A former hedge fund worker takes an ethnographic approach to Wall Street to expose who wins, who loses, and why inequality endures. Who do you think of when you imagine a hedge fund manager? A greedy fraudster, a visionary entrepreneur, a wolf of Wall Street? These tropes capture the public imagination of a successful hedge fund manager. But behind the designer suits, helicopter commutes, and illicit pursuits are the everyday stories of people who work in the hedge fund industry—many of whom don’t realize they fall within the 1 percent that drives the divide between the richest and the rest. With Hedged Out, sociologist and former hedge fund analyst Megan Tobias Neely gives readers an outsider’s insider perspective on Wall Street and its enduring culture of inequality. Hedged Out dives into the upper echelons of Wall Street, where elite white masculinity is the standard measure for the capacity to manage risk and insecurity. Facing an unpredictable and risky stock market, hedge fund workers protect their interests by working long hours and building tight-knit networks with people who look and behave like them. Using ethnographic vignettes and her own industry experience, Neely showcases the voices of managers and other workers to illustrate how this industry of politically mobilized elites excludes people on the basis of race, class, and gender. Neely shows how this system of elite power and privilege not only sustains itself but builds over time as the beneficiaries concentrate their resources. Hedged Out explains why the hedge fund industry generates extreme wealth, why mostly white men benefit, and why reforming Wall Street will create a more equal society.

A critique of the American obsession with diversity argues that we are ignoring the ever-widening economic divide in American society, that diversity has created a false notion of social justice, and that we need to emphasize equality over diversity.

How would like to spot future trends before the competition? We all know the rules for success in our business or professions, yet we also know that these rules--paradigms--can change at any time. What Joel Barker does in Paradigms: The Business of Discovering the Future is explain how to spot paradigm shifts, how they unfold, and how to profit from them. Through the power of this method--paradigm spotting--you can: find the people in your organization most likely to spot a new trend help your key people adept when a massive change is occurring learn to effectively grapple with your "intractable problems" and improve your results incalculably. In addition, Paradigms is full of concrete examples of paradigm shifts and predictions for the future, and contains a new introduction detailing recent developments and pointing out areas to watch tor paradigm shifts.

Wealth, Innovation and Diversity takes you on a journey to understand a fundamental truth: without Diversity, there can be no innovation; without innovation, there can be no growth. In other words, Diversity is not only the right thing to do; it's your source of greatest potential. Hosted by best-selling author, Joel Barker, Wealth, Innovation and Diversity contends that your organization will experience long-lasting success only when you hire, promote, and encourage people different from yourself. Immediately applicable to a wide range of organizational challenges, Wealth, Innovation and Diversity is a broad-based foundational program for many of your training needs.

A collection of paintings representing the risk and rewards of investment diversification as a means of creating individual wealth.