This document provides background information on key figures involved in the financial crisis. It defines common financial terms like credit default swaps and derivatives. It then profiles several CEOs and executives, describing how some promoted risky subprime lending to expand homeownership but lacked oversight, while others ran firms like private fiefdoms and ignored signs of a looming mortgage bubble. It includes a quote from the poet W.B. Yeats suggesting the crisis may have been a harbinger of greater troubles to come.