Book is OK, reminded me of "Shoe Dog" (Phil Knight memoir/founder of Nike). "Workaholic in love with his business overcomes all obstacles, challenges and adversity to become Billionaire". This guy was a god tier businessman and arbitrageur...fly anywhere in the world on a moments notice to negotiate deals with country leaders. I wasn't familiar with Rich's story or commodities in the 70s-90s and was expecting to read about a "trader"...but it ended up being more about a really talented broker that would create large, often secretive deals in crude oil with countries that the US had labelled "the bad guys". Too many pages were dedicated to his indictment, fleeing the US, being pursued by US Marshalls, etc...Being pardoned by Bill Clinton during his last day in office is pretty interesting although the book doesn't reveal anything you cant read in a 5 min article on the subject. Also, Weinberg and Guiliani are both society whore douchebags. Overall maybe a 5-6/10 book for me. Some good examples of how a man like this handles defeat: "you cry a little, and then you move on". A bit of knowledge from the book: don't openly cheat on your wife with a younger, sluttier woman...that will cost you big. Also, don't be quick to marry younger sluttier woman after divorcing...that could cost you also lol. Also really like the idea of brokering deals on physical goods more than staring at a f'king screen hours a day. I see it as providing more value than being an individual trader as Rich claimed: "I deliver a service, people wanted to sell oil to me, and people wanted to buy oil from me. I am a businessman, not a politician".
first wife got a ton of money but lost her husband...she fought to make their marriage work for iirc 2 years after he first cheated but Marc wasn't having it and moved forward with divorce. they were married for 30 years and had children. She got a shit ton of money...hundreds of millions but she probably would have rather had a healthy marriage so I would say she lost. second wife sounded like typical high society, superficial trophy wife...they were married for 9 years and she got something like 10 million. she probably feels just great about it lol.
Interesting how such a small group of men were instrumental in other concerns such as Trafigura, Gunvor, Mercuria and Vitol. Definitely an inside club.
I have to say that Trafigura toxic waste scandal in Africa was perhaps the ugliest I read. Rich fiscal evasion is nowhere near the same category in my mind. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-10735255