Hope you enjoy the book! It seems to be a love-it-or-hate-it title. I just started The Brothers Karamazov, which some college friends used to read each December. It's been a while since I took on a book this long so I am getting an early start. Trying the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation this time instead of the usual Garnett.
Count me squarely in the "love it" camp. Something happened to me with this book that I don't think has ever happened to me before: I dreamed about it a lot. It took me about ten to fifteen days to read it once I decided to sit down and do it. I would say that at least seven nights my dreams were invaded by the characters. I'd say big credit to Stephenson on that. I have very few qualms with the book. If anything, I thought its pacing was too fast. That is, 80% of the book felt like a third act. But on the other hand, that really keeps you turning the pages.
I haven't read any Stephenson, and I don't know anything about his stuff, so I'm going in blind. As for OPM, Kay is pretty sanguine, actually. The material might be a little scary, but ignoring isn't going to make it go away. One comes away with a sense of despair, but with a shimmer of hope in the silver lining, too. The takeaway message of the book is that there are a lot of people in finance who would like to do right by their customers, but that currently, the economics favor more trading, and more focus on tomorrow than rational trading and more focus on distant time horizons. The only policy solutions he advocates are ring fencing deposits from investments, and the Tobin tax or something similar. Absent its adoption, whose chances are nil right now, Kay thinks that what the system needs is a return to retail customers' outcomes as their primary endpoint. All in all the book pissed me off, since it made me relive 2008, but it is a very worthwhile read. Highly recommend.