Andy Kessler (author)

For persons of a similar name, see Andy Kessler (disambiguation).

Andy Kessler
Andy Kessler interviewed on Extraction Point in 2011
Andy Kessler interviewed on Extraction Point in 2011
Born1958 (age 66–67)
Website
www.andykessler.com

Andy Kessler (born 1958)[1] is an American businessman, investor, and author. He writes the "Inside View" column for The Wall Street Journal opinion page. Kessler has worked for about 20 years as a research analyst, investment banker, venture capitalist, and hedge fund manager.[2] He has written for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Wired, Forbes, The Weekly Standard, the Los Angeles Times, The American Spectator, and Thestreet.com.[2]

Early life

Raised in Bridgewater Township, New Jersey,[3] Kessler attended Bridgewater-Raritan High School East.[4] He has a BS in electrical engineering from Cornell University (1980) and an MSEE from the University of Illinois (1981).[citation needed]

Career

Finance

From 1980 to 1985, Kessler worked for AT&T Bell Labs as a chip designer and programmer. In 1985, he joined Paine Webber in New York as an analyst of the electronics and semiconductor industry. In 1989, Kessler joined Morgan Stanley as a semiconductor analyst before moving to San Francisco in 1993. There he worked for Unterberg Harris as an investor, until starting Velocity Capital with Fred Kittler.

Writer

From January to March 2003, Kessler wrote and successfully self-published a book, Wall Street Meat: My Narrow Escape From the Stock Market Grinder, about working with Jack Grubman, Frank Quattrone, and Mary Meeker, after hearing that traditional publishing houses would take over a year to publish it.[5]

Kessler's 2010 novel Grumby takes him into the world of super-hackers. The book is notable among books by well-known authors for being released first on Kindle and then in hardcover. This allowed Kessler to include a fictional cause for the flash-crash, which occurred just prior to publication, in the plot.[citation needed]

Among his many other writings, in an April 26, 2007 guest column in The New York Times, entitled "Trust Me", Kessler wrote in part: "There are plenty of things I don’t trust – like Wikipedia. I’ve watched my 15-year-old son and his friends take turns editing the page for the animated film 'Land Before Time,' flipping the gender of the character Littlefoot from he to she and back."[6]

In March 2023, Kessler suggested in The Wall Street Journal that the Silicon Valley Bank "may have been distracted by diversity demands" in the lead up to its collapse.[7][8][9]

Awards

Selected works

  • Eat People and Other Unapologetic Rules for Game-Changing Entrepreneurs (2011) ISBN 1-59184-377-4
  • Grumby: A Novel (2010) ISBN 0-9827163-2-X
  • The End of Medicine: How Silicon Valley (And Naked Mice) Will Reboot Your Doctor (The New York Times Business Best Seller) (2006) ISBN 0-06-113029-X
  • How We Got Here: A Silicon Valley and Wall Street Primer (A History of Technology and Markets) (2004) ISBN 0-9727832-2-9
  • Running Money: Hedge Fund Honchos, Monster Markets and My Hunt for the Big Score (The New York Times Best Seller) (2004) ISBN 0-06-074065-5
  • Wall Street Meat: My Narrow Escape from the Stock Market Grinder (Jack Grubman, Frank Quattrone, Mary Meeker, Henry Blodget and Me) (2003) ISBN 0-06-059214-1

Personal

Kessler lives in California with his wife, Nancy, and four children.

References

  1. ^ Andy Kessler
  2. ^ a b Kessler, Andy (2004). Wall Street meat : my narrow escape from the stock market grinder (1st HarperBusiness paperback ed.). New York: HarperBusiness. ISBN 0-06-059214-1.
  3. ^ Kessler, Andy. "A Boy and His Flag; The Stars and Stripes represents freedom—and the ways we adapt to earn our living.", The Wall Street Journal, June 14, 2020. Accessed July 23, 2020. "I grew up in central New Jersey, in the township of Bridgewater, some 10 miles up the Raritan River from New Brunswick."
  4. ^ "'Eat People: And Other Unapologetic Rules for Game-Changing Entrepreneurs' with Andy Kessler". Wharton Club of Northern California. June 9, 2011. Retrieved August 25, 2016.
  5. ^ Kessler, Andy. "Self-Publish And Be Damned? Not Always.", The Wall Street Journal Online, January 20, 2004. Retrieved March 17, 2008.
  6. ^ Kessler, Andy. NYT: Trust Me, The New York Times, 2007-04-26. Retrieved on 2007-07-14.
  7. ^ Barr, Kyle (March 13, 2023). "The Wall Street Journal Thinks Silicon Valley Bank Woked Itself Into Bankruptcy". Gizmodo.
  8. ^ Koebler, Jason (March 13, 2023). "WSJ Wonders: Did Silicon Valley Bank Die Because One Black Person Was on Its Board?". Motherboard. Vice.
  9. ^ Kessler, Andy. "Opinion | Who Killed Silicon Valley Bank?". WSJ. Archived from the original on March 13, 2023. Retrieved March 14, 2023. Then there's this: In its proxy statement, SVB notes that besides 91 percent of their board being independent and 45 percent women, they also have '1 Black,' '1 LGBTQ+,' and '2 Veterans.' I'm not saying 12 white men would have avoided this mess, but the company may have been distracted by diversity demands.
  10. ^ Trounson, Rebecca (June 28, 2019). "UCLA Anderson School of Management Announces 2019 Gerald Loeb Award Winners". PR Newswire (Press release). UCLA Anderson School of Management. Retrieved October 2, 2019.
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