floor and answered his phone with a gruff hello. He was famous for exhorting employees not to waste paper clips. Greenberg’s partner, James Cayne, the chief executive, had made his name by daring to make a market in New York City bonds in the difficult 1970s, when a young J.M. had been pursuing a similar strategy. Under Greenberg’s and Cayne’s unflinching management, Bear was informal, pragmatic, and relentlessly focused on its own self-interest. This worried Long-Term.
