John Mack

Senior Advisor, KKR · 1 appearance on the record.

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John J. Mack served as CEO and Chairman of Morgan Stanley, guiding the firm through the 2008 global financial crisis after previously heading Credit Suisse First Boston. He authored the 2022 memoir Up Close and All In: Life Lessons from a Wall Street Warrior detailing his Wall Street career.

12statements → 9claims → 2claims resolved → 4/5average certainty → 1.83/5average debate potential → ≈4.0/5argument clarity, estimated →

1 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted 1 not yet assessed 6 not checkable as stated how the 9 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

9 assertions · 1 insight · 2 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 9 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 are resolved, 1 is not yet assessed, and 6 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how John argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported

Japanese partners Mack trained years earlier wrote the check saving Morgan Stanley

“And, you know, they're the ones that wrote the big check that got us out of the bind.”

John Mack Feb 15, 2023 ▶ 16:49 How John Mack Saved Morgan Stanley & Transformed Wall Street · Joe Lonsdale

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1

none yet certainty 2

50% certainty 3

none yet certainty 4

100% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of John Mack on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

What they said12 Episodes1

Everything John Mack said on American Optimist that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Mack hung up on Geithner, Bernanke, and Paulson over $2 buyout demand

“I go over and pick up the phone, and he said, I'm on here with Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson. You know, we want you to sell your firm. And I said, well, you know, out of respect for you, I called Jamie Dimon, and he'd only pay me two dollars a share. And Guy A…”

John Mack Feb 15, 2023 ▶ 21:40 How John Mack Saved Morgan Stanley & Transformed Wall Street · Joe Lonsdale

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Jamie Dimon rejected Tim Geithner's demand to buy Morgan Stanley for $2

“Tim Geithner, who ran the New York Fed, called me and said, look I can't have Morgan Stanley go out of business. I want you to call Jamie Dimon and he will buy your company. No, we're desperate. I called Jamie and he said, John, I don't want your company. He s…”

John Mack Feb 15, 2023 ▶ 20:34 How John Mack Saved Morgan Stanley & Transformed Wall Street · Joe Lonsdale

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Hedge funds borrowed Morgan Stanley's own repo money to short its stock

“A number of the hedge funds would come in and borrow money from us through, through a repo account. And then they would take that money and use it to short our stock. And it wasn't just us. They did it to Lehman. They did it to us.”

John Mack Feb 15, 2023 ▶ 18:55 How John Mack Saved Morgan Stanley & Transformed Wall Street · Joe Lonsdale

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Every Chinese citizen and leader Mack met claims Taiwan belongs to China

“You ask any Chinese leader, Taiwan is part of China. So what's going to, how's, how's that going to play out? I've never met and I've met a lot of Chinese citizens and leaders. Every one of them says the same thing.”

John Mack Feb 15, 2023 ▶ 37:44 How John Mack Saved Morgan Stanley & Transformed Wall Street · Joe Lonsdale

Insight

Mack: Trading floor performance is visible purely through facial expressions

“You could tell what was going on just by looking at people's faces. You didn't have to hear any dialogue, and the person who was smiling was writing big tickets, and the person who was down and had their head down and walking around drinking coffee was not doi…”

John Mack Feb 15, 2023 ▶ 6:53 How John Mack Saved Morgan Stanley & Transformed Wall Street · Joe Lonsdale

Assertion Supported

Japanese partners Mack trained years earlier wrote the check saving Morgan Stanley

“And, you know, they're the ones that wrote the big check that got us out of the bind.”

John Mack Feb 15, 2023 ▶ 16:49 How John Mack Saved Morgan Stanley & Transformed Wall Street · Joe Lonsdale

Disclosure

Mack launched golf clinics for female executives to combat male networking advantages

“One of the things we started doing as I got more and more comfortable in the job, it was clear that on a Friday afternoon at two o'clock, a lot of the men would disappear to go play golf from May to September. And all of, most of the women were still there wor…”

John Mack Feb 15, 2023 ▶ 10:24 How John Mack Saved Morgan Stanley & Transformed Wall Street · Joe Lonsdale

Disclosure

Mack: Morgan Stanley trained rising Japanese partners in New York annually

“We used to bring over one or two of their up and growing partners to work with Morgan Stanley in New York for 12 months.”

John Mack Feb 15, 2023 ▶ 16:20 How John Mack Saved Morgan Stanley & Transformed Wall Street · Joe Lonsdale

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Mack: Mary Meeker pushed Morgan Stanley to expand heavily into tech

“Yeah, well thank, you know, you got to get a lot of credit to Mary Meeker, because when she was the analyst way back then, she really pushed the firm to get a lot more involved in tech, and we did, thank God.”

John Mack Feb 15, 2023 ▶ 23:09 How John Mack Saved Morgan Stanley & Transformed Wall Street · Joe Lonsdale

Assertion Not publicly verifiable

Early Morgan Stanley partners were almost exclusively Princeton, Yale, or Harvard alumni

“And it was a private partnership. I would say, of the 35 partners, 20 of them probably went to Princeton. And the rest of them probably went to Yale or Harvard.”

John Mack Feb 15, 2023 ▶ 9:49 How John Mack Saved Morgan Stanley & Transformed Wall Street · Joe Lonsdale

Assertion Partly supported

Mack: Early Morgan Stanley had 400 to 500 people as a partnership

“We were back then, we were a small private, ah, partnerships. It wasn't a huge firm of a thousand people. It was probably four or 500 people.”

John Mack Feb 15, 2023 ▶ 32:40 How John Mack Saved Morgan Stanley & Transformed Wall Street · Joe Lonsdale

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Wall Street trading floors 35 years ago paused midday for Frisbee games

“You go back 35 years ago, you walk on a trading floor, you'd see a Frisbee going across the trading floor. Someone would flip it and go over there. You'd see a delivery guy come in with, you know, 20 boxes of pizza and people kind of socializing, and for a per…”

John Mack Feb 15, 2023 ▶ 34:14 How John Mack Saved Morgan Stanley & Transformed Wall Street · Joe Lonsdale

Appearances (1)

Episode	Date	Speaking time
How John Mack Saved Morgan Stanley & Transformed Wall Street · Joe Lonsdale	Feb 15, 2023	27m

John Mack

The record, in short

Their most notable supported claim

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

How they sound: not measured why? →

Appearances (1)

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