Nell Minow

At last someone turns the spotlight on the most overlooked element of the financial meltdown--the boards of directors. With an unerring eye for the telling details and the structural and personal failures they reveal, this book is filled with insight about the failures of directors and what it takes to make it work. Must reading for directors, investors, head-hunters, lawyers, executives, and anyone who has ever wondered why so many smart people got so many things so wrong.

Kurt Andersen

It's hard to imagine a more important or perfectly timed book than Money for Nothing. The reporting and research are impressive, the cool ferocity of the critique entirely persuasive. John Gillespie and David Zweig, a pair of blue-chip capitalist insiders, are the perfect whistleblowers for our shockingly corrupt and dysfunctional corporate system.

Publishers Weekly, January 2010

“Gillespie, a former investment banker with Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, and Bear Sterns; and Zweig, business consultant and Salon.com founder, blow the whistle on the insular, apathetic, and dangerously lackadaisical world of corporate boards. Of the world's 200 largest economies, more than half are corporations, whose economic might is matched by their political and environmental sway. While the media highlights misbehaving moguls, boards work behind closed doors, and their substantial impact often goes unnoticed. These boards, described by the authors as predominantly made up of white men in their '60s, make their decisions “based on the fact that it's not their money,” and the trickle-down effect onto ordinary people is enormous. While Gillespie and Zweig sew in just enough juicy tales of mismanagement and scandalous misbehavior, they make a genuine effort to highlight representative issues and portray corporate leadership in all its complexity, instead of as a simplistic morality tale. They take a running jump at solutions and reforms that might help boards work more effectively and ethically. Both thoughtful and lively, this is a fascinating discussion of a little-seen force in corporate America.”

Finlay ON Governance

A timely analysis by seasoned insiders on a too overlooked factor in the worst financial crisis in generations, and a staggering indictment of the consequences when directors do not direct....