Manhattan:
There are a bunch of brothers and sisters out there who have reached the pinnacles of their respective fields. Standouts include the late Bruce Wasserstein, the star investment banker, and his late sister, Wendy Wasserstein, the renowned playwright. There is Maryanne Trump Barry, a federal judge in New Jersey, and her brother, The Donald. And most famously these days, we have the Emanuels: Rahm, the mayor of Chicago; Ari, the Hollywood super agent; and Zeke, a health care expert.
DealBook would like you to meet the latest entry in the power sibling pantheon: Preet S. Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, and Vinnie Bharara, the co-founder of a company recently sold to Amazon.com for more than half a billion dollars.
In speeches over the last several months, Mr. Bharara has taken to trumpeting his brother's business prowess.
It may not be just familial affection: Mr. Bharara has not made many friends on Wall Street trading floors and corporate boardrooms in his aggressive pursuit of white-collar crime. The tale of his brother's success serves as a counterpoint to the broader themes of a speech in which he criticized business. "Is corporate culture becoming increasingly corrupt?" he asked. "Is ethical bankruptcy on the rise?"
On Tuesday night, in a talk sponsored by the New York Financial Writers Association, Mr. Bharara opened his remarks by suggesting that a group of business reporters would be far more interested in hearing from Vinnie than from him.
He told the audience that he and his brother, who grew up in Eatontown, N.J., carved similar paths. Preet, 42, graduated from Harvard College; Vinnie, 39, the University of Pennsylvania. Each earned a law degree from Columbia. Both worked at big law firms: Preet billed by the hour at Gibson Dunn, while Vinnie slaved away at Cahill Gordon. Both then did stints at smaller firms.
At this point, Mr. Bharara explained, their roads diverged. He became a federal prosecutor in Manhattan and later served as chief counsel to Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York. Vinnie left law for more entrepreneurial pursuits, starting an Internet business with a childhood friend called the Pit, an online sports card exchange. Preet said that he invested some money into the venture, which he said did not work out so well. (In 2001, the Pit was sold to the Topps Company, where Vinnie served briefly as general counsel.)
Vinnie then told Preet about his next great idea: He and his pal were starting a business selling diapers on the Internet. Knock yourself out, a then-skeptical Preet recalled telling his kid brother. Fade out.
Fade in: Last August, the White House installs Mr. Bharara as the United States attorney in Manhattan, among the highest-profile prosecutor posts in the country. Three months later, not to be outdone by his older brother, Vinnie and his friend, Marc Lore, sell their business, Quidsi, the parent company of Diapers.com and Soap.com, to Amazon.com for $540 million.
Not bad for a couple of Jersey boys.