"No one ever lets you be a fly on the wall in their hedge fund! These stories will shock you--and make you laugh--as well as teach you about the industrial revolution, economics and technology. You don’t find many books that are required reading at Harvard Business School that would also make a great beach read. Running Money is a must for both."

--James J.Cramer,author of Confessions of a Street Addict and cohost of CNBC’s Kudlow and Cramer

What does the manager of a billion-dollar hedge fund really do? Does he sit--in a $2,500 suit--on the vast trading floor of a Wall Street firm watching numbers flash and spotting small discrepancies to exploit? Or does he anticipate the future and profit from his insights? Sadly, most just stare at screens.

Running Money is an insider’s tale. Through his cynical eye, Andy Kessler takes the reader on a tour of big-stakes investing, a bizarre trail of startup companies, anonymous investors and the occasional Elvis impersonator.

Kessler spent almost twenty years on Wall Street, doing just about every job there is--from analyst to investment banker to venture capitalist. Finally, he decided to kick it up a notch and take the ultimate risk. He started a hedge fund where his investment ideas--looking for moments where new technologies burst into an industry like waterfalls--would be put directly into action. And the only scorecard that mattered would be the fund’s overall return.

  Easier said than done. How do you put money to work? Kessler quickly discovered that every investor--especially in the big-money world of hedge funds--needs some sort of edge. So he set out to discover what’s really worked in the past: not quicky trades, but decade-long booms. The industrial revolution gave some clues, and so did-the birth of Silicon Valley. These previous waterfalls generated vast wealth to surf on. Now Kessler had to find his own.

  Telling witty and whacky stories, Kessler leaves signposts that lead the way for the reader to find his or her own edge. After years of visiting new and promising companies, interviewing their management and picking up the subtle clues toward potential success or failure, Kessler shares the tricks of his trade. In 2001, Kessler and his partner closed their fund with an average annual return of 55%, which makes him a top-ranking professional investor.

Ssangyong Sweat

Part I Raising Funds

Part II Revolution

Part III Searching for Scale

Part IV Intellectual Property

Part V The Next Barrier

Part VI Burst

Part VII The Margin Surplus

Part VIII Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Index