Michael Lewis

Michael Lewis graduated from Princeton University and the London School of Economics before joining Salomon Brothers as a bond salesman in the mid-1980s. His experiences at Salomon during the boom years of mortgage bond trading under John Gutfreund became the material for "Liar's Poker" (1989) — his debut book, which provided an insider's account of the absurdity and excess of 1980s investment banking and became one of the most widely read finance books ever published. Lewis went on to write a series of books that shaped popular understanding of finance and economics. "The Big Short" (2010) told the story of the small group of investors who predicted and bet against the subprime mortgage collapse, becoming a bestseller that was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film. "Flash Boys" (2014) argued that high-frequency trading firms were exploiting structural advantages in US equity markets at the expense of slower investors, igniting a firestorm of debate about market fairness and HFT regulation. "Moneyball" (2003), his account of the Oakland Athletics' use of statistical analysis in baseball, helped popularise the application of data analytics in sports. Lewis has also written extensively on the financial crisis, behavioural economics, and systemic risk. His gift for narrative nonfiction — finding compelling human stories to explain complex financial concepts — has made him the most successful populariser of financial subjects in his generation.