July 29, 2025 • 28 mins
Be wary of association with the Wizard Of Wall St .... unless you are family or friends!
'The Wizard Of Wall Street & His Wealth' by Trumbull White is a biography detailing the life of Jay Gould, at one point one of the wealthiest individuals in the world. It starts from his childhood and shows how he rose from poverty in the 1800's to become one of the robber barons of the Gilded Age. Plenty of stories showcasing his ruthless underhanded dealing in business yet a calm and generous personality outside of it.
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(00:00:00) Intro
(00:02:26) Themes/Questions
(00:19:03) Author & Extras
(00:22:34) Summary
(00:25:18) Value 4 Value
(00:26:55) Coming Up/Join Live!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kyrin Down (00:00):
Be wary of association with The Wizard of Wall Street, unless you are family or friends.
Welcome,
mere mortalites, to another round of the mere mortals book reviews. I'm your host here, Kyrin, live on the 07/30/2025.
(00:22):
And as you might surmise, this is the podcast where I pull out the rug underneath all of you who have invested in the mere mortals. I'm short selling all of you.
Okay. No. I'm not doing any of that. We don't even have any shares, by the way, so don't worry. You're not missing out. Instead, we are gonna be, analyzing this book here of someone who would be doing this, The Wizard of Wall Street and his wealth. I read this on the Kindle,
(00:45):
over these last couple of months while I was traveling.
And it is the subtitle, The Life and Deeds of Jay Gold by Trumbull White. So this was published in 1892.
It's about 268
pages in the length. I'd say it took me, I don't know, cumulative, like, nine hours over many different sessions of reading because I was not as dialed in as focused as I am reading back here now that I'm in Brisbane. So it is a biography, as you might imagine, detailing the life of a one j Gould or Gold,
(01:17):
and who was at 1.1
of the most, wealthiest individuals in the world. So
he was an American.
It starts from his childhood
going,
in in poverty,
leading up through how he kind of became a businessman,
started interacting with people in the world, doing a variety of different jobs before eventually finding his way to Wall Street and his,
(01:40):
I guess, you call financial shenanigans there. So and he became in the and this is all in the eighteen hundreds.
So from, like, 1830 to 1890
roughly is the time period.
And he became one of the robber barons. So think of the,
Andrew Carnegie's
of the world, the Rockefellers,
those other sorts of people that he was contemporaries
(02:02):
of.
So what you'll find in this book, plenty of,
stories showcasing his ruthlessness
in terms of
financial dealings,
how he spent his wealth,
how he interacted with people
inside and outside of Wall Street, in particular, the kind of differentiation
between
how he was as a businessman
(02:23):
and then how he was as a man. So let's jump into it. And who was Jay Gould?
How did he acquire
so much wealth?
So a quick rundown on him himself. He was born in 1836,
died 1892.
He came from a small dairy farm in the middle of nowhere. And you might be thinking, like, where's the middle of nowhere? Nowhere. New York, actually. But it was, I believe, New York state, which I found rather funny. And,
(02:50):
he was a rather industrious child who had, I guess, even at that age, bigger
aims and goals for himself in life. So he wanted to escape the kind of the clutches of poverty. So
he's worked ridiculously
hard and even as a child
was very independent. So, you know, left his farm independently,
(03:10):
was going out to study,
almost despite his kind of father's his father's wishes.
He had a couple of siblings as well.
Once he got out of that, he made opportunities for himself as a,
in
bookkeeper
for a blacksmith,
surveying
and writing. And he kind of pursued all of these things with the dedication and the focus
(03:34):
where even if he maybe wasn't naturally great at it, he became
pretty good at it by just sheer commitment and hard work and energy.
After this, he actually got into the tanning business and started running companies.
This is when you start to see, I guess, some of, like, the, dodgy practices of him as a businessman,
(03:56):
which he only continued,
through success and success,
eventually ending up on Wall Street and was more in the business of
kind of buying and selling shares and stocks, but would also be on the boards of many of these companies. He was particularly known for railways
and almost monopolization of different types of railways, consolidating them. And I could list off a couple of some of the names, but they're, you know, lost to time at this point and or maybe still exist, but,
(04:25):
kind of irrelevant in today's day and age.
And he eventually died of tuberculosis
at a relatively young age. I think that's 56, if my calculations are correct.
Or and had amassed
they said in the book around 72,000,000,
actually not in this book,
outside sources of 72,000,000
(04:46):
US at the time,
in the 100,000,000 sort of range,
which in today's
day and age in US dollars would be in the kind of low billions, 2,000,000,000, 3,000,000,000. So at the time, he was one of the wealthiest people in the world. So
if you have never heard of him before,
you'll be able to get a sense of him from my my stories here. If you have heard of him, typically, I think it'd be you'd really love him or hate him. And,
(05:15):
it's very easy to love him or hate him for if you're looking at just one part of his life.
Whereas I think it's kind of necessary to separate him,
as a businessman
versus as a man and the kind of personal
and individual,
before combining them for an overall assessment. So as a businessman,
I gotta say he was rather repellent.
(05:36):
If
you have tuned into last week's book review of Larry living Livingston,
he had this obsession, this being Larry, of of money
and
but not for the things that could get him. And Jay Gould was very similar. He had this obsession with money of creating wealth for himself, but it didn't seem like he was using it particularly for
(05:59):
a purpose or for flaunting.
I think it was perhaps a a drive to prove himself in the world, perhaps coming from such a young,
from poverty at a young age.
And
if you look at his
spending, for example, he did have a lot of the nice things, a mansion,
(06:19):
you know, a carriage,
you know, butlers
and assistants and things like that. But compared to his contemporaries who
of a very similar ilk of wealth or even lower wealth than him, he was not that extravagant.
And,
you know, for him, this kind of obsession with money of,
(06:41):
dare I say, power, perhaps is a is better way of putting it, because those two are rather intimately linked For him, he had this obsession with it, but it wasn't whether it was to prove himself right or wrong, which was in the case of Larry from last week's book review.
It was more
I think for him, business was about people and not about numbers. So he wasn't doing day trading, for example.
(07:06):
He was much more or if he was, it was on a on a smaller scale level. For him, it was more about, I think, the competition perhaps of proving
of of besting other people,
and perhaps even of besting himself and proving that he could do this. It's very hard to understand his motivations. And,
it's it's
(07:27):
interesting in this respect because he had no journals or diaries, so to speak, of he was rather secretive. So we don't get into this inside of his character of why exactly he was doing a lot of these things. So wasn't business for him was not about right or wrong. And this segues into his actions within the stock market in particular
of manipulating
stocks and how he ran companies.
(07:49):
There was no right nor wrong. I I don't feel like he had a strong ethics
of,
am I doing good in the world? Is this
better for people or not?
He had no concept of that. For him, it was about wealth enhancement
and extraction for himself.
Now, whether this occurred by him creating
(08:10):
an efficient, well run business that provided a good service to people
and improved productivity,
or it was he took over another business and would
bring that thing dry, like,
give me give me all that wealth.
And I don't think there was a a difference between
those two things in his mind. As long as he came out wealthier at the end of the day,
(08:34):
that was good for him. And it was very hard to actually determine his wealth because
he had it locked up in so many of these stocks,
and it wasn't, you know,
a really tangible thing where you could put a dollar amount to it and nobody really could in his life because they're like, well, we know he owns like a lot of stocks in this company, but you didn't have to
(08:56):
prove
or or show your financial resources at the time and say, like, you know, conflicts of interest, for example, of I own this railway stock, which is competing with this one, and I'm going to, you know,
improve business over here while
sucking,
you know, profits from this one over here and not tell anyone about that. This was the Wild West days of of the stock market, especially in the in the, Americas, in The United States. And so
(09:24):
no nobody really knew. And so what were the sorts of things that he'd do? He would bleed a company and try,
by using financial and legal tricker trickery to kind of consolidate other companies
and, screw other directors or other people out of what they thought was theirs.
He would form monopolies and dilute other people out of their holdings
(09:46):
once again in a
nontransparent,
very
under the radar,
the gray area of issuing new stocks that are they actually allowed to issue new stocks? No one was really sure.
He would form one, monopolies, dilute other people. I've mentioned that you utilize close contacts to manipulate people,
(10:06):
going all the way up to the president of The United States. He had a friend who was friends with,
I think, the wife of the president at the time. I'm blanking on the name on on which one, who it was. Perhaps it was Roosevelt.
And,
at at that very time,
and now it wasn't Roosevelt. But in any case, at that time, he
(10:27):
used this contact to kind of sneakily,
manipulate the president into
backing or not backing gold. It's very,
so much going on.
And he would put people in uncomfortable positions
where they kind of were lose lose. They they had no real option
(10:48):
to behave in a in a good manner.
And he would deceive a life to lie to business partners, especially for personal gain.
We see this right in his early days when he first gets into business, I suppose, of running of running a tannery business. And he was
getting collateral from partners and then using this in other ventures,
(11:21):
he is
he is very good at kind of squirming his way out of situations, whether it be with this tannery business where it was a revolt. And so he literally got
armed men
to come and, like, retake it over, or whether it would be through,
you know, just having contacts on the on Wall Street of,
(11:42):
being able to just
have enough friends also in high places who could vouch for him, even though, you know,
very likely if you start to associate with him, you're going to be in the crosshairs soon enough as collateral damage. And it didn't seem like he really cared. It's not that,
he had a vengeance or a vendetta out against other people. He just did not care. For him, it was wealth extraction. So
(12:07):
like I said, it seemed kind of, competitive in some respect.
He wasn't afraid of battling against bulls or short sellers,
but this didn't show up in any of his personal behaviors. So I kind of doubt it was that.
Nevertheless, there was this ruthlessness about him. If you got in his way, you he would steamroll you. He would bankrupt you and in general have no qualms about utilizing
(12:29):
all various forms of nonviolent. So let's let's give him some credit. He wasn't a complete thug,
ways of screwing you over. So think of frivolous lawsuits.
Think of underhanded backstabbing of partners. Think of bribery of officials of in in a government capacity.
All of these were fair game to him to get his way.
(12:51):
Now that's not a very pretty story. So let's transition, I guess, into the better side of him, which is, as the title of this,
of this podcast is, a good man, corrupt businessman.
He
to do all of these things, he had the personal qualities
of someone who is great, and he he achieved greatness of a time, you know, one of the wealthiest people in the world.
(13:15):
You don't get that via not having
a
an inner
inequalities
that are useful for that and perhaps even good in some respects. So he worked like a maniac, and
all he really cared about was work. He didn't really seem to have hobbies or passions outside of
(13:36):
running these businesses.
He's highly educated,
would put many, many hours into study. His library was apparently very well renowned
as being one of the most extensive and,
of high quality
of of his day.
And
he used this to discipline his mind especially.
(13:57):
Luckily for him as a man, he didn't have any vices, so to speak of. So although he
pretty much neglected his physical fitness, all he would do was was walk around all day,
and have a daily walk was probably the most strenuous thing he ever did.
He didn't smoke. He didn't drink. He didn't gamble. He didn't waste his wealth on baubles.
(14:20):
He wasn't a flashy sort of guy.
Apparently, he was a very devoted father, a loving husband, generous friend to those in his
personal close circle. He seemed rather introverted. He shied away from the spotlight, and he would use other people who love the spotlight to,
divert attention away from himself and what he himself was doing, kind of manipulating behind the scenes.
(14:45):
His funeral, for example, when they talk about it was well attended.
It had the all the curious onlookers, the gawkers,
the,
what do you call it, the peanut gallery
who all wanted to come and see it, but he,
the his funeral was, you know, attended by I think it was a couple of 100 people maximum, but
(15:07):
he still got attended. It's not like he was this
wealthy
Scrooge McDuck or,
Ebenezer Scrooge type characters
who hoarded all their wealth and was, you know, so inwardly focused.
Sure, he wasn't an extrovert and
out there and making lots of friends, but it seemed like the friends that he did have were very close to and that he was loyal to. And he rewarded this loyalty
(15:33):
of those very intimate people who worked underneath him, so they weren't in competition with him. But
he would be very generous at times of giving wealth to his assistant of when someone in his companies,
a pensioner or someone, you know, broke their leg and had a family and couldn't provide for them. You know, he would at times, step in and provide,
(15:58):
wealth for them or, you know, money or resources
so that that person could,
survive. And
it you look at it and you go, okay. Well, that was the right thing to do. That was a very generous he didn't need to do that, but that's a very nice thing that he did. So
the charitable
donations he would make in secret, he supported,
well, all sorts of various different things of arts, of social projects and things like that.
(16:24):
So when
you look at him, he had this kind of calm, non confrontational non confrontational
personality.
I
somewhat as I'm reading this section of him, I'm like, oh, as a man, he seemed like a rather decent person. I would have loved to have meet him and, met him and,
and spend time with him.
(16:44):
So he wasn't a bully. He wasn't a spruiker.
He attained his wealth
through
what I would say are underhanded means,
but he didn't then use that to lord it over other people or treat other people like they were trash. So it's kind of funny because when you look at other magnates
(17:06):
or very extravagant people who have attained a level of wealth, you might see them flaunting it and things like this.
Whereas he would like to hide in the shadows and you you could maybe say he he's
differentiated, and that's that's, like, something unique about him. But then if every every wag magnate who hides in the shadows, you're not gonna hear about them. So perhaps there's equal numbers of both of those.
(17:30):
So if you combine the two, but
J Gold as the as the man, as his life, as the businessman, what can you say about him?
I
overall would probably say the negatives outweigh the positives.
I'm sure many a great villain
throughout history,
has been personable and lovely to their people.
(17:54):
But just looking at the wreck and the ruin,
the
amount of things that happened afterwards in terms of regulations that were put in place of, you know, if you're labeled a robber baron by history,
that's probably not a good thing
that you were doing at the time. So
(18:14):
I would argue that he made his country a worse place. I would argue that,
that
people who would say, oh, that was just how you had to do business at the time.
I don't I think that was a choice that he made,
that people's individual actions should be taken into account.
Sure. The age of the time had a lot of bribery and corruption.
(18:36):
He helped perpetuate that. He helped create that. I don't think that he was forced into that. And the backstabbing,
all of those sorts of things, you know, he was a leader and leaders dictate the
not totally, not a totality of the atmosphere of the time, but they certainly play a role in that. And when I look at him like that, I go, yeah, probably not a great dude as a whole. Probably not a great dude. So jumping on to the actual author of this book, some extra details.
(19:06):
Charles Trimble White, who just went by the name of Trimble,
was born in 1868,
died in 1941,
and he wrote this as a serialization,
actually the year of of Jay Gold's death and in a magazine or, sorry, in a newspaper publication.
He moved into magazines
later on, and,
apparently, Ernest Hemingway
(19:26):
came to him multiple times asking him for writing advice. So
I think that's an indication that he was a decent writer.
This is his most well known book from what I can tell,
And I actually quite enjoyed his style. The very easy to read. I didn't feel like he was
adding
(19:47):
extravagant details or unnecessary details.
You see mostly by the book. Obviously, with something like this,
it's it's subjective, you know, and I think he had
tried to have some semblance of neutrality
whilst also adding in his personal
opinion
in slight doses. So,
(20:09):
for example, he would criticize
some of the behaviors that J Gold did, but he also would acknowledge, like, yeah, this is a guy who apparently was was, rather generous and nice outside of the his actual business dealings. So,
I thought he he had a nice blend of that, and you can see,
that he was kind of fair in some cases because,
(20:32):
the author,
Trumbull White,
was
a world traveler. You know, he
would,
I stand up for causes that he felt was right, such as the
mistreatment of of Negroes during World War One, of
poverty in other countries, of wars that America was starting in Cuba, the Spanish American War, all these sorts of things. So
(20:57):
I think it's useful to note
the closeness of his writing this book,
to the actual death of J Gold, as in he was a contemporary
of him, even though he didn't personally know J Gold.
J Gold
didn't write stuff. There's no real speeches. It's more anecdotes about
(21:18):
this person said this happened.
You know, here's how he behaved in this certain context.
Some
of congressional hearings and speeches when he was called up to the stand for his shady business practices. And even though,
for example, I believe he was meant to be jailed, but he fled to another state where he didn't need to, and then that all got sorted over. So he didn't end up ever getting, I think, prosecuted
(21:45):
or,
commit any
or have his name
written down in a book somewhere as, like, he committed this crime.
People definitely knew that he was doing very dodgy stuff at the time as well. It's not like it was a surprise to anyone,
that,
all of these bad things were happening kind of behind the scenes. So, you know, history is very easy to interpret the way that you'd like.
(22:12):
So take all of this with a grain of salt. You know, it's not a firsthand free source.
And we'll be talking about that more in a in the upcoming book review of next week.
But he certainly was known at the time for not being the best of businessmen and of
upstanding integrity and morality.
(22:34):
Jumping on to the summary, similar book recommendations.
To be honest, I I felt kind of rather indifferent
throughout a lot of this book,
and I think that's just typical for biographies. For myself, I just
am not that interested in that many people's lives
and all the
intricate details, the small little minutiae.
(22:54):
I've read biographies
before
Mahatma Gandhi have done on this channel.
Long ago, I read Richard Branson's,
Elon Musk, all these sorts of things.
I I just find them okay. I've never actually read a biography where I've just been fascinated by the person and and the actual reading and writing style,
per se. So, you know, that's more on me.
(23:17):
What can I say about Jay Gold? Was interesting to know more about him.
Certainly someone you would rather avoid doing business with,
but on a personal level, he displayed qualities I I rather admired in in many cases.
I think the book did a decent job painting
what his life was like
at the time, and I think it's a decent book because it was written so close to his actual life span, and it's not someone
(23:42):
reanalyzing
something from one hundred years later. So who
was what can you say about Jay Gould? Yeah, personally, probably
slightly negative overall for society. But hey,
that's interesting because normally it's probably the other way around. You know, it'll be a Steve Jobs who did some amazing things for society in terms of productivity,
inventions, and stuff like that and was a bit of an asshole. So, you know, a switch around in that case, which is, something fun. So overall, I'm going to give the book The Wizard of Wall Street and his wealth
(24:14):
by Trumbull
White, a six out of 10. Thought it was relatively decent. So check it out. What are some similar books?
Mark Twain's Gilded Age. I did a book review of that not too long ago.
That is the setting for the time. So if you want to know what
the type of place that, Jay Gold existed in, that book is fantastic for it because it gives you the insights into what America or The United States was like during this era of the robber barons and the amount of political corruption and bullshit that was going on. So,
(24:47):
that's probably good.
There's a book called Chapters of Erie or,
which was written by,
oh, Adams, someone Adams, and that was
on a specific,
railway
line or railway company,
which showcased
just
how dodgy,
J Gold was. I have not read that. I had that on my reading list. I read a little bits and pieces.
(25:12):
That is if you wanna dive deeper into J Gold, that's probably the book to,
to have a little look at. So that's it for today. Thanks, everyone, for joining in.
This is a value for value podcast, and I just ask that you provide some value back for everything that I'm doing here for you. Many different ways you can do that. I love to hear your comments and,
(25:32):
you know, likes, you know, all the small things you can do to help boost the popularity of this channel. Very much appreciated. I wanna hear your book recommendations. What do you think I would enjoy? What would you like me to cover on this channel?
Whether that be an author or a specific book, your favorite book of all time, please write it down in the in the comments below.
And then you can also
(25:52):
financially,
help contribute to the the show for everything that we're doing here. Lights, the cameras, the actions, bang, bang, bang, bang. I wanna get as wealthy as Jay Gold. Let's make that happen.
I don't, actually.
And if you want to contribute back, there is PayPal link down below. You can also use out any of the podcasting apps, which have
(26:14):
value for value streaming and boost payments,
attached within that. Things like Fountain, Podcast Guru, True Fans, Cast o Matic, all those sorts of things are good. I wanna hear your thoughts as well. I've been
dabbling with the idea of setting up a
affiliate link again through something like Amazon.
We did that once upon a time and, you know, putting a link down below so that if you have been inspired to read this book from my book review, clicking that, and that's another way of supporting the show. If you think that's something I should do or or could do, I would also like to know if if that's something that you want and,
(26:50):
want to support in that way as well.
That's that's also super, super cool. So jumping on to,
the last section, what's coming up? Well, I am live here as usual, 7AM,
7AM,
11AM
Australian Eastern Standard Time on a Wednesday.
What's coming up? So I have got the last book that I read on the Kindle during my travels,
(27:14):
which is,
on the Athenian Navy, Lords Lords of the Sea, I believe it's called. John r Hale. I have also got a fat stack of books just over here,
which will be dealing with some things related to Asia,
Lee Kuan Yew, so Singapore,
Chip Wars, which is about, silicon stuff. I'm actually gonna go through, I think, a slight a slight phase of reading some more
(27:37):
modern
books I published in the last couple of years. I know shock and horror. It's not something I normally do. I've got a decent reason for doing that,
and it'll still be dealing with a lot of the
recent spate of kind of trends that I've been going through, which has been history books of financial books
of
(27:58):
travel or world type things. I think all of those
are still
what I'm going through my little phase at the moment, and then we'll see how we go for the future after that. One, as usual, we'll just pop in with a review here and there.
Not a live one,
whenever
he has recorded one. So that's it for today. Thank you very much everyone for joining in. I hope you're having a fantastic day wherever you are in the world, and chat for now.
(28:23):
Kyron out.
Be wary of association with The Wizard of Wall Street, unless you are family or friends.
Welcome,
mere mortalites, to another round of the mere mortals book reviews. I'm your host here, Kyrin, live on the 07/30/2025.
(00:22):
And as you might surmise, this is the podcast where I pull out the rug underneath all of you who have invested in the mere mortals. I'm short selling all of you.
Okay. No. I'm not doing any of that. We don't even have any shares, by the way, so don't worry. You're not missing out. Instead, we are gonna be, analyzing this book here of someone who would be doing this, The Wizard of Wall Street and his wealth. I read this on the Kindle,
(00:45):
over these last couple of months while I was traveling.
And it is the subtitle, The Life and Deeds of Jay Gold by Trumbull White. So this was published in 1892.
It's about 268
pages in the length. I'd say it took me, I don't know, cumulative, like, nine hours over many different sessions of reading because I was not as dialed in as focused as I am reading back here now that I'm in Brisbane. So it is a biography, as you might imagine, detailing the life of a one j Gould or Gold,
(01:17):
and who was at 1.1
of the most, wealthiest individuals in the world. So
he was an American.
It starts from his childhood
going,
in in poverty,
leading up through how he kind of became a businessman,
started interacting with people in the world, doing a variety of different jobs before eventually finding his way to Wall Street and his,
(01:40):
I guess, you call financial shenanigans there. So and he became in the and this is all in the eighteen hundreds.
So from, like, 1830 to 1890
roughly is the time period.
And he became one of the robber barons. So think of the,
Andrew Carnegie's
of the world, the Rockefellers,
those other sorts of people that he was contemporaries
(02:02):
of.
So what you'll find in this book, plenty of,
stories showcasing his ruthlessness
in terms of
financial dealings,
how he spent his wealth,
how he interacted with people
inside and outside of Wall Street, in particular, the kind of differentiation
between
how he was as a businessman
(02:23):
and then how he was as a man. So let's jump into it. And who was Jay Gould?
How did he acquire
so much wealth?
So a quick rundown on him himself. He was born in 1836,
died 1892.
He came from a small dairy farm in the middle of nowhere. And you might be thinking, like, where's the middle of nowhere? Nowhere. New York, actually. But it was, I believe, New York state, which I found rather funny. And,
(02:50):
he was a rather industrious child who had, I guess, even at that age, bigger
aims and goals for himself in life. So he wanted to escape the kind of the clutches of poverty. So
he's worked ridiculously
hard and even as a child
was very independent. So, you know, left his farm independently,
(03:10):
was going out to study,
almost despite his kind of father's his father's wishes.
He had a couple of siblings as well.
Once he got out of that, he made opportunities for himself as a,
in
bookkeeper
for a blacksmith,
surveying
and writing. And he kind of pursued all of these things with the dedication and the focus
(03:34):
where even if he maybe wasn't naturally great at it, he became
pretty good at it by just sheer commitment and hard work and energy.
After this, he actually got into the tanning business and started running companies.
This is when you start to see, I guess, some of, like, the, dodgy practices of him as a businessman,
(03:56):
which he only continued,
through success and success,
eventually ending up on Wall Street and was more in the business of
kind of buying and selling shares and stocks, but would also be on the boards of many of these companies. He was particularly known for railways
and almost monopolization of different types of railways, consolidating them. And I could list off a couple of some of the names, but they're, you know, lost to time at this point and or maybe still exist, but,
(04:25):
kind of irrelevant in today's day and age.
And he eventually died of tuberculosis
at a relatively young age. I think that's 56, if my calculations are correct.
Or and had amassed
they said in the book around 72,000,000,
actually not in this book,
outside sources of 72,000,000
(04:46):
US at the time,
in the 100,000,000 sort of range,
which in today's
day and age in US dollars would be in the kind of low billions, 2,000,000,000, 3,000,000,000. So at the time, he was one of the wealthiest people in the world. So
if you have never heard of him before,
you'll be able to get a sense of him from my my stories here. If you have heard of him, typically, I think it'd be you'd really love him or hate him. And,
(05:15):
it's very easy to love him or hate him for if you're looking at just one part of his life.
Whereas I think it's kind of necessary to separate him,
as a businessman
versus as a man and the kind of personal
and individual,
before combining them for an overall assessment. So as a businessman,
I gotta say he was rather repellent.
(05:36):
If
you have tuned into last week's book review of Larry living Livingston,
he had this obsession, this being Larry, of of money
and
but not for the things that could get him. And Jay Gould was very similar. He had this obsession with money of creating wealth for himself, but it didn't seem like he was using it particularly for
(05:59):
a purpose or for flaunting.
I think it was perhaps a a drive to prove himself in the world, perhaps coming from such a young,
from poverty at a young age.
And
if you look at his
spending, for example, he did have a lot of the nice things, a mansion,
(06:19):
you know, a carriage,
you know, butlers
and assistants and things like that. But compared to his contemporaries who
of a very similar ilk of wealth or even lower wealth than him, he was not that extravagant.
And,
you know, for him, this kind of obsession with money of,
(06:41):
dare I say, power, perhaps is a is better way of putting it, because those two are rather intimately linked For him, he had this obsession with it, but it wasn't whether it was to prove himself right or wrong, which was in the case of Larry from last week's book review.
It was more
I think for him, business was about people and not about numbers. So he wasn't doing day trading, for example.
(07:06):
He was much more or if he was, it was on a on a smaller scale level. For him, it was more about, I think, the competition perhaps of proving
of of besting other people,
and perhaps even of besting himself and proving that he could do this. It's very hard to understand his motivations. And,
it's it's
(07:27):
interesting in this respect because he had no journals or diaries, so to speak, of he was rather secretive. So we don't get into this inside of his character of why exactly he was doing a lot of these things. So wasn't business for him was not about right or wrong. And this segues into his actions within the stock market in particular
of manipulating
stocks and how he ran companies.
(07:49):
There was no right nor wrong. I I don't feel like he had a strong ethics
of,
am I doing good in the world? Is this
better for people or not?
He had no concept of that. For him, it was about wealth enhancement
and extraction for himself.
Now, whether this occurred by him creating
(08:10):
an efficient, well run business that provided a good service to people
and improved productivity,
or it was he took over another business and would
bring that thing dry, like,
give me give me all that wealth.
And I don't think there was a a difference between
those two things in his mind. As long as he came out wealthier at the end of the day,
(08:34):
that was good for him. And it was very hard to actually determine his wealth because
he had it locked up in so many of these stocks,
and it wasn't, you know,
a really tangible thing where you could put a dollar amount to it and nobody really could in his life because they're like, well, we know he owns like a lot of stocks in this company, but you didn't have to
(08:56):
prove
or or show your financial resources at the time and say, like, you know, conflicts of interest, for example, of I own this railway stock, which is competing with this one, and I'm going to, you know,
improve business over here while
sucking,
you know, profits from this one over here and not tell anyone about that. This was the Wild West days of of the stock market, especially in the in the, Americas, in The United States. And so
(09:24):
no nobody really knew. And so what were the sorts of things that he'd do? He would bleed a company and try,
by using financial and legal tricker trickery to kind of consolidate other companies
and, screw other directors or other people out of what they thought was theirs.
He would form monopolies and dilute other people out of their holdings
(09:46):
once again in a
nontransparent,
very
under the radar,
the gray area of issuing new stocks that are they actually allowed to issue new stocks? No one was really sure.
He would form one, monopolies, dilute other people. I've mentioned that you utilize close contacts to manipulate people,
(10:06):
going all the way up to the president of The United States. He had a friend who was friends with,
I think, the wife of the president at the time. I'm blanking on the name on on which one, who it was. Perhaps it was Roosevelt.
And,
at at that very time,
and now it wasn't Roosevelt. But in any case, at that time, he
(10:27):
used this contact to kind of sneakily,
manipulate the president into
backing or not backing gold. It's very,
so much going on.
And he would put people in uncomfortable positions
where they kind of were lose lose. They they had no real option
(10:48):
to behave in a in a good manner.
And he would deceive a life to lie to business partners, especially for personal gain.
We see this right in his early days when he first gets into business, I suppose, of running of running a tannery business. And he was
getting collateral from partners and then using this in other ventures,
(11:21):
he is
he is very good at kind of squirming his way out of situations, whether it be with this tannery business where it was a revolt. And so he literally got
armed men
to come and, like, retake it over, or whether it would be through,
you know, just having contacts on the on Wall Street of,
(11:42):
being able to just
have enough friends also in high places who could vouch for him, even though, you know,
very likely if you start to associate with him, you're going to be in the crosshairs soon enough as collateral damage. And it didn't seem like he really cared. It's not that,
he had a vengeance or a vendetta out against other people. He just did not care. For him, it was wealth extraction. So
(12:07):
like I said, it seemed kind of, competitive in some respect.
He wasn't afraid of battling against bulls or short sellers,
but this didn't show up in any of his personal behaviors. So I kind of doubt it was that.
Nevertheless, there was this ruthlessness about him. If you got in his way, you he would steamroll you. He would bankrupt you and in general have no qualms about utilizing
(12:29):
all various forms of nonviolent. So let's let's give him some credit. He wasn't a complete thug,
ways of screwing you over. So think of frivolous lawsuits.
Think of underhanded backstabbing of partners. Think of bribery of officials of in in a government capacity.
All of these were fair game to him to get his way.
(12:51):
Now that's not a very pretty story. So let's transition, I guess, into the better side of him, which is, as the title of this,
of this podcast is, a good man, corrupt businessman.
He
to do all of these things, he had the personal qualities
of someone who is great, and he he achieved greatness of a time, you know, one of the wealthiest people in the world.
(13:15):
You don't get that via not having
a
an inner
inequalities
that are useful for that and perhaps even good in some respects. So he worked like a maniac, and
all he really cared about was work. He didn't really seem to have hobbies or passions outside of
(13:36):
running these businesses.
He's highly educated,
would put many, many hours into study. His library was apparently very well renowned
as being one of the most extensive and,
of high quality
of of his day.
And
he used this to discipline his mind especially.
(13:57):
Luckily for him as a man, he didn't have any vices, so to speak of. So although he
pretty much neglected his physical fitness, all he would do was was walk around all day,
and have a daily walk was probably the most strenuous thing he ever did.
He didn't smoke. He didn't drink. He didn't gamble. He didn't waste his wealth on baubles.
(14:20):
He wasn't a flashy sort of guy.
Apparently, he was a very devoted father, a loving husband, generous friend to those in his
personal close circle. He seemed rather introverted. He shied away from the spotlight, and he would use other people who love the spotlight to,
divert attention away from himself and what he himself was doing, kind of manipulating behind the scenes.
(14:45):
His funeral, for example, when they talk about it was well attended.
It had the all the curious onlookers, the gawkers,
the,
what do you call it, the peanut gallery
who all wanted to come and see it, but he,
the his funeral was, you know, attended by I think it was a couple of 100 people maximum, but
(15:07):
he still got attended. It's not like he was this
wealthy
Scrooge McDuck or,
Ebenezer Scrooge type characters
who hoarded all their wealth and was, you know, so inwardly focused.
Sure, he wasn't an extrovert and
out there and making lots of friends, but it seemed like the friends that he did have were very close to and that he was loyal to. And he rewarded this loyalty
(15:33):
of those very intimate people who worked underneath him, so they weren't in competition with him. But
he would be very generous at times of giving wealth to his assistant of when someone in his companies,
a pensioner or someone, you know, broke their leg and had a family and couldn't provide for them. You know, he would at times, step in and provide,
(15:58):
wealth for them or, you know, money or resources
so that that person could,
survive. And
it you look at it and you go, okay. Well, that was the right thing to do. That was a very generous he didn't need to do that, but that's a very nice thing that he did. So
the charitable
donations he would make in secret, he supported,
well, all sorts of various different things of arts, of social projects and things like that.
(16:24):
So when
you look at him, he had this kind of calm, non confrontational non confrontational
personality.
I
somewhat as I'm reading this section of him, I'm like, oh, as a man, he seemed like a rather decent person. I would have loved to have meet him and, met him and,
and spend time with him.
(16:44):
So he wasn't a bully. He wasn't a spruiker.
He attained his wealth
through
what I would say are underhanded means,
but he didn't then use that to lord it over other people or treat other people like they were trash. So it's kind of funny because when you look at other magnates
(17:06):
or very extravagant people who have attained a level of wealth, you might see them flaunting it and things like this.
Whereas he would like to hide in the shadows and you you could maybe say he he's
differentiated, and that's that's, like, something unique about him. But then if every every wag magnate who hides in the shadows, you're not gonna hear about them. So perhaps there's equal numbers of both of those.
(17:30):
So if you combine the two, but
J Gold as the as the man, as his life, as the businessman, what can you say about him?
I
overall would probably say the negatives outweigh the positives.
I'm sure many a great villain
throughout history,
has been personable and lovely to their people.
(17:54):
But just looking at the wreck and the ruin,
the
amount of things that happened afterwards in terms of regulations that were put in place of, you know, if you're labeled a robber baron by history,
that's probably not a good thing
that you were doing at the time. So
(18:14):
I would argue that he made his country a worse place. I would argue that,
that
people who would say, oh, that was just how you had to do business at the time.
I don't I think that was a choice that he made,
that people's individual actions should be taken into account.
Sure. The age of the time had a lot of bribery and corruption.
(18:36):
He helped perpetuate that. He helped create that. I don't think that he was forced into that. And the backstabbing,
all of those sorts of things, you know, he was a leader and leaders dictate the
not totally, not a totality of the atmosphere of the time, but they certainly play a role in that. And when I look at him like that, I go, yeah, probably not a great dude as a whole. Probably not a great dude. So jumping on to the actual author of this book, some extra details.
(19:06):
Charles Trimble White, who just went by the name of Trimble,
was born in 1868,
died in 1941,
and he wrote this as a serialization,
actually the year of of Jay Gold's death and in a magazine or, sorry, in a newspaper publication.
He moved into magazines
later on, and,
apparently, Ernest Hemingway
(19:26):
came to him multiple times asking him for writing advice. So
I think that's an indication that he was a decent writer.
This is his most well known book from what I can tell,
And I actually quite enjoyed his style. The very easy to read. I didn't feel like he was
adding
(19:47):
extravagant details or unnecessary details.
You see mostly by the book. Obviously, with something like this,
it's it's subjective, you know, and I think he had
tried to have some semblance of neutrality
whilst also adding in his personal
opinion
in slight doses. So,
(20:09):
for example, he would criticize
some of the behaviors that J Gold did, but he also would acknowledge, like, yeah, this is a guy who apparently was was, rather generous and nice outside of the his actual business dealings. So,
I thought he he had a nice blend of that, and you can see,
that he was kind of fair in some cases because,
(20:32):
the author,
Trumbull White,
was
a world traveler. You know, he
would,
I stand up for causes that he felt was right, such as the
mistreatment of of Negroes during World War One, of
poverty in other countries, of wars that America was starting in Cuba, the Spanish American War, all these sorts of things. So
(20:57):
I think it's useful to note
the closeness of his writing this book,
to the actual death of J Gold, as in he was a contemporary
of him, even though he didn't personally know J Gold.
J Gold
didn't write stuff. There's no real speeches. It's more anecdotes about
(21:18):
this person said this happened.
You know, here's how he behaved in this certain context.
Some
of congressional hearings and speeches when he was called up to the stand for his shady business practices. And even though,
for example, I believe he was meant to be jailed, but he fled to another state where he didn't need to, and then that all got sorted over. So he didn't end up ever getting, I think, prosecuted
(21:45):
or,
commit any
or have his name
written down in a book somewhere as, like, he committed this crime.
People definitely knew that he was doing very dodgy stuff at the time as well. It's not like it was a surprise to anyone,
that,
all of these bad things were happening kind of behind the scenes. So, you know, history is very easy to interpret the way that you'd like.
(22:12):
So take all of this with a grain of salt. You know, it's not a firsthand free source.
And we'll be talking about that more in a in the upcoming book review of next week.
But he certainly was known at the time for not being the best of businessmen and of
upstanding integrity and morality.
(22:34):
Jumping on to the summary, similar book recommendations.
To be honest, I I felt kind of rather indifferent
throughout a lot of this book,
and I think that's just typical for biographies. For myself, I just
am not that interested in that many people's lives
and all the
intricate details, the small little minutiae.
(22:54):
I've read biographies
before
Mahatma Gandhi have done on this channel.
Long ago, I read Richard Branson's,
Elon Musk, all these sorts of things.
I I just find them okay. I've never actually read a biography where I've just been fascinated by the person and and the actual reading and writing style,
per se. So, you know, that's more on me.
(23:17):
What can I say about Jay Gold? Was interesting to know more about him.
Certainly someone you would rather avoid doing business with,
but on a personal level, he displayed qualities I I rather admired in in many cases.
I think the book did a decent job painting
what his life was like
at the time, and I think it's a decent book because it was written so close to his actual life span, and it's not someone
(23:42):
reanalyzing
something from one hundred years later. So who
was what can you say about Jay Gould? Yeah, personally, probably
slightly negative overall for society. But hey,
that's interesting because normally it's probably the other way around. You know, it'll be a Steve Jobs who did some amazing things for society in terms of productivity,
inventions, and stuff like that and was a bit of an asshole. So, you know, a switch around in that case, which is, something fun. So overall, I'm going to give the book The Wizard of Wall Street and his wealth
(24:14):
by Trumbull
White, a six out of 10. Thought it was relatively decent. So check it out. What are some similar books?
Mark Twain's Gilded Age. I did a book review of that not too long ago.
That is the setting for the time. So if you want to know what
the type of place that, Jay Gold existed in, that book is fantastic for it because it gives you the insights into what America or The United States was like during this era of the robber barons and the amount of political corruption and bullshit that was going on. So,
(24:47):
that's probably good.
There's a book called Chapters of Erie or,
which was written by,
oh, Adams, someone Adams, and that was
on a specific,
railway
line or railway company,
which showcased
just
how dodgy,
J Gold was. I have not read that. I had that on my reading list. I read a little bits and pieces.
(25:12):
That is if you wanna dive deeper into J Gold, that's probably the book to,
to have a little look at. So that's it for today. Thanks, everyone, for joining in.
This is a value for value podcast, and I just ask that you provide some value back for everything that I'm doing here for you. Many different ways you can do that. I love to hear your comments and,
(25:32):
you know, likes, you know, all the small things you can do to help boost the popularity of this channel. Very much appreciated. I wanna hear your book recommendations. What do you think I would enjoy? What would you like me to cover on this channel?
Whether that be an author or a specific book, your favorite book of all time, please write it down in the in the comments below.
And then you can also
(25:52):
financially,
help contribute to the the show for everything that we're doing here. Lights, the cameras, the actions, bang, bang, bang, bang. I wanna get as wealthy as Jay Gold. Let's make that happen.
I don't, actually.
And if you want to contribute back, there is PayPal link down below. You can also use out any of the podcasting apps, which have
(26:14):
value for value streaming and boost payments,
attached within that. Things like Fountain, Podcast Guru, True Fans, Cast o Matic, all those sorts of things are good. I wanna hear your thoughts as well. I've been
dabbling with the idea of setting up a
affiliate link again through something like Amazon.
We did that once upon a time and, you know, putting a link down below so that if you have been inspired to read this book from my book review, clicking that, and that's another way of supporting the show. If you think that's something I should do or or could do, I would also like to know if if that's something that you want and,
(26:50):
want to support in that way as well.
That's that's also super, super cool. So jumping on to,
the last section, what's coming up? Well, I am live here as usual, 7AM,
7AM,
11AM
Australian Eastern Standard Time on a Wednesday.
What's coming up? So I have got the last book that I read on the Kindle during my travels,
(27:14):
which is,
on the Athenian Navy, Lords Lords of the Sea, I believe it's called. John r Hale. I have also got a fat stack of books just over here,
which will be dealing with some things related to Asia,
Lee Kuan Yew, so Singapore,
Chip Wars, which is about, silicon stuff. I'm actually gonna go through, I think, a slight a slight phase of reading some more
(27:37):
modern
books I published in the last couple of years. I know shock and horror. It's not something I normally do. I've got a decent reason for doing that,
and it'll still be dealing with a lot of the
recent spate of kind of trends that I've been going through, which has been history books of financial books
of
(27:58):
travel or world type things. I think all of those
are still
what I'm going through my little phase at the moment, and then we'll see how we go for the future after that. One, as usual, we'll just pop in with a review here and there.
Not a live one,
whenever
he has recorded one. So that's it for today. Thank you very much everyone for joining in. I hope you're having a fantastic day wherever you are in the world, and chat for now.
(28:23):
Kyron out.
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