A college grad fresh out of work bluffs his way into options trading, learns the discipline in four days, and eventually becomes president of Goldman Sachs.
Gary Cohn's rise from aluminum siding to Goldman Sachs president began with a bold bluff in a taxi cab. Despite being dyslexic and told he'd never succeed, he learned options trading in just four days and never looked back.
Gary Cohn bluffed a stranger in a taxi by claiming he knew everything about options trading, when he actually knew nothing. The man, who had just been put in charge of options trading, told Gary to call him on Monday, and Gary got the job after quickly learning the basics from a textbook.
Gary Cohn is dyslexic, which made reading extremely difficult, a 22-page textbook took him 6 hours to read. Despite being told he'd be lucky to drive a truck and attending 4 schools by 6th grade, he persevered and eventually became president of Goldman Sachs in 2006.
After the taxi ride on Friday, Gary bought a standard textbook on options trading and spent that night learning 4 key strategies from the diagrams, studying one strategy per day. This crash course was enough to get him hired at the commodities exchange.
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