1) hedge fund 20% performance fee came from the old Phoenician sea captains 2) Michael Steinhardt lost money in the Madoff debacle 3) Michael Steinhardt made his money being a part of an old boys club 4) George Soros doesn't believe there is such a thing as too much greed 5) Paul Samuelson while advocating "efficient markets" didn't really believe in it and invested money with Commodities Corporation 6) Paul Tudor Jones did not make money on market analogs despite his belief 7) When George Soros' big bet on The British Pound paid off because of John Majors political intransigence 8) Investing through hedge funds are better than banks and other financial instutitions because managers have skin in the game
he just took the market wizards books, had some interviews with Soros and so on, and put it into a proper book.
I think he did way more than that and I really liked this book; keep meaning to read it again. Just from memory I appreciated the odd little details like how a lot of the early guys came from countercultural backgrounds or had at least flirted with borderline socialist ideals. And the concept of hedging in general seems obvious now but going back in time and thinking about the first guy to explicitly come up with and implement the idea is pretty fascinating.
I read both the market wizard books and "more money than god". Liked both. "more money than god" is more much broader and is geared towards a more general audiance.
But the thing is, Mallaby is a serious guy. He's at the freakin' Council on Foreign Relations, which is about as prestigious a post as a journalist will ever land. Rewriting Market Wizards is a little beneath him, to be honest. Hard to believe he managed to pull it off with his reputation intact.