Wall Street is notoriously a place populated by masters of the universe, big swinging dicks, movers and shakers, ballers and Men Who Make The World Work. Perhaps even more famously, it’s populated by people who believe that they can be fairly described in these terms, folks with egos scaled to match their bank accounts. It’s hardly uncharitable to notice that quite a few of these people can also be fairly described as “assholes.”
In fact, the list of Wall Street assholes is too long for anyone. We need to narrow it down to a list of the top ranks, the biggest assholes on Wall Street. We’re busy evaluating candidates here in the DealBreaker HQ Bunker, putting them up on cork boards like the FBI assembling a mafia management structure. But one of the glories of these here internets is that the communication goes both ways—from the Bunker to the Street, and from the Street to the Bunker. Starting this morning we’re taking your nominations for the first official DealBreaker list of the Biggest Assholes On Wall Street.
Send your nominations to tips@Dealbreaker.com or nominate someone in the comments section. A helpful explanation for why the nominee deserves to be ranked among Wall Street’s Bigs is appreciated. Extra credit will be award for first hand accounts of assholery.
I’m still an asshole.
I am still THE asshole. Take that you ass-wannabees!
No Cramer yet? Geez…
abby cohen, literally
ann duignan
@11:53 You clearly have never met Abby. She’s amazing on many counts. Also a rabid Mets fan. Could that be the problem for you??
Me too. Still an asshole.
why would someone call Ann Duignan an asshole?
Tim Sykes.
I know there are people who are bigger assholes but at least they have something to be cocky about. I have never heard someone make a bigger fuss about making $2mm or his tiny hedge fund failing. There may be bigger a-holes but nobody does more with so much less than Timmay.
Why don’t you get a job?
Ben Aitkenhead at C.S. because he fired me. I guess that won’t win the award though.
Zach Michaelson
I knew him when he was in high school….he was always challenging people to bench pressing contests and telling everyone at every possible opportunity how he was going to Wharton
At last a list I know I’m not on, and one to look forward to a child looks forward to Christmas! Thank you, dealbreaker.
that should be “and one to look forward to as a child looks forward to Christmas!
that should be “and one to look forward to as a child looks forward to Christmas!”
that should be “and one to look forward to as a child looks forward to Christmas!”
John Carney
Triple posting a mistake. Server acting funny. Sorry.
I am an asshole, because I can’t stop obsessing over how much of an Italian Stallion I am, and I don’t show nearly enough appreciation for the DB crew
JF Page
@12:25: I can’t believe it took you that long to name me. Sadly, DealBreaker employees and immediate family members may not participate.
Some on Wall Street will cherish the pronouncement of being the biggest asshole on Wall Street and they will take your screed and frame it in their office.
Gasparino will undoubtedly pin it to his headboard.
Clearly no one seems to have the b’s to rat out their BSD colleagues as our identities are indelibly preserved on our companies’ servers. i don’t have any b’s to begin with (being another *girl*) I’ll throw my hat in the ring for a certain former CSFB guy. His initials are J.M. (not the obvious.) he looked exactly like elmer fudd but redder and had a voice like kermit the frog. It was too easy to call him a d**khead, because his ugly bald head was actually shaped like a penis.
We used to have white glove lunch service in our building back in the day, and this individual (who was of scottish descent) fed on a steady diet of hand-delivered cheese and jelly sandwiches on white bread. I’d have to sit through meetings while his teeth smacked white gooey dough and purple blobs would fall all over the pitchbooks.
At least he didn’t hit on me or my female colleagues…because he only liked jamaican ladies, namely his assistant. In addition to her he had another jamaican girlfriend who would show up when JL1 was out of the country, as well as a wife in the UK. This was back when the concorde was still around, which he used as his own personal commuting plane.
All this is more quirky than asshole, sure – but of course in addition to this he decimated my business group and did nothing while clients walked out the door until he decided to leave and start his own fund…all your garden variety asshole stuff.
No list would be complete without him.
So many people are worthy of this list, butt in the interest of playing it safe, I’ll throw the Merril HR staff up there, yea what the hell, the whole bunch
Todd Fruhbeis
@anal_yst – c’mon, hr? are you kidding. the only hr folks I know are a bunch of young vixens that are out for a good time. you must be confusing the messenger with the message. the poor hr folks have to carry out the edicts from the exec offices. perhaps your animosity is misplaced? then again, I know the good ladies from the old dlj days (yeah, I’m that old)…
HR at many of the HF’s are a complete waste of space. Isn’t easy dealing with them (as a headhunter)
Come on…. HR at at hedge is there to administer benefits, make sure people get paid, see that when they’re fired its done in a way that keeps the firm out fo court. Except for admin staff, the hire/fire decisions are made elsewhere in the firm.
Oh yeah, and another important role of HR is to shield the important people from distractions like taking calls from headhunters trying to do job placements.
Actually we work closely with HR and the PM’s at the funds. Often times have dedicated HR/internal recruiters that meet and really suss out candidates before hand – then they will meet partners, more sr. investment people.
I’m with anal_lyst. I remember a late fall 2001 meeting when the Merrill HR folk told relocated people who were commuting over two hours each way to Princeton that they were had better get to to work on time OR ELSE. Then they accused people of attending too many memorial services. I think a lot of people agreed that they were attending too many memorial services, but the implication that they were slacking off work was not appreciated. I think the guy’s name was Peter Stingy.
Really, Merrill HR was exceptionally asshole-y.
I double anal_yst. Merrill HR has lots of A.H. In business side too. If you are MD or above chances are high..
Leon Cooperman and his hystronics and his rather fat penchant for humiliating others in front of other people.
Count me in.
Steve Einhorn for that matter?
I vote Tim Sykes, wait, are we talking biggest douche or asshole. whats the difference?
Soros for writing books that are uncomprehensible and everyone pretending to know what he means.
Taleb for the most obnoxious intellectual snobbery
ken lewis for (a) pretending to be an investment banker, (b) not being licensed to go on investment banking pitches (that’s right, no series 7), and (c) not even being on wall street.
Rob Toher at Bear Stearns – Such an asshole is so rare to find outside of captivity. Imagine Colonel Cathcart from Catch-22, Zuul and a construction worker off an 8-day ether binge all rolled into one.
anyone named to the top 30 under 30 has to be considered
Bear does bring out the asshole in people but that guy mentioned above is the real thing.
How about Jimmy “I light my blunts with the fire that is burning Rome” Cayne?
Anyone who posts under the name “Big Papi” deserve to be on this list.
Now Jimmy is indeed an asshole but he is operating at such a higher (no pun intended) tax bracket than so many of the rest of us that his interpersonal asshole are rarely witnessed.
Andrew Larkin at ITG. He makes a slice of toast look quite intelligent by comparison. Wait…. it’s an insult to the toast to make that comparison.
Ben Stein (maybe not an asshole but definately an ass)
Izzy Englander for firing a guy on the desk just for using the wrong color pen (red ink is a no-no!)
Izzy was right …. was that trader crazy ?!?!?!?!?!?
anyone who pisses away $
Cody Willard
LARRY KUDBLOW – what a fucking shill
Bob Rubin is easily the biggest asshole on Wall Street.
Honestly, who has such an inflated sense of entitltement?
Who pissed away the balance sheet of the world’s largest bank and still has the balls to pompously lecture on fiscal responsibility?
Robert Rubin is definitely up there….I heard him give a speech once when he was Treasury Secretary and he spewed out so much double-talk you didn’t know what the fuck he was saying. He made absolutely no sense whatsever.
Speaking of Treasury Sec if you were looking for biggest CROOKS I would nominate Paulson…that guy just looks like a fuckin shyster
Oh so many names, where does one begin?
alphabetically?
chronologically?
assholically?
Eh yo, there’s one true shining asshole of all assholes on Wallstreet and that my friends is the indafatigable Mr. Tice, he of the former Salomon, CSFB and now Merrill Lynch Tech Group.
Eh yo, there’s one true shining asshole of all assholes on Wallstreet and that my friends is the indafatigable Mr. Tice, he of the former Salomon, CSFB and now Merrill Lynch Tech Group.
Stevie Cohen
Anonymous @ 5:01 pm made the best nomination based on a reason everyone could understand. Fired someone for using a red pen? WHAT AN ASSHOLE!
Can someone send Izzy Englander flowers without a card? It will be our little joke!
The biggest asshole on wall street goes collectively to those assholes running the investment banks that wrecklessly took on risk and then basically shat all over many unsuspecting and non-deserving employees in typical asshole fashion.
marco habert, formerly at citi and now at deutsche. a big fat f*cking douchebag.
Most of you post names of those you have never met. Cohen, Rubin? Have you actually met these guys? Not say they are not, but lame posts. How many people who post actually have worked at a bank or fund? If you have, then post a real name. Ben Lorello. One of the biggest DB’s at UBS.
Second on Ann Duignan. Rude and completely nuts. Made up numbers like its nobody else’s business.
I believe the jelly-spitting Fuddesque one got exiled to Iowa. Not far enough.
I vote the SEC terrorists
Izzy not so bad but he has a guy in HK office named Dan Chuman who is a big fucking prick, typical washed out prop trader who acts like he is Izzy’s right hand man when he is just his errand boy
O is coming to their A and it hurts. Have fun.
Ann Duignan. Anyone who has ever worked with her, be it at Bear or at JPMorgan, knows she is by far the biggest a-hole on the street.
Bob Rubin. For sure.
Warren Primhak
If you were trading anywhere in Asia, you knew him. Unreal….
Total drunk
Total cokehead (ex smackhead)
Yeller/screamer/control freak
Thought a trading floor had to have “energy” so he would yell and scream while not even sure if he was long or short.
The SFC in HK eventually fined his ex employeer US$1mm or so, but he deserves to be in jail on top of everything else.
The guy was a nightmare…
Ann Duignan. Yes. She worked through maybe 10 associate in 3 years only. Crazy for work for.