Author Michael Lewis will take the Haas community inside the financial crisis in a conversation with Kellie McElhaney, co-faculty director of the Center for Responsible Business, at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 13, at Andersen Auditorium.
The conversation with Lewis is part of a full lineup of Dean’s Speaker Series events for the fall semester. The event is co-sponsored by the Center for Responsible Business as part of its Peterson Series on Sustainable Finance.
The event is free and open to the entire Haas community. Registration is required. A pre-event reception at 6:30 p.m. in the Bank of America Forum will be open to event attendees. The reception is inclusive with registration to the talk.
Lewis will discuss his book The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, the future of finance as he sees it, and his thoughts on whether today’s business students have a chance at changing it. In addition to talking with McElhaney, Lewis will answer questions from the audience.
The Big Short tells the story of a handful of Wall Street outcasts that bet against the subprime housing market and won big. Lewis offers an insider’s view on how Wall Street masked deception as “financial innovation;” how the subprime market’s complexity befuddled regulatory bodies and rating agencies alike, catalyzing instead of curbing its excesses; and how it was not only greed but the misalignment of incentives that encouraged the very bets that helped sink the financial system.
“No one writes with more narrative panache about money and finance than Mr. Lewis,” wrote Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times about the #1 bestseller. “If you read only one book about the causes of the recent financial crisis, let it be Michael Lewis' The Big Short," urged Steven Pearlstein of the Washington Post.
Lewis holds a BA in art history from Princeton and a master’s degree from the London School of Economics. He worked for Salomon Brothers as a bond salesman shortly after earning his master's, until growing disillusioned with his job and leaving Salomon to write Liar’s Poker, an account of his experiences in the industry.
Since then, Lewis has continued as a successful financial journalist and bestselling author of The New New Thing, Moneyball, and The Blind Side.