And Then the Roof Caved In

Chapter 10

A House of Cards

 

 

 

Kyle Bass once drove his car 191 miles per hour on a freeway in Dallas, Texas. I know, because I was in the passenger seat. If you’re wondering what that looks like, I can’t really tell you because I had my eyes closed for most of it. But I did catch a look at the speedometer.The wind gets very loud when you’re going 191 miles per hour. My wife wasn’t happy about it, but given that I’d survived, all she did was ask that I not drive with Bass again.

Bass doesn’t drive that fast anymore. He’s got his limited partners to think of, not to mention a lovely family. But back then, when he was a successful institutional salesman at Bear Stearns and later at Legg Mason, Bass liked speed. He still likes to take risks. He was once a competitive diver and will still jump (with many twists and turns) off the occasional cliff. He also likes to get dropped off by helicopter to ski on remote parts of mountains.

And then there was that time he bet the U.S. housing market was built on suspect financing and would soon come tumbling down.

Kyle Bass

Photo courtesy of CNBC.

Digging for Gold

I first met Bass in the mid-1990s. I had a source in the office where he worked who introduced us over the phone one day and thought we might be able to help each other. Bass was a young, aggressive institutional salesman at Bear Stearns who serviced the then-rarefied world of hedge ...