My Side of the Street

 

by Jason DeSena Trennert

I’m always up for a good book with an insider’s look at the world of finance and hijinks on Wall Street. The tri-named author of this book, who I’ll call Jase because that’s what he goes by and because his name is so long, seems to have been an insider for something like thirty years, lately as the owner of his own research firm. He has plenty of interesting stories, unusual anecdotes, and some unheard tales from inside the world of finance. Unfortunately, many of his stories fall a little flat, and none of them deliver on the promise of this book’s enticing subtitle. I expected a “warts and all” look at how Jase and his moral bearing, ethical, everyday friends and colleagues bested the “wolves, quants, and flash boys” in battles in the trenches of high finance, but after the subtitle, there is nary a mention of any of those things, much less any high pitched, multi-million dollar investment battles. It’s just Jase going about his business being a good fiduciary representative.

All that’s well and good but I expected a lot more. At least Jase is a skilled writer. He’s clear, succinct, and highly readable, at times humorous, at times philosophical, at times poignant. His stories and anecdotes for the most part are worth telling and reading. I don’t know that his 9/11 story added much to the book (it certainly didn’t add to the diaspora of stories surrounding that infamous day), but it’s nice that he has a personal take on these things and it certainly makes us feel for him more as we get to know him better. Still, with no thread to tie the stories together, the whole book just muddles through. Some of the stories seem to be thrown in at the last minute because Jase remembered something and wanted to share it with the reader. Maybe this isn’t a bad reason to include something interesting, but I would have preferred a more well-constructed approach.

All that said, I really enjoyed this book. I would have preferred some more fireworks and war stories, but I still felt that I got something out of it for the effort of reading the whole thing. Maybe Jase can get together with another Wall Street insider like Joshua Brown, author of Backstage Wall Street. Beefier, more broad-ranging stories would make a best seller for sure, which this, unfortunately is not. Still I give it three and a half dollar marks.

The Innovator’s Hypothesis

by Michael Schrage

One of the things I liked about this book is, the author starts out by immediately explaining how the Innovator’s Hypothesis works and what is used for, as well as how it works. One of the things I didn't like about this book is, after that, he spend six chapters or so telling stories that are supposed to support the effect of the 5x5x5 (five people, five days, five experiments) strategy that tests, and hopefully proves, The Innovator’s Hypothesis. Is it fluff? Well, not exactly. Is it useful? Yeah, kind of. Then what’s the problem? Well, saying that cheap fast, easy experiments that test a workable hypothesis on improving a business is easy to say, but,

it isn't all that easy to do. Plus, if you are in the twilight of your career (hello, me), are you going to undertake a bunch of experiments to improve your business? Yeah, I didn't think so.

Obviously, there’s more to it than that, which is what this book is about. The author is a long time business consultant who draws on his experience to demonstrate his analysis of different types of successful (and not) businesses. Amazon, Google, P&G, Blockbuster, big pharma companies, credit card companies, and more, all have been part . There is lots of food for thought and plenty of practical advice. I thought that the 5x5x5 model the author propounds was clever and workable, especially towards the end of the book when he explains that you don’t necessarily have to stick to the 5x5x5 formula. I also thought that the examples he provides will be quite helpful to people who really read this book with a mind to doing experiments in their own company. (I, myself, have no intention of attempting this, because there is no benefit to my company that will directly impact me.)

Something that I thought was kind of glossed over in this book is coming up with the testable hypothesis is more difficult than I think most people appreciate, and, once the hypothesis is in place, coming up with the experiments to test the hypothesis also will be a considerable challenge. To be fair, the author provides guidelines for executing both of those tasks, I just think he makes it sound a lot easier than it really is. From an execution standpoint, everything is fairly cut-and-dried if you follow the author’s train of thought, but ultimate success and meaningful results will be, I think, much harder to come by.

This book is intelligently written and the methodologies and logic supporting the author’s arguments are well-documented throughout. As long as the reader has no misconceptions about how difficult it might be to implement and execute these strategies in their own business, I think most business operators and company managers will at least gain some valuable perspective from this book, even if they don’t start doing their own experiments. I too was able to imagine having been motivated by this book earlier in my career, but business experiments sound like a lot of hard work, so I leave them to somebody else to actually do. Still, the book is good, the writing is fluid and clear, and it gave me a lot to think about, so I value the whole package at three and a half dollar marks.