Illustration by Eduardo Recife; photograph of Raj Rajaratnam by Daniel Barry for The New York Times In The New York Times Book Review, Frank Partnoy reviews “The Billionaire’s Apprentice,†Anita Raghavan’s detailed look at the spectacular fall of the Galleon Group hedge fund when its founder, Raj Rajaratnam, and Rajat Gupta, the former head of McKinsey & Company, were each convicted of securities fraud. Mr. Partnoy writes:
The book’s prefatory Cast of Characters sets a big, complex stage. My edition of “Hamlet†lists just 18 named dramatispersonae at the outset, whereas “The Billionaire’s Apprentice†lists 81. For Wall Street insiders, there are large dollops of gossip about the bit players. Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, idolizes Bruce Springsteen and calls his father a “tiger dad.†Judge Richard J. Holwell mispronounces the name of Goldman Sachs’s chief executive Lloyd Blankfein. Raghavan’s coverage is encyclopedic. Some readers will wish she had heeded Elmore Leonard’s advice and left out the parts people tend to skip.
But the details of the two cases support a larger edifice, what Raghavan calls “the rise of the Indian-American elite.†Vijay Prashad, a scholar who has written extensively about South Asian history and Indian immigration, argues that men like Rajaratnam and Gupta benefited from two of the greatest social movements of the past century: independence in India and the struggles for civil rights in America. Those were the changes that made them “twice blessed.â€
On this week’s podcast, Ms. Raghavan discusses her new book; Jon Mooallem talks about “Wild Ones,†his look at the haphazard nature of our efforts to protect endangered species; Adam LeBor on the difficulty of writing thrillers; and Gregory Cowles has best-seller news. Pamela Paul is the host.
