Randall Smith

Randall Smith was a reporter for The Wall Street Journal for more than three decades, and has since written freelance articles about investing for the New York Times and other publications. The son of a New York City publicist, he graduated from Harvard College, served as a Lieutenant (j.g.) in the U.S. Navy, and worked at the New York Post and New York Daily News before joining the Journal in 1981. He lives in Manhattan and has two sons. In 2002, Smith and colleague Susan Pulliam won the George Polk award for stories about an investigation of how brokers at Credit Suisse First Boston charged trading clients excessive commissions in exchange for receiving valuable shares of hot initial public offerings. In 2003, Smith and a group of colleagues shared a Pulitzer Prize for articles about corporate scandals. The articles about Credit Suisse became the springboard for "The Prince of Silicon Valley: Frank Quattrone and the Dot-Com Bubble" after Quattrone, who as the firm's top tech banker led more IPOs than any Wall Street rival, was tried and convicted in 2004 of obstructing the commissions-for-IPOs investigation. Quattrone denied wrongdoing, his conviction was overturned in 2006, and he returned to the securities business in 2008.