{"product_id":"the-wolf-of-wall-street-isbn-9780553384772","title":"The Wolf of Wall Street","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES \u003c\/i\u003eBESTSELLER \u003c\/b\u003e• \u003cb\u003eNow a major motion picture directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eBy day he made thousands of dollars a minute. By night he spent it as fast as he could. From the binge that sank a 170-foot motor yacht and ran up a $700,000 hotel tab, to the wife and kids waiting at home and the fast-talking, hard-partying young stockbrokers who called him king, here, in Jordan Belfort’s own words, is the story of the ill-fated genius they called the Wolf of Wall Street. In the 1990s, Belfort became one of the most infamous kingpins in American finance: a brilliant, conniving stock-chopper who led his merry mob on a wild ride out of Wall Street and into a massive office on Long Island. It’s an extraordinary story of greed, power, and excess that no one could invent: the tale of an ordinary guy who went from hustling Italian ices to making hundreds of millions—until it all came crashing down.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eThe Wolf of Wall Street\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Raw and frequently hilarious.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “A rollicking tale of [Jordan Belfort’s] rise to riches as head of the infamous boiler room Stratton Oakmont . . . proof that there are indeed second acts in American lives.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eForbes\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “A cross between Tom Wolfe’s \u003ci\u003eThe Bonfire of the Vanities \u003c\/i\u003eand Scorsese’s \u003ci\u003eGoodFellas \u003c\/i\u003e. . . Belfort has the Midas touch.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Sunday Times \u003c\/i\u003e(London)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Entertaining as pulp fiction, real as a federal indictment . . . a hell of a read.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“Raw and frequently hilarious.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“A rollicking tale of [Jordan Belfort’s] rise to riches as head of the infamous boiler room Stratton Oakmont . . . proof that there are indeed second acts in American lives.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eForbes\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“A cross between Tom Wolfe’s \u003ci\u003eThe Bonfire of the Vanities \u003c\/i\u003eand Scorsese’s \u003ci\u003eGoodFellas \u003c\/i\u003e. . . Belfort has the Midas touch.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Sunday Times \u003c\/i\u003e(London)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Entertaining as pulp fiction, real as a federal indictment . . . a hell of a read.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eAfter graduating from American University, \u003cb\u003eJordan Belfort\u003c\/b\u003e worked on Wall Street for ten years. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his two children.\u003ci\u003ePrologue\u003cbr\u003e A Babe in the Woods\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eMay 1, 1987\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e You’re lower than pond scum,” said my new  boss, leading me through the boardroom of LF Rothschild for the first time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “You  got a problem with that, Jordan?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “No,” I replied, “no problem.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Good,” snapped  my boss, and he kept right on walking.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e We were walking through a maze of brown mahogany  desks and black telephone wire on the twenty-third floor of a glass-andaluminum tower  that rose up forty-one stories above Manhattan’s fabled Fifth Avenue. The boardroom  was a vast space, perhaps fifty by seventy feet. It was an oppressive space, loaded  with desks, telephones, computer monitors, and some very obnoxious yuppies, seventy  of them in all. They had their suit jackets off, and at this hour of morning–9:20  a.m.–they were leaning back in their seats, reading their \u003ci\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003es, and  congratulating themselves on being young Masters of the Universe.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Being a Master  of the Universe; it seemed like a noble pursuit, and as I walked past the Masters,  in my cheap blue suit and clodhopper shoes, I found myself wishing I were one of  them. But my new boss was quick to remind me that I wasn’t. “Your \u003ci\u003ejob\u003c\/i\u003e”–he looked  at the plastic nametag on my cheap blue lapel–“Jordan Belfort, is a \u003ci\u003econnector, \u003c\/i\u003ewhich  means you’ll be dialing the phone five hundred times a day, trying to get past secretaries.  You’re not trying to sell anything or recommend anything or create anything. You’ re just trying to get business owners on the phone.” He paused for a brief instant,  then spewed out more venom. “And when you \u003ci\u003edo \u003c\/i\u003eget one on the phone, all you’ll say  is: ‘Hello, Mr. So and So, I have Scott holding for you,’ and then you pass the phone  to me and start dialing again. Think you can handle that, or is that too complicated  for you?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “No, I can handle it,” I said confidently, as a wave of panic overtook  me like a killer tsunami. The LF Rothschild training program was six months long.  They would be tough months, \u003ci\u003egrueling\u003c\/i\u003e months, during which I would be at the very  mercy of assholes like Scott, the yuppie scumbag who seemed to have bubbled up from  the fiery depths of yuppie hell.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Sneaking peaks at him out of the corner of my eye,  I came to the quick conclusion that Scott looked like a goldfish. He was bald and  pale, and what little hair he did have left was a muddy orange. He was in his early  thirties, on the tall side, and he had a narrow skull and pink, puffy lips. He wore  a bow tie, which made him look ridiculous. Over his bulging brown eyeballs he wore  a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles, which made him look fishy–in the goldfish sense  of the word.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Good,” said the scumbag goldfish. “Now, here are the ground rules:  There are no breaks, no personal calls, no sick days, no coming in late, and no loafing  off. You get thirty minutes for lunch”–he paused for effect–“and you better be back  on time, because there are fifty people waiting to take your desk if you fuck up.”  He kept walking and talking as I followed one step behind, mesmerized by the thousands  of orange diode stock quotes that came skidding across gray-colored computer monitors.  At the front of the room, a wall of plate glass looked out over midtown Manhattan.  Up ahead I could see the Empire State Building. It towered above everything, seeming  to rise up to the heavens and scrape the sky. It was a sight to behold, a sight worthy  of a young Master of the Universe. And, right now, that goal seemed further and further  away.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “To tell you the truth,” sputtered Scott, “I don’t think you’re cut out for  this job. You look like a kid, and Wall Street’s no place for kids. It’s a place  for killers. A place for mercenaries. So in \u003ci\u003ethat\u003c\/i\u003e sense you’re lucky I’m not the one  who does the hiring around here.” He let out a few ironic chuckles.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eI bit my lip  and said nothing. The year was 1987, and yuppie assholes\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003elike Scott seemed to rule  the world. Wall Street was in the\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003emidst of a raging bull market, and freshly minted  millionaires were\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003ebeing spit out a dime a dozen. Money was cheap, and a guy named\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eMichael Milken had invented something called “junk bonds,”\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003ewhich had changed the  way corporate America went about its\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003ebusiness. It was a time of unbridled greed,  a time of wanton excess.\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eIt was the era of the yuppie.\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e As we neared his desk, my  yuppie nemesis turned to me and said, “I’ll say it again, Jordan: You’re the lowest  of the low. You’re not even a cold caller yet; you’re a \u003ci\u003econnector.\u003c\/i\u003e” Disdain dripped  off the very word. “And ’til you pass your Series Seven, connecting will be your  entire universe. And \u003ci\u003ethat \u003c\/i\u003eis why you are lower than pond scum. You got a problem  with that?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Absolutely not,” I replied. “It’s the perfect job for me, because I  \u003ci\u003eam \u003c\/i\u003elower than pond scum.” I shrugged innocently.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Unlike Scott, I don’t look like  a goldfish, which made me feel proud as he stared at me, searching my face for irony.  I’m on the short side, though, and at the age of twenty-four I still had the soft  boyish features of an adolescent. It was the sort of face that made it difficult  for me to get into a bar without getting proofed. I had a full head of light brown  hair, smooth olive skin, and a pair of big blue eyes. Not altogether bad-looking.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e But, alas, I hadn’t been lying to Scott when I’d told him that I  felt lower than  pond scum. In point of fact, I did. The problem was that I had just run my first  business venture into the ground, and my self-esteem had been run into the ground  with it. It had been an ill-conceived venture into the meat and seafood industry,  and by the time it was over I had found myself on the ass end of twenty-six truck  leases–all of which I’d personally guaranteed, and all of which were now in default.  So the banks were after me, as was some belligerent woman from American Express–a  bearded, three-hundred-pounder by the sound of her–who was threatening to personally  kick my ass if I didn’t pay up. I had considered changing my phone number, but I  was so far behind on my phone bill that NYNEX was after me too.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e We reached Scott’ s desk and he offered me the seat next to his, along with some kind words of encouragement.  “Look at the bright side,” he quipped. “If by some miracle you don’t get fired for  laziness, stupidness, insolence, or tardiness, then you migt actually become a stockbroker  one day.” He smirked at his own humor. “And just so you know, last year I made over  three hundred thousand dollars, and the other guy you’ll be working for made over  a million.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Over a million? I could only imagine what an asshole the \u003ci\u003eother \u003c\/i\u003eguy was.  With a sinking heart, I asked, “Who’s the other guy?”\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Why?” asked my yuppie tormentor.  “What’s it to you?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Sweet Jesus! I thought. Only speak when spoken to, you nincompoop!  It was like being in the Marines. In fact, I was getting the distinct impression  that this bastard’s favorite movie was \u003ci\u003eAn\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eOfficer and a Gentleman, \u003c\/i\u003eand he was playing  out a Lou Gossett fantasy on me–pretending he was a drill sergeant in charge of a  substandard Marine. But I kept that thought to myself, and all I said was, “Uh, nothing,  I was just, uh, curious.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “His name is Mark Hanna, and you’ll meet him soon enough.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e With that, he handed me a stack of three-by-five index cards, each of them having  the name and phone number of a wealthy business owner on it. “Smile and dial,” he  instructed, “and don’t pick up your fucking head ’til twelve.” Then he sat down at  his own desk, picked up a copy of \u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal, \u003c\/i\u003eand put his black crocodile  dress shoes on the desktop and started reading.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I was about to pick up the phone  when I felt a beefy hand on my shoulder. I looked up, and with a single glance I  knew it was Mark Hanna. He reeked of success, like a true Master of the Universe.  He was a big guy–about six-one, two-twenty, and most of it muscle. He had jet-black  hair, dark intense eyes, thick fleshy features, and a fair smattering of acne scars.  He was handsome, in a downtown sort of way, giving off the hip whiff of Greenwich  Village. I felt the charisma oozing off him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Jordan?” he said, in a remarkably  soothing tone.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Yeah, that’s me,” I replied, in the tone of the doomed. “Pond scum  first-class, at your service!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He laughed warmly, and the shoulder pads of his $2,000  gray pin-striped suit rose and fell with each chuckle. Then, in a voice louder than  necessary, he said, “Yeah, well, I see you got your first dose of the village asshole!”  He motioned his head toward Scott. I nodded imperceptibly. He winked back. “No worry:  I’m the senior broker here; he’s just a worthless piker. So disregard everything  he said and anything he might ever say in the future.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eTry as I might, I couldn’ t help but glance over at Scott, who was\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003enow muttering the words: “Fuck you, Hanna!”\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Mark didn’t take offense, though. He simply shrugged and stepped around my desk,  putting his great bulk between Scott and me, and he said, “Don’t let him bother you.  I hear you’re a first-class salesman. In a year from now that moron will be kissing  your ass.” I smiled, feeling a mixture of pride and embarrassment. “Who told you  I was a great salesman?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Steven Schwartz, the guy who hired you. He said you pitched  him stock right in the job interview.” Mark chuckled at that. “He was impressed;  he told me to watch out for you.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Yeah, I was nervous he wasn’t gonna hire me.  There were twenty people lined up for interviews, so I figured I better do something  drastic–you know, make an impression.” I shrugged my shoulders. “He told me I’d need  to tone it down a bit, though.” Mark smirked. “Yeah, well don’t tone it down \u003ci\u003etoo \u003c\/i\u003emuch. High pressure’s a must in this business. People don’t buy stock; it gets sold  to them. Don’t ever forget that.” He paused, letting his words sink in. “Anyway,  Sir Scumbag over there was right about one thing: Connecting does suck. I did it  for seven months, and I wanted to kill myself every day. So I’ll let you in on a  little secret”–and he lowered his voice conspiratorially–“You only \u003ci\u003epretend\u003c\/i\u003e to connect.  You loaf off at every opportunity.” He smiled and winked, then raised his voice back  to normal. “Don’t get me wrong; I want you to pass me as many connects as possible,  because I make money off them. But I don’t want you to slit your wrists over it,  ’cause I hate the sight of blood.” He winked again. “So take lots of breaks. Go to  the bathroom and jerk off if you have to. That’s what I did, and it worked like a  charm for me. You like jerking off, I assume, right?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I was a bit taken aback by  the question, but as I would later learn, a Wall Street boardroom was no place for  symbolic pleasantries. Words like \u003ci\u003eshit \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003efuck \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003ebastard \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eprick \u003c\/i\u003ewere as common  as \u003ci\u003eyes \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eno \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003emaybe \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eplease. \u003c\/i\u003eI said, “Yeah, I, uh, love jerking off. I mean,  what guy doesn’t, right?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He nodded, almost relieved. “Good, that’s real good. Jerking  off is key. And I also strongly recommend the use of drugs, especially cocaine, because  that’ll make you dial faster, which is good for me.” He paused, as if searching for  more words of wisdom, but apparently came up short. “Well, that’s about it,” he said.  “That’s all the knowledge I can impart to you now. You’ll do fine, rookie. One day  you’ll even look back at this and laugh; that much I can promise you.” He smiled  once more and then took a seat before his own phone.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e A moment later a buzzer sounded,  announcing that the market had just opened. I looked at my Timex watch, purchased  at JCPenney for fourteen bucks last week. It was nine-thirty on the nose. It was  May 4, 1987, my first day on Wall Street. Just then, over the loudspeaker, came the  voice of LF Rothschild’s sales manager, Steven Schwartz. “Okay, gentlemen. The futures  look strong this morning, and serious buying is coming in from Tokyo.” Steven was  only thirty-eight years old, but he’d made over $2 million last year. (Another Master  of the Universe.) “We’re looking at a ten-point pop at the open,” he added, “so let’ s hit the phones and rock and roll!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And just like that the room broke out into  pandemonium. Feet came flying off desktops; \u003ci\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003es were filed away  in garbage cans; shirtsleeves were rolled up to the elbows; and one by one brokers  picked up their phones and started dialing. I picked up my own phone and started  dialing too.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Within minutes, everyone was pacing about furiously and gesticulating  wildly and shouting into their black telephones, which created a mighty roar. It  was the first time I’d heard the roar of a Wall Street boardroom, which sounded like  the roar of a mob. It was a sound I’d never forget, a sound that would change my  life forever. It was the sound of young men engulfed by greed and ambition, pitching  their hearts and souls out to wealthy business owners across America.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Miniscribe’ s a fucking steal down here,” screamed a chubbyfaced yuppie into his telephone. He  was twenty-eight, and he had a raging coke habit and a gross income of $600,000.  “Your broker in West Virginia? Christ! He might be good at picking coal-mining stocks,  but it’s the eighties now. The name of the game is hightech!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “I got fifty thousand  July Fifties!” screamed a broker, two desks over.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “They’re out of the money!” yelled  another.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “I’m not getting rich on one trade,” swore a broker to his client.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Are  you kidding?” snapped Scott into his headset. “After I split my commission with the  firm and the government I can’t put Puppy Chow in my dog’s bowl!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Every so often  a broker would slam his phone down in victory and then fill out a buy ticket and  walk over to a pneumatic tubing system that had been affixed to a support column.  He would stick the ticket in a glass cylinder and watch it get sucked up into the  ceiling. From there, the ticket made its way to the trading desk on the other side  of the building, where it would be rerouted to the floor of the New York Stock Exchange  for execution. So the ceiling had been lowered to make room for the tubing, and it  seemed to bear down on my head.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e By ten o’clock, Mark Hanna had made three trips  to the support column, and he was about to make another. He was so smooth on the  phone that it literally boggled my mind. It was as if he were apologizing to his  clients as he ripped their eyeballs out. “Sir, let me say this,” Mark was saying  to the chairman of a Fortune 500 company. “I pride myself on finding the bottom of  these issues. And my goal is not only to guide you into these situations but to guide  you out as well.” His tone was so soft and mellow that it was almost hypnotic. “I’ d like to be an asset to you for the long term; to be an asset to your business–and  to your family.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Two minutes later Mark was at the tubing system with a quartermillion-dollar  buy order for a stock called Microsoft. I’d never heard of Microsoft before, but  it sounded like a pretty decent company. Anyway, Mark’s commission on the trade was  $3,000. I had seven dollars in my pocket.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e By twelve o’clock I was dizzy, and I was  starving. In fact, I was dizzy and starving and sweating profusely. But, most of  all, I was hooked. The mighty roar was surging through my very innards and resonating  with every fiber of my being. I \u003ci\u003eknew \u003c\/i\u003eI could do this job. I knew I could do it \u003ci\u003ejust \u003c\/i\u003elike Mark Hanna did it, probably even better. I knew I could be smooth as silk.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e To my surprise, rather than taking the building’s elevator down to the lobby and  spending half my net worth on two frankfurters and a Coke, I now found myself ascending  to the penthouse with Mark Hanna standing beside me. Our destination was a five-star  restaurant called Top of the Sixes, which was on the forty-first floor of the office  building. It was where the elite met to eat, a place where Masters of the Universe  could get blitzed on martinis and exchange war stories.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The moment we stepped into  the restaurant, Luis, the maître d’, bum-rushed Mark, shaking his hand violently  and telling him how wonderful it was to see him on such a glorious Monday afternoon.  Mark slipped him a fifty, which caused me to nearly swallow my own tongue, and Luis  ushered us to a corner table with a fabulous view of Manhattan’s Upper West Side  and the George Washington Bridge.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Mark smiled at Luis and said, “Give us two Absolut  martinis, Luis, straight up. And then bring us two more in”–he looked at his thick  gold Rolex watch–“exactly seven and a half minutes, and then keep bringing them every  five minutes until one of us passes out.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Luis nodded. “Of course, Mr. Hanna. That’ s an excellent strategy.” I smiled at Mark, and said, in a very apologetic tone,  “I’m sorry, but I, uh, don’t drink.” Then I turned to Luis. “You could just bring  me a Coke. That’ll be fine.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Luis and Mark exchanged a look, as if I’d just committed  a crime. But all Mark said was, “It’s his first day on Wall Street; give him time.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Luis looked at me, compressed his lips, and nodded gravely. “That’s perfectly understandable.  Have no fear; soon enough you’ll be an alcoholic.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Mark nodded in agreement. “Well  said, Luis, but bring him a martini anyway, just in case he changes his mind. Worse  comes to worst, I’ll drink it myself.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Excellent, Mr. Hanna. Will you and your  friend be eating today or just imbibing?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e What the fuck was Luis talking about?  I wondered. It was a rather ridiculous question, considering it was lunchtime! But  to my surprise, Mark told Luis that he would not be eating today, that only I would,  at which point Luis handed me a menu and went to fetch our drinks. A moment later  I found out exactly why Mark wouldn’t be eating, when he reached into his suit-jacket  pocket, pulled out a coke vial, unscrewed the top, and dipped in a tiny spoon. He  scooped out a sparkling pile of nature’s most powerful appetite suppressant–namely,  cocaine–and he took a giant snort up his right nostril. Then he repeated the process  and Hoovered one up his left.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eI was astonished. Couldn’t believe it! Right here  in the restaurant!\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eAmong the Masters of the Universe! Out of the corner of my\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eeye  I glanced around the restaurant to see if anyone had noticed.\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eApparently no one had,  and, in retrospect, I’m sure that they\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003ewouldn’t have given a shit anyway. After all,  they were too busy\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003egetting whacked on vodka and scotch and gin and bourbon and\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003ewhatever  dangerous pharmaceuticals they had procured with their\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003ewildly inflated paychecks.\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Here you go,” said Mark, passing me the coke vial. “The true ticket on Wall Street;  this and hookers.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Hookers? \u003c\/i\u003eThat struck me as odd. I mean, I’d never even been to  one! Besides, I was in love with a girl I was about to make my wife. Her name was  Denise, and she was gorgeous–as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside.  The chances of me cheating on her were less than zero. And as far as the coke was  concerned, well, I’d done my share of partying in college, but it had been a few  years since I’d touched anything other than pot. “No thanks,” I said, feeling slightly  embarrassed. “The stuff doesn’t really agree with me. It makes me . . . uh . . .  nuts. Like I can’t sleep or eat, and I . . . uh . . . well, I start worrying about  everything. It’s really bad for me. Really evil.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “No problem,” he said, taking  another blast from the vial. “But I promise you that cocaine can definitely help  you get through the day around here!” He shook his head and shrugged. “It’s a fuckedup  racket, being a stockbroker. I mean, don’t get me wrong: The money’s great and everything,  but you’re not creating anything, you’re not \u003ci\u003ebuilding \u003c\/i\u003eanything. So after a while  it gets kinda monotonous.” He paused, as if searching for the right words. “The truth  is we’re nothing more than sleazoid salesmen. None of us has any idea what stocks  are going up! We’re all just throwing darts at a board and, you know, churning and  burning. Anyway, you’ll figure all this out soon enough.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e We spent the next few  minutes sharing our backgrounds. Mark had grown up in Brooklyn, in the town of Bay  Ridge, which was a pretty tough neighborhood from what I knew of it. “Whatever you  do,” he quipped, “don’t go out with a girl from Bay Ridge. They’re all fucking crazy!”  Then he took another blast from his coke vial and added, “The last one I went out  with stabbed me with a fuckingpencil while I was sleeping! Can you imagine?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Just  then a tuxedoed waiter came over and placed our drinks on the table. Mark lifted  his twenty-dollar martini and I lifted my eight-dollar Coke. Mark said, “Here’s to  the Dow Jones going straight to five thousand!” We clinked glasses. “And here’s to  your career on Wall Street!” he added. “May you make a bloody fortune in this racket  and maintain just a small portion of your soul in the process!” We both smiled and  then clinked glasses again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In that very instant if someone told me that in just  a few short years I would end up owning the very restaurant I was now sitting in  and that Mark Hanna, along with half the other brokers at LF Rothschild would end  up working for me, I would have said they were crazy. And if someone told me that  I would be snorting lines of cocaine off the bar in this very restaurant, while a  dozen highclass hookers looked on in admiration, I would say that they had lost their  fucking mind.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e But that would be only the beginning. You see, at that very moment  there were things happening away from me–things that had nothing to do with me–starting  with a little something called \u003ci\u003eportfolio\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003einsurance, \u003c\/i\u003ewhich was a computer-driven stock-hedging  strategy that would ultimately put an end to this raging bull market and send the  Dow Jones crashing down 508 points in a single day. And, from there, the chain of  events that would ensue would be almost unimaginable. Wall Street would close down  business for a time, and the investment-banking firm of LF Rothschild would be forced  to shut its doors. And then the insanity would take hold. What I offer you now is  a reconstruction of that insanity–a satirical reconstruction–of what would turn out  to be one of the wildest rides in Wall Street history. And I offer it to you in a  voice that was playing inside my head at that very time. It’s an ironic voice, a  glib voice, a self-serving voice, and, at many times, a despicable voice. It’s a  voice that allowed me to rationalize anything that stood in my way of living a life  of unbridled hedonism. It’s a voice that helped me corrupt other people–and manipulate  them–and bring chaos and insanity to an entire generation of\u003cbr\u003e young Americans.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I  grew up in a middle-class family in Bayside, Queens, where words like \u003ci\u003enigger \u003c\/i\u003eand  \u003ci\u003espick \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003ewop \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003echink \u003c\/i\u003ewere considered the dirtiest of words–words that were never  to be uttered under any circumstances. In my parents’ household, prejudices of any  sort were heavily discouraged; they were considered the mental processes of inferior  beings, of unenlightened beings. I have always felt this way: as a child, as an adolescent,  and even at the height of the insanity. Yet dirty words like that would come to slip  off my tongue with remarkable ease, especially as the insanity took hold. Of course,  I would rationalize that out too–telling myself that this was Wall Street and, on  Wall Street, there’s no time for symbolic pleasantries or societal niceties.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Why  do I say these things to you? I say them because I want you to know who I really  am and, more importantly, who I’m not. And I say these things because I have two  children of my own, and I have a lot to explain to them one day. I’ll have to explain  how their lovable dad, the very dad who now drives them to soccer games and shows  up at their parent—teacher conferences and stays home on Friday nights and makes  them Caesar salad from scratch, could have been such a despicable person once.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e But  what I sincerely hope is that my life serves as a cautionary tale to the rich and  poor alike; to anyone who’s living with a spoon up their nose and a bunch of pills  dissolving in their stomach sac; or to any person who’s considering taking a God-given  gift and misusing it; to anyone who decides to go to the dark side of the force and  live a life of unbridled hedonism. And to anyone who thinks there’s anything glamorous  about being known as a Wolf of Wall Street.","brand":"Bantam","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305264861413,"sku":"NP9780553384772","price":24.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780553384772.jpg?v=1767742274","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-wolf-of-wall-street-isbn-9780553384772","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}