At the age of 24, Gary Stevenson had already made millions of pounds, betting on the collapse of western society. Today, he runs ‘GarysEconomics’,a YouTube channel with a massive subscriber base. On the channel, he is teaching people about real world economics and solving the inequality of the world. He knows poverty, having come from 12 pound paper delivery shifts as a young lad.
In an interview, after writing the book, Gary has said, “There are people who get paid 50000 pound a year to save the economy. There are people who get paid two million pound a year to bet on the economy. That’s the way the world is made.”
And perhaps this hope and realisation, that the world might indeed be salvageable, if enough people got together, is what made Gary offer the subtitle, ‘a confession’ to the book. The book has all the elements of modern writing. It is highly conversational written, like a story and moves fast.
Here are our five Bookstrapping insights:-
1. The book is an emotional, experiential account of the trading floor life. Its very honest in that sense and that makes it worth a read.
2. The author talks about himself as a character in the book. Gary reveals that while in school, he got expelled for drugs, realised that good grades alone don’t lead to great jobs, won a poker-like trading competition, made it to Citibank and then made out of it too. Its the arc of a man’s evolution and his journey through life.
3. Funnily enough, it is his naivety that makes him succeed! As he applies himself to the most mundane of tasks, he benefits from the experiences and favours given by all the colourful complex characters who were his colleagues on the trading floor.
4. He wonders whether money brings you closer to those you love or pushes you away further. What does it mean to shop at a store with your own money? If you’ve brought the cheapest item in every store for a lifetime, and then find yourself with millions of pounds, how do you reconcile?
5. The idealism that sets in later, as he observes traders become millionaires even as society collapses, and the fight that he undertakes is also more of ‘act from the hip’ rather than an ideological, Gandhi-esque crusade. What do you do when your up against a giant? When you believe you’re owed money but have no clue how to get it. Watch Paul Newman’s ‘Cool Hand Luke?’
Gary Stevenson gets really funny as well. While the constant refrain in every brokers’ ‘sad and mad’ life remains, ‘will I get paid?’ and ‘can I leave?’, Gary tells you that about a curious Japanese belief- they mistake Santa Claus for the KFC guy!
And that’s exactly what this book is all about too. A mathematical genius’s guide to fighting the system without malice, by believing that good guys can win, eventually.
Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta is a columnist and bestselling biographer. She is credited with the internationally acclaimed Red Dot Experiment, a decadal six-nation study on how ‘culture impacts communication.’ A reading coach, you can find her on Instagram @OfficialReetaGupta