Jeff Gundlach just lived out the fantasy of everybody who's been burning to get back at a boss after being fired.

On Tuesday, December 4, the third anniversary of Gundlach's firing from TCW [profile], he threw a huge party celebrating DoubleLine's [profile] success right where his old bosses would be sure to notice: the restaurant inside the TCW office building. And he hung a banner that read "DoubleLine $50 Billion" — the AUM figure his shop passed last month — right above the bar.

That's the bare outline of the story, but the malevolent genius of Gundlach's revenge is in the details, which Kevin Roose of New York Magazine provides. Roose spoke with people who attended the party and reports that the bash ran from two PM until after nine o'clock, and that TCW employees passing the restaurant "stopped in their tracks to gawk at the party going on inside. Some looked horrified; others laughed at Gundlach's audacity; a few even surreptitiously entered the restaurant to shake their old colleague's hand, our source said."

And in case all the foregoing didn't make Gundlach's intentions clear enough, he also made a poster showing the names and faces of the TCW executives who had ousted him and placed it near the entrance of the restaurant. NYMag's Roose reports that one of Gundlach's employees emailed several executives pictured on the poster a message reading, "He couldn't have done it without you."

In the middle of the party Gundlach toasted his DoubleLine employees with Cristal, thanking them for leaving TCW with him.

"Three years ago, there were more than 40 of you who jumped off the diving board with me, believing that there would be water in the pool by the time you got there," Gundlach reportedly told his employees. "I'll never forget that."

Gundlach's flamboyant revenge-gala was, not surprisingly, covered in many outlets, including Dealbreaker (which first broke the story), InvestmentNews, Barron's, Business Insider, and LA Observed. Yet NYMag and Dealbreaker have the most detailed coverage and are the ones to read.  

Edited by: Chris Cumming


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