While at Harvard, the situations in which Summers collaborated and worked with others were well suited to this style. As a team leader and senior researcher, Summers pushed those under him hard—but that was the expectation.

The chronology of Summers’ time in Washington shows a steady upward trajectory. In 1991, Summers becomes vice president of development economics at the World Bank, and its chief economist. His work there earns him a post in the Clinton administration, when in 1993 he becomes undersecretary for international affairs. In 1995 Summers becomes Robert Rubin’s deputy secretary. Finally in July of 1999, Summers is appointed Secretary of the Treasury. There he is at the head of a 100,000-person-plus bureaucracy that includes the IRS, the Secret Service, Customs, and Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Summers played a role similar to that of a university president, balancing the various constituencies—professional economists, former Wall Street experts, politicos—while setting policy and vision for the institution as a whole.

“The difference was being a part of an organization rather than being a free spirit,” Summers said. “I had to fit in with the imperatives of the organization, but I could do things at the World Bank that as a professor you could only talk about.” (It also worked the opposite way: Summers signed off on a memo that looked at the pure economic benefit of dumping toxic waste in underdeveloped nations. When it was leaked, he made enemies—and apologized promptly.)

Academics who go to Washington have a tough time. Many crash and burn—come off as too self-assured, fail to develop political skills, never realize that there is more to every issue than the pure facts. But Summers survived for 10 years in Washington, and some have called him the city’s most successful academic ever. “Henry Kissinger would dispute that, but I’d agree,” Gruber says.

And when the search committee was looking for someone who could synthesize the perspective of the traditional academic with modern CEO-type managerial skill, Summers topped their list.

With his integration into these organizations, Summers needed to learn to sometimes bite his tongue. His audience was wider, and his words were taken more seriously. Incidents stood out in which Summers said too much, too bluntly. At one point, Summers was quoted as calling those who supported the repeal of the estate tax “greedy.”

“You learned very quickly that the right way to handle things was to speak with restraint,” Summers says. “Being provocative and interesting wasn’t always good.”