Killing the Market is a short and fascinating read on the life and career of investor and philanthropist Robert W. Wilson.
He received $ 15,000 from his mother in 1958 as a wedding gift (equivalent to about $ 150,000 today) Wilson invested the money. That began a 40-year career in the financial market, playing stocks, which led to a net worth of more than $ 800 million before his death in 2013.
Author Roemer McPhee, a Princeton history graduate, asks the question “How did he do it?” and he tries (I think successfully) to answer it in his book. He immerses himself in Wilson’s life and work in what is a detailed explanation of how Wilson was able to accomplish what no one before or after him has done. How he was able to work the market in his favor and discover, with an almost primal instinct, which markets had a future.
Because I have limited knowledge of the stock market, some of the terms in this book went a bit out of my head, but what I found fascinating was the detailed way that McPhee describes each of the large companies in which he invested. Wilson. It was fun for me to read the details of how these companies started, companies with which I am familiar from my childhood.
Wilson bought shares in companies like Datapoint, Bowmar Instrument, Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, Atari, and Jordache Jeans before others knew what was going on. It also dabbled in oil when others were selling and the airline industry when it was not considered “profitable.”
“He always seemed able to spot an innovator early on,” McPhee writes. “Wilson had almost a sixth sense of self-protection and self-preservation in the marketplace, as an investor.”
One of the questions books ask (and answer) is what do you do with all that money once you have it?
While there are not many details about his personal life, we find that Wilson was a man very concerned about the well-being of the earth and its inhabitants. He continually “tithed”, as he put it, donating to charities and organizations throughout his career. However, when he retired, he became a full-time philanthropist and donated hundreds of millions of dollars, making him one of the largest donors in New York City and the United States. His main concern was to continue caring for the earth and the people and animals that lived on our planet. Like the details that McPhee puts in the book about the companies Wilson bought shares in, he also defines the organizations that he gave money to, which I found interesting because I’ve heard of most of these organizations.
The book follows Wilson to the end of his life: Wilson stays in character to the end.
When I visit New York now, and see your name on various buildings or donor plaques, I will learn the story behind the name. I think that’s cool.
I think this book is perfect for anyone interested in investing or playing the market, whether they are professional or hobbyist. For the rest of us, it is an interesting read on the life of a man who changed the lives of many people and many companies in the United States.