From the Economist, January 24, 2009

Andrew Lo, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, imagines a confrontation in 2004 between the head of Lehman and its chief risk officer. Forseeing a catastrophe ahead, the risk officer proposes shutting down the mortgage business, but his boss threatens to sack him on the spot. He suggests cutting back, but the boss counters that his competitors are expanding and his best people would be poached. He mentions hedging the risk, but his boss retorts that in the next two years that will cost hundreds of millions of dollars of lost profits.