A Wall Street Genius's Final Investment Playbook-Chapter 204
“What’s going on?”
“Well… I’m not really sure where to begin… So, uh, there was this kind of test, I guess… and I think I might’ve messed it up…?”
Gerrard looked visibly anxious, and his rambling was excessive.
His words were tangled like a ball of yarn, making communication impossible.
I spent nearly ten minutes calmly asking questions, but I still couldn’t get any clear information.
“Let’s start by calming down.”
After thinking for a moment, I took out a 50-year-old Macallan from the cabinet.
I poured two glasses and handed one to him.
“Take a sip first.”
Without hesitation, Gerrard raised the glass.
After downing the whiskey in one go, his breathing eased and he began to relax.
But then,
‘What the…?’
The effect was better than expected.
I could finally understand what he was saying.
“My uncles came to talk about China’s mid-to-long-term plans…”
To summarize, Gerrard said his uncles gave him the task of drafting a strategic plan for China.
And during a recent progress review, there had been a clash of opinions.
“I told them not to interfere and that I’d handle it! I said, ‘If this is really a test of my abilities, I can’t use someone else’s answers.’ I told them I’d write only what I truly believed in, and that I’d take full responsibility if it failed.”
“Did your uncles approve of that?”
“Well, not exactly… They said they’d decide after hearing the full plan…”
Gerrard hadn’t been granted full authority yet.
But he had been told they would make a decision after the upcoming presentation in three days.
If he passed, there was a chance he’d be given full control.
‘Not bad.’
But I seemed to be the only one who thought that.
Gerrard clearly regretted his actions.
“I must’ve been crazy! I’d never do something like that normally, but I’ve been pulling too many all-nighters and the stress just got to me…”
‘Stress, huh…?’
I felt slightly responsible.
After all, a good portion of his stress likely came from my deliberate prodding.
Anyway.
“It’s okay. From now on, I’ll help you.”
I handed him another glass of whiskey and gently guided him forward.
“Start from the beginning and tell me slowly. What kind of plan did you propose that made your uncles push back?”
I naturally led the conversation toward his uncles.
That was valuable intel.
The more I knew, the better.
I was the kingmaker trying to place Gerrard on the throne.
In that role, I had to understand the tendencies and power structure of the current players.
Even their preferred business directions and methods could be crucial clues.
“They want offline expansion. You know, like building flagship stores in big cities, like Apple Stores, to strengthen the brand… But I opposed it. The real estate market’s terrible right now. Then they started saying young people don’t know anything and brought up stuff from the past…”
Listening to him, I could guess what kind of people his uncles were.
‘Typical “take the credit if it works, blame you if it doesn’t” type.’
They assign tasks, then constantly interfere with unofficial suggestions.
But if things go wrong, they claim, “I was just making a comment—you should’ve done your research.”
And if it succeeds, they say, “Didn’t I tell you to do it that way?” and take all the credit.
This time was no different—they’d made various suggestions about the China plan, and the pressure eventually caused Gerrard to explode and tell them to back off.
Anyway.
After a two-hour-long meeting, I made a few interesting discoveries.
One.
‘This guy’s actually pretty smart.’
Gerrard had better insight than expected.
His strategies and logic were cautious yet convincing.
For example, suggesting pop-up stores instead of permanent ones due to the stagnant Chinese real estate market.
Or investing in the emerging live commerce market—those were smart ideas.
China’s live commerce was going to explode in the future.
And two.
‘His lack of confidence isn’t just a personality issue.’
At first, I thought he simply lacked capacity—but that didn’t seem to be the case.
“I just haven’t earned their trust yet…”
He blamed his failure to gain his uncles’ approval on himself.
He acted like he was the problem.
But this looked more like the result of long-term conditioning.
Like how baby elephants are tied with ropes and beaten to teach them fear—Gerrard seemed to have been brainwashed from an early age to obey his uncles unconditionally.
As a result, even now, as an adult with enough power, he couldn’t bring himself to defy their authority.
‘We’re going to need to break that mindset.’
And finally, the most important discovery—three.
‘He can’t hold his liquor.’
Gerrard was extremely weak to alcohol.
It was like he’d taken a truth serum—once he started drinking, he spilled everything he knew.
It was strange no one had pointed this out before.
From an information-gathering standpoint, what better opportunity could there be?
So after the meeting, I smiled softly and suggested:
“Since it’s a rare chance, how about one more drink?”
“Here?”
“I’m just in the mood for a bit more tonight. Plus, I thought we could chat a bit about the Black Swan theory I mentioned earlier.”
He hesitated for a moment, but when I said I’d share some information, he nodded.
“Alright.”
#
I took Gerrard around to a few quiet lounges, but unlike I expected, he didn’t talk much.
It went something like this:
“I actually hate my name… Gerrard just sounds so old-fashioned, you know?”
But the moment those words left his mouth, he quickly looked around nervously.
He looked around as if checking whether someone might be listening.
‘He’s being cautious of his surroundings.’
Even when reserving a private room at an elite social club, it was the same.
So, I had no choice but to make this suggestion.
“How about we have the next drink at my place?”
Honestly, I wasn’t very keen on inviting him to my home.
My space is my sanctuary, and I strongly dislike letting others into it.
But, ‘Maybe that’s actually safer, security-wise…?’
After all, the information I wanted to get out of Gerrard was highly sensitive.
Like the political influence of his family.
No matter how private a club might be, you couldn’t completely eliminate the risk of waiters or others overhearing.
In the end, I brought him to my penthouse.
“You live here? This place is huge for just one person!”
Gerrard marveled at the night view of New York spread beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows as soon as he stepped inside.
He looked around with curiosity, but I quickly cut off his exploratory urges.
“I’ll give you a house tour another time—when the sun’s up. The bathroom is this way.”
I drew a clear line so that he wouldn’t step anywhere beyond the living room or bathroom.
Then I led him to the living room and brought out more drinks.
After a few rounds, Gerrard gradually began to open up.
As expected, being alone seemed to help him speak more freely.
Though his complaints were long, there was a lot of valuable information hidden within.
“Our family is… hmm… how do I say this—obsessive? Like, really obsessive. And in families like that, there are a lot of cases where they lose their money. So people are worried that… um… the Marquises might be going down the same path… decline, yeah, that.”
His words were hazy, but understandable.
‘So, they’re worried about the fall of the family?’
Well, that was understandable.
Very few families manage to preserve their wealth for five generations.
I’d even heard that over half of old-money families go bankrupt by the third generation.
“When we were kids, the uncles used to take the nephews on these hunting trips… in Virginia, you know, that inherited estate? They go there once a year… but me? I’ve never… yeah, never got invited.”
Gerrard hadn’t originally been a successor candidate.
There had been several candidates, but one by one they were eliminated, and Gerrard was eventually promoted to heir.
And the reasons behind those eliminations were absurd.
“No one likes their name in our family. Like… ancestor names are too outdated, right? Me too… I mean, what kind of name is Gerrard for someone my age… but it’s the same with the others. Bernard, Edmund… Walter… stuff like that. But—there was this cousin who cried once saying he hated his name when he was little? Boom, eliminated. Just for saying that when he was twelve!”
A child being disqualified for saying they didn’t like their name back in elementary school.
“And then… there was another cousin who skipped the family’s end-of-year charity event because he went skiing with friends. He got cut too. Oh—and that other one! At a school play… forgot his lines? Yeah, that got him kicked off as well.”
Skipping a family event, flubbing a line in a play—all grounds for disqualification.
Gerrard’s words were slurred and jumbled, but the point was clear.
The family eliminated heir candidates for the pettiest of reasons, and Gerrard was the only one who somehow met every criterion.
Just listening to it was suffocating.
“That must’ve been hard.”
When I offered a sympathetic comment, his eyes began to droop.
“Tired, huh? Want me to call you a cab?”
“Huh? No… I’m good…”
Even while swaying from the alcohol, he stubbornly insisted he was fine.
But clearly, he wasn’t.
‘Yeah… no, you’re not okay.’
With half-closed eyes, Gerrard wobbled as he insisted on staying upright.
But anyone could see he was about to collapse.
Sure enough, after I briefly stepped into the bathroom, I returned to find him fast asleep on the living room sofa.
“Gerrard?” frёeweɓηovel_coɱ
I lightly shook his shoulder at first.
When he didn’t respond, I shook him a bit harder.
Still no sign of waking.
‘Seriously?’
“Gerrard, which hotel are you staying at?”
No answer.
Only his soft, drowsy breathing.
After thinking it over for a moment, I finally called Rachel.
“Rachel, I need to drop Gerrard off, but I don’t know the address of his hotel. And in his current state, I can’t exactly ask him.”
[Hotel?]
Rachel sounded a little surprised.
[Oh, actually… Gerrard usually stays at our house when he’s in town. I’ll come pick him up!]
“No, it’s fine, just give me the address and I’ll take him there.”
[No, I’ll come get him.]
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