“Jett’s account is persuasive, and his portrayal of the trading floor as a racist and sexist free-for-all is on the mark.”
The New York Times Book Review
“Convincing and well told, Jett’s story should attract much attention.”
Kirkus Reviews
“But above all he appears to have remarkable strength of will. It is not that a lesser man would have been crushed by his experience; most normal people probably would not have survived at all.”
Financial Times
“Joseph Jett is an African-American bond trader whose recently published memoir is a real corker — and Jett himself makes for one of the most compelling narrators I’ve read in years. As riveting as this story is, Jett does not come off as an entirely sympathetic narrator. In fact, he’s more like an anti-hero: think Clint Eastwood in “A Fistful of Dollars.”
Salon
“A real-life bonfire of the vanities.”
Publishers Weekly
“This firsthand account by the most successful African American trader on Wall Street is a story of financial intrigue and personal misfortune.”
Library Journal
“The firsthand account of a black man’s experiences on Wall Street by the person who was wrongly thrust into the center of its biggest scandal in years.”
Ingram
“Because of his disdain for affirmative action, he didn’t check on the box disclosing race on his application to Harvard Business School, which a Harvard official confirms.”
The Wall Street Journal
“When I first met Joe Jett, I came away tremendously impressed. Jett’s grasp of the technicalities of his business and his intelligent, friendly manner made it difficult to believe that he was a rogue trader who had single-handedly brought down an old-line Wall Street firm. Jett marshals compelling evidence that convinces me of his innocence.”
BusinessWeek
“He applied to MIT on a bet from a white classmate who said the only reason he had been accepted to Harvard College was because he was black. Without putting race on his application, Jett was immediately accepted to MIT and ended up going there. Now, even if you don’t believe Jett’s detailed and technical account of what actually went on at Kidder, it’s much harder to believe that Jett’s managers didn’t know how he was investing the company’s money — we’re talking $30 billion — when they were keeping tabs on his brief contacts with white female employees.”
The Motley Fool
“Jett’s stories about what happened to him at Kidder’s offices, in the media and in the courtroom helped make a compelling, though disturbing, read. He makes a convincing case.
Newsweek
“The power of the man is hard to ignore.”
Michael Carpenter
CEO – GMAC“This book has all the elements of a fascinating read: racial politics, sex and money. If Jett doesn’t get your interest with his discussion of race and sex, the depictions of modern-day material opulence will surely draw you in.”
USA Today
“The strongest evidence for his position is that an arbitration panel of the National Association of Securities Dealers examined his transactions, found no evidence of fraud, and ordered Kidder Peabody to unfreeze several million dollars of Jett’s personal funds. (The Justice Department found no cause for prosecution.) It also seems implausible that Jett’s superiors let a young trader manage, all by himself, an amount of money larger than the GDP of many countries.”
Joseph L. Badaracco
John Shad Professor of Business Ethics
Harvard Business School
Make sure you visit on YouTube the video discussion of Joseph Jett on Affirmative Action and visit our business site, Jett Capital Management LLC and be sure to visit the Official Blog of Joseph Jett