but it does come off very machiavellian, and he basically completely kneecapped john corzine. rzine never saw it coming, and right on the precipice of the ipo in the spring of 1999, corzine was out. and paulson had used and made alliances with other people on the management team to become ceo and take the firm public. and he, ironically, the two guys he told who became his allies -- john thain who later became ceo of merrill lynch and now of cit, and john thornton who is now the head of the brookings institute -- these two guys formed an alliance with paulson. and with the understanding that paulson was going to be the ceo for a couple of years and then leave and turn it over to these two guys. well, you know, hank being hank, you know, sort of liked the job too much. he was having a great time being ceo of goldman sachs and, frankly, who can blame him? i mean, being ceo of a public goldman sachs seems like one of the greatest jobs in the world especially when you're not the target of so much public ire as lloyd blankfein is at the moment. but, you know, hank had the board of d

he got rid of and kneecapped john corzine. he never saw it coming. before he knew it, on the verge and the principal of the ipo and in the spring of 1989, corzine was out. paulsen had used and made alliances with other people to become ceo and take the firm public. he ironically the two guys he told who became his allies, john thane who later became ceo of john lynch, and john thornton, now the head of the brookings institute. these two guys formed an alliance with paulsen with the understanding that paulsen was going to be the ceo for a couple of years and then leave and turn it over to these two guys. well, you know, hank being hank, you know, sort of liked the job too much. he was having a great time being ceo of goldman sachs. who can blame him? being ceo of the public goldman sachs seems like one the greatest jobs in the world when you are not the target of so much eyier. hank had the board of directors in his pocket. they wanted him to continue to lead the firm. basically hank didn't want to leave, and that made thane and thornton expendable. he

he is a blue state and it's going to be okay and the governor has got a limited resources and john corzine is a great guy and people have affinity for him. come shortly after that we have the economic collapse which is a big deal but it's especially a big deal for john corzine because of who he was before he governor, goldman sachs. he also, really the polls were falling like a rock. he had months and months of bad news so when they reconvene december and january, and around the table again. to the person they all say do not run this race he will lose. >> it's funny because there's a wonderful story and the new jersey political about brandenburg's in 1977 at around the same time after he created the state income tax and all of his advisers said you're going to lose except for one, john, his attorney general who would become his attorney general in the second term who said i think you can win the election and of course we know brendan byrne did but a similar kind of pow-wow, burn wasn't convinced he could win but -- >> av as ecology of john corzine and christie giving considerable access to

in other words, the reason john corzine had had to be pushed out of goldman sachs was because hank paulsonnd others thought that -- but particularly hank paulson -- thought that corzine was leading the firm in the wrong direction. i tell the story in the book about how corzine was eager to do these mergers first with solomon brothers, then with travelers, jpmorgan, and the one that ultimately tripped him up is when he started merger discussions with mellon bank which, you know, frankly, may have been a very good fit for goldman. but, basically, his ore partners -- other partners didn't want him to do that, and he didn't inform them. so then paulson and others thought he was leading the firm in the wrong direction. i'm sure he would say i was just doing what i thought was the best for goldman sachs, but it does come off machiavellian. and he basically completely kneecapped jon corzine. before he knew it right on the precipice of the ipo in the spring of 1939, corzine was out -- 1999, corzine was out and paulson had used alliances to become ceo and take the firm public. ironically, the two g

but those businesses failed during the depression, and his father was basically a farmer, and john corzine, who also ran gold minute irca what time grew up on a farm in southern illinois, and this is the kind of person that makes it to the top. we are not talking about sums, rarely daughters unfortunately seem to have much place at goldman, but this isn't the sons of privilege, this isn't -- this is real meritocracy and it's an impressive collection of people. honestly in reporting this book and in interviewing these people, they exhausted me. spending three hours with henry paulson can be exhausting because so much energy he came across when he was the treasury secretary as somewhat inarticulate and people have remarked on that, i found him extremely articulate and energetic and charming, incredibly charming. so three hours later with an alpha male like hank paulson i was exhausted. i needed a break. >> i was going to ask of hank paulson because that was once a portrait of henry paulson that comes out in this book is one of the to the role of the tory parts of its -- revelatory. you start