

I can't get enough of stories with revolutionary geniuses, people that did the work with a level of intelligence that was above the rest of the crowd's.

He recounts the exploit of Northern Pipeline, where he forced a company with $90+/share of liquid holdings to return the money to shareholders, as the company wasn't using it. Ben bought in at $65/share.

He repeatedly ran arbitrages, such as buying a companies convertible bonds, and selling the common stock short. The more profit for less risk, the better.

Ben laments that he never really had any close friends. But that he was able to find the woman of his dreams late in life (after 3 marriages and much philandering). I think he read about Ben Franklin and decided for hedonism that he could analytically afford.