Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System from Crisis — and Themselves

by Andrew Ross Sorkin

Blankfein told the room that while he wasn’t convinced that Lehman actually posed a systemic risk, there was a larger issue of all the banks’ reputations and public perception to consider. “Bear Stearns did a lot of good things over the last decade, but the only thing they’re remembered for is, they didn’t step up when the industry needed them to.”