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minutiae of data reasoning; that was a job for other people, Pettit for instance. Pettit was

there to corral the staff, to keep it in line, to do whatever he could to inspire them to do

whatever they had to do to get Fuld the number he wanted. Fuld was there for the big

decisions. In his mind, this didn't make him a tyrant; rather, it made him efficient. And

while Pettit was his deputy, he didn't need to evolve because Pettit had his back on the

small stuff.

But Fuld also knew that if the grand plans for LCPI were to become real, then he'd have

to change. He'd have to be a better manager. He'd have to learn to delegate; to be a people

person. He couldn't really be "the gorilla."

He' d been given the nickname because of his habit of grunting, his prominent forehead,

and his fondness for expletives. To further the myth, he kept a stuffed toy gorilla in his

office on top of a basketball hoop, but it was all theater to mask his social anxieties.

He secretly started working on his weaknesses.

He was inarticulate and introverted. He was a solid trader, but knew next to nothing about

investment banking, despite having put himself through New York University's

prestigious Stern School of Business at night during his early years at Lehman.

So he began to carefully study the men around him, as he had with Glucksman, who had

qualities he admired but had also lacked qualities Fuld lacked.

For example, Fuld was nowhere near as good a negotiator as 64-year-old Ronald L.

Gallatin, an intellectually nimble partner who created many of Lehman's financial

products during the years of Slamex. Gallatin was once described as a "man who could

juggle so many balls that only he could keep track of them all." Fuld paid close attention

to what made him effective. "Dick listened carefully to everything Gallatin said. In fact,

he listened carefully to everything everyone said. He absorbed far more than people

realized," said someone familiar with the situation.

Fuld got a brutally blunt reminder of how much he still had to learn when he was joined

at the helm by the man appointed in 1990 to run Shearson Lehman's investment banking

division while Fuld ran fixed income. That man was J. Tomlinson Hill--otherwise known

as Tom Hill.

The appointments had come about almost organically. Fuld was the head of the toughest

traders in Shearson Lehman while his counterpart in banking, Hill, had shone among all

the bankers. Hill was in the mold of the famous Lehman bankers of yore. He was known

to be one of the toughest fighters on the Street. Immaculately dressed, his hair slicked

back, Hill was the ultimate smooth -talking barracuda as banker.

One former Shearson Lehman executive says: "If Tom Hill were not actually as good a

banker as he was, he still would have been hired by Central Casting. He absolutely

looked the part. He went to the right schools, had the right physical build--in every way,

shape, or form, this was your classic investment banker. He knew everybody from

business school, knew everybody from the country club."

Hill's sublime arrogance left many people cold, if not mortally wounded. Many sources

say he has since matured into one of the most effective and liked investment bankers on

Wall Street (an impression confirmed by this author who met with Hill twice). But back

then he was young and hard -edged. A mutual friend once sent a young Harvard MBA to

be interviewed by Hill, who reportedly told the young man he clearly did not have the

"drive and energy" required to be a success in investment banking since he was making

only $200,000 a year at his current job.

Hill came by his arrogance honestly. A senior Lehman executive says, "Tom went from

being a very, very good cutthroat--because that's what you' re supposed to be as a

mergers and acquisitions banker--to actually running the investment banking area." It was

Hill who drafted the blueprint with both the Shearson Lehman board and the Amex board

that branded the