Who is John Meriwether from When Genius Failed and what is their importance?

John Meriwether was born in 1947 in the Roseland section of Chicago. His father was an accountant, his mother was employed by the Board of Education, and John attended St. John de la Salle elementary school and then Mendel Catholic High School. John was good in mathematics. He won a National Honor Society scholarship, as well as a Chick Evans scholarship to attend Northwestern. After graduating, Meriwether taught math for a year, and then earned a business degree from the University of Chicago. He worked at CNA Financial Corporation while in business school.

He moved to New York to trade government bonds for Salomon, and later founded the Arbitrage Group in 1977. He was a successful Wall Street trader, and he was the brainchild behind Long-Term Capital Management.