The Spider Network

The Wild Story of a Math Genius, a Gang of Backstabbing Bankers, and One of the Greatest Scams in Financial History

By: David Enrich

Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain

The Wall Street Journal's award-winning business reporter unveils the bizarre and sinister story of how a math genius named Tom Hayes, a handful of outrageous confederates, and a deeply corrupt banking system ignited one of the greatest financial scandals in history.

In 2006, an oddball group of bankers, traders and brokers from some of the world's largest financial institutions made a startling realization: Libor - the London interbank offered rate, which determines the interest rates on trillions in loans worldwide - was set daily by a small group of easily manipulated functionaries, and that they could reap huge profits by nudging it to suit their trading portfolios. Tom Hayes, a brilliant but troubled mathematician, became the lynchpin of a wild alliance that among others included a French trader nicknamed "Gollum"; the broker "Abbo", who liked to publicly strip naked when drinking; a Kazakh chicken farmer turned something short of financial whiz kid; a broker known as "Village" (short for "Village Idiot") and fascinated with human-animal sex; an executive called "Clumpy" because of his patchwork hair loss; and a broker uncreatively nicknamed "Big Nose". Eventually known as the "Spider Network", Hayes's circle generated untold riches - until it all unraveled in spectacularly vicious, backstabbing fashion.

The Spider Network is not only a rollicking account of the scam, but a provocative examination of a financial system that was crooked throughout, designed to promote envelope-pushing behavior while shielding higher-ups from the consequences of their subordinates' rapacious actions.

©2017 David Enrich (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers

Sad and necessary story

To me, the book is a tragic reminder of how badly policed the financial world still is after several crises. If the story is to be trusted, corruption across industry is prevalent and law enforcement is both unwilling and incapable to act, as well as prone to change their sides.

I personally didn't appreciate the style of narration, the story unfolds quite slowly and doesn't captivate the reader like few other scandal exposing books (Bad Blood or Billion dollar whale).

A Comprehensive Retelling of a Largely Interesting Grift

I worked on Wall Street for 20 years. So, I had a lot of context for this story. It was very detailed and provided so many great details for someone like me. For some one with a more layman’s background, you might find that there is too much story there.

Incredible reporting!

Good. Not amazing

Extremely well researched. However spends way too much time on complex business jargon that even accomplished people will have difficulty following. When you layer over 100 characters on the story it makes for a lot to digest. If you love finance read it. If not then stay away.

Great story of life in finance industry

Corrupt courts, corrupt system, corrupt industry..,sad story on many levels but quite a well documented tale of reality. Good author and lots of work behind this book. A good listen indeed,

Fantastic Listen. A Well-Constructed Writing

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this book. It is thoroughly researched, well-written, and put together with thought.

struggled to finish

Just too much detail and not enough story by the end I was struggling to finish.

Multi-dimensional story

Makes you really ask a lot of questions about what’s right and wrong.

Everyone here is very flawed. You kind of have sympathy for some awkward characters until you hear how abusive they were.

Great read and candid (often intrusive) look into the lives of key finance figures.

shouty narrator

Great story - with many complicated facets - well told. Narrator is too shouty. Massive emphasis on every sentence like it is the most important line in the tale. Book would benefit from a narrator who takes it down a notch.

Gripping and well-researched!

Great book, with lots of details I wasn’t familiar with, even though I knew the market and the outcome. Worth picking up!

Wonky

Where does The Spider Network rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

An extremely detailed accounting of the Libor scandal. Interesting for finance professionals but I would imagine torture for those outside the industry. Hayes was a scapegoat for many of the ills of post Glass-Steagall. The author did extensive research on the subject matter but I felt he has a bias in his writing.