Ever since the earliest days of commerce, businesspeople have organized themselves into partnerships. They formed groups with a common interest and worked together as a single unit, assuming both the risks and rewards of the business. It was a natural way of achieving a common goal. If the business succeeded, all of the partners made money. If it flourished, the partners even sometimes became rich. However, success wasn't assured and if the business failed, they all suffered together. In addition to a multitude of other industries, this was the model that dominated how Wall Street firms operated up until the 1980's. Beginning in the 1980's, it was not uncommon to find that a freshly-hired trainee - a kid literally right out of college - knew more about the new financial instruments than the CEO of the firm that hired him. In some instances, the kids were learning about the finer points of newly-invented instruments before their managers knew they even existed. These were
