The Many Lives of Michael Bloomberg
Innovation, Money, and Politics
-
- $18.99
-
- $18.99
Publisher Description
This authoritative and anecdote-filled biography of Michael Bloomberg—2020 presidential candidate and one of the richest and famously private/public figures in the country—is a “masterful work…[and] an absolutely first-rate study of leadership in business, politics, and philanthropy” (Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pulitzer Prize–winning author) from a veteran New York Times reporter.
Michael Bloomberg’s life sounds like an exaggerated version of The American Story, except his adventures are real.
From modest Jewish middle class (and Eagle Scout) to Harvard MBA to Salomon Brothers hot shot (where he gets “sent upstairs” and later fired) to creator of the Bloomberg terminal, a machine that would change Wall Street and the financial universe and make him a billionaire, to presidential candidate in 2020, Randolph’s account of Bloomberg’s life reads almost like a novel.
“A vivid, timely study of Bloomberg’s brand of plutocracy” (Publishers Weekly), this engaging and insightful biography recounts Mayor Bloomberg’s vigorous approach to New York City’s care—including his attempts at education reform, anti-smoking and anti-obesity campaigns, climate control, and new developments across the city.
After he engineered a surprising third term as Mayor, Bloomberg returned to his business and philanthropies that focused increasingly on cities. The chapter that describes this is one of the most revealing of his temperament and energy and vision as well as how he spends his “private” time that was virtually off-limits even when he was mayor.
Bloomberg promised to give away his money before he died, and his giving has focused on education, gun control, and a fighting climate change. He joined the 2020 presidential campaign as a moderate liberal and spent his millions focused on ousting President Donald Trump.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The tech mogul turned New York City mayor proved billionaires can be good politicians, according to this admiring but not sugarcoated biography. Journalist Randolph recounts Michael Bloomberg's reshaping of Wall Street with the 1982 introduction of his Bloomberg Terminals, which give up-to-the-nanosecond market data and analysis to traders. In Randolph's telling, Bloomberg was a hard-charging leader who demanded fanatical devotion from employees and who allegedly allowed a woman-unfriendly corporate culture to flourish; one employee claimed Bloomberg told her to "kill it" when she was pregnant. The book's heart is its chronicle of Bloomberg's 2002 2013 tenure as mayor of New York City, in which, Randolph judges, he proved competent and innovative overhauling the city's schools, building bike lanes and pedestrian plazas, banning smoking in bars though his technocratic politics had failings too, including the police stop-and-frisk program that Bloomberg defended as a measure to prevent gun violence, but which many New Yorkers denounced as racist. In Randolph's coverage of his post-mayoral philanthropy, Bloomberg is depicted as a kind of anti-Trump, a domineering tycoon who is stable, centrist, and environmentally conscious. Randolph's respectful but clear-eyed profile unearths a complex, prickly personality beneath Bloomberg's uncharismatic surface, perceiving in his "dreary monotone" the "nasal voice of New York City." The result is a vivid, timely study of Bloomberg's brand of plutocracy. Photos.