The Orthodox Establishment Did Not Understand Michael Milken’s Brilliantly Disruptive Innovations

(p. C13) I . . . ended [the year] with . . . with Richard Sandler’s “Witness to a Prosecution: The Myth of Michael Milken.”

. . .

Mr. Milken’s brilliance led to investments in companies that the “establishment” ignored. When those companies generated outsize returns, there was more interest in trying to find wrongdoing than in understanding his innovative approach to investing.  . . . disrupting established orthodoxies is difficult and . . . the rules established by social structures are riddled with biases that can end up undermining the public good.

For the full review, see:

Nina Rees. “12 Months of Reading: Nina Rees.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, December 9, 2023): C13.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed words, added.)

(Note: the online version of the review has the date December 8, 2023, and has the title “Who Read What in 2023: Political Voices and Policy Makers: Nina Rees.”)

The new book on Michael Milken praised above is:

Sandler, Richard V. Witness to a Prosecution: The Myth of Michael Milken. ForbesBooks: Charleston, South Carolina, 2023.

A book on Milken that I found convincing many years ago is:

Kornbluth, Jesse. Highly Confident: The Crime and Punishment of Michael Milken. New York: William Morrow & Co., 1992.

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