Tearing Down the Walls: How Sandy Weill Fought His Way to the Top of the Financial World. . .and Then Nearly Lost It All

Rating:
Summary: The Ferrari of books
Review: This is a summer must read. A superbly written, highly interesting book. From start to finish it has been an adventure I wish I could re-live. I do not know how time flew by, while turning one page after another. Sandy Weill, is truly an amazing personality, cruel but determined, extremely hard-working and caring to build relationships. The author has given a real sense of who Sandy Weill is. I feel first of all admiration for him, but I have to admit I also feel fear, awe, and disgust in light of his personality. In short, the author made me feel all the human emotions against this man whom I have never known existed until I read her book.

Rating:
Summary: Very Human
Review: This is a very good book. Very inspiring. Langley is successfull in making a very human Sandy Weill.

Rating:
Summary: A Fascinating Story!
Review: This is an amazing tale that will keep you turning the pages. Sandy Weill's tenacity and political savvy in building and protecting his empire makes for an extremely compelling story. If you like a good read, pick up this book.

Rating:
Summary: fascinating story, could have been 25% shorter
Review: This is an inherently gripping story of Sandy Weill's half-century of ceaseless quest for colossal wealth, respect, and power -- via a miraculously perfect record of successive corporate acquisitions that brought him from a humble beginning to the pinnacle of global finance. Thanx to Langley's own amazing feat of getting to interview Weill and seemingly every person that ever spent time working with him, we have a play-by-play account of all the famous corporate deals and dealings with rivals and key assistants. While the hundreds of anecdotes Langley tells mostly help to give a vivid picture of Sandy's operating style and personality, her story suffers from far too many superficial and redundant bits about Sandy's tendencies to sweat, over-eat and -drink, have his hands turn cold, and other melodramatic trivia that cluttered up this otherwise excellent saga of one of the century's most important business figures.

Rating:
Summary: fascinating story, could have been 25% shorter
Review: This is an inherently gripping story of Sandy Weill's half-century of ceaseless quest for colossal wealth, respect, and power -- via a miraculously perfect record of successive corporate acquisitions that brought him from a humble beginning to the pinnacle of global finance. Thanx to Langley's own amazing feat of getting to interview Weill and seemingly every person that ever spent time working with him, we have a play-by-play account of all the famous corporate deals and dealings with rivals and key assistants. While the hundreds of anecdotes Langley tells mostly help to give a vivid picture of Sandy's operating style and personality, her story suffers from far too many superficial and redundant bits about Sandy's tendencies to sweat, over-eat and -drink, have his hands turn cold, and other melodramatic trivia that cluttered up this otherwise excellent saga of one of the century's most important business figures.

Rating:
Summary: Keep it!
Review: Ugh. Another book about another corporate demon who has forced millions of people into the bankruptcy courts so he can take his millions and run? When are we going to get a book about the nice small businesses that run every day, without celebration -- hiring good people and treating their customers like family? There are thousands of those stories out there, but for some reason we never seem to get books about them. Maybe Sandy Weill can marry Martha Stewart. Sam Waksal can officiate and Michael Jackson can give away the bride. I say Enough Already!

Rating:
Summary: Sandy's Clever...He even Co-ops the Author!
Review: Unfortunately the author takes what could be a compelling story and chooses to aggrandize Sandy by breathing life into ever fiber of his body while treating all the other players as simple wooden stick figures... possibly this was the "price" the author had to pay to get the extraordinary cooperation of Sandy and his close colleagues...
It is interesting ...lots of focus on the return to the stockholders ...not a word about the customers who got ripped off by predatory lending practices, layered with unnecessary credit related insurance or taken to the cleaners by unethical brokers and unscrupulous analysts ...they will not be using this book in any business school classes that deal with corporate ethics or corporate governance!
An opportunity for excellent journalism and a great story in the tradition of "Barbarians At The Gate"...but unfortunately an opportunity lost...
There is a plus...it is a quick read...nothing heavy...pretty superficial but I do not think the author needed to make the renown security analyst, Jack Grubman into a hero as well! PLEASE

Rating:
Summary: Great Book!
Review: Wonderful book looking at Sandy Weill. I highly recommend it as it is an interesting story. Plus, friends I have in the loop say that the book is pretty accurate.

Probably the best bio I have ever read.