1946-
Junk Bond King

Outsider.

Michael Milken rivaled Ivan Boesky as the predominant symbol of 1980s-style capitalism, a fitting comparison since the two men worked together and eventually fell together. Milken, like Boesky, was an outsider on Wall Street, a business arena that has been traditionally dominated by upper-crust Ivy League-educated men from a WASP background. What Milken brought to finance was a creative understanding of how to raise money and a single-minded obsession with doing just that.

Obsession.

Michael Milken came from a middle-class Jewish family living in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. He attended the University of California at Berkeley and graduated in 1968 majoring in business administration, a continuation of his childhood fascination with financial issues. After receiving an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, Milken went to work for Drexel Burnham Lambert. Drexel, if not the largest Wall Street firm...