But what is it like in reality?
“Young Money: Inside the Hidden World of Wall Street’s Post-Crash Recruits” a new book by journalist Kevin Roose follows eight entry-level Wall Street analysts in their first two years at Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Credit Suisse.
According to Roose, the truth is that these 22-year-olds’ lives were less about big nights out and lavish lifestyles and far more centred around 100-hour work weeks, insecure bosses, crippling pressure and crises of conscience.
“A lot of people when they picture Wall Street they picture the ‘Wolf of Wall Street,’ people making a lot of money, driving fast cars, doing cocaine.”
“It’s not like that for the young people.”
It’s true that the analysts are paid upwards of $100,000 right out of college to work at some of the most prestigious banks in the world. It’s also a fact that these jobs give them entry into the best business schools, private equity firms and hedge funds.
But all the money and opportunities come at a price: not seeing daylight for days on end, staying at work through the night only to do 30 to 40 revisions on one project, getting publicly screamed at for an errant comma or an incorrectly formatted spreadsheet.
Roose wrote that one Goldman analyst pondered if he’d be able to get off from work if he were hit by a car and if the trade-off for a few broken limbs would be worth it.
Another had a countdown clock mounted in his bedroom, ticking down the number of days, minutes and seconds until his two years at the bank were up.
A Citigroup analyst told Roose that when he was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that required him to take time off for treatment, he worried that he would be “penalized for his weakness.”
Two Goldman analysts even started plotting a “mass exodus of first-year analysts” called Wall Street Drop Day, during which everyone would announce they were leaving on the same day, and storm the Internet with their “horror stories.” They even reserved the domain name wallstdropday.com in case it ever came to fruition.
“Their initial excitement about working at the most esteemed bank of Wall Street had quickly evaporated, and devastating depression had taken root,” Roose wrote.
It wasn’t just the long hours and pressure from higher-ups that weighed on the analysts. Roose found that some had a hard time grappling with the idea of working on Wall Street right after a global financial meltdown sparked by the actions of the same firms where they worked.
Particularly rankling for them was the Occupy Wall Street movement, which started in Zuccotti Park, in the heart of New York’s financial district. Hundreds of young college graduates had joined the movement to protest against a system where large corporations, especially financial firms, hold the power to write rules that disproportionately benefit a rich minority.
“The young people I followed spent a tremendous amount of time doubting and questioning what they were being taught, and questioning whether they wanted to be in finance.”
“Many of them would see the Occupy Wall Street protesters, who were about the same age as them, out of their work window, and they had a hard time believing they were on this side of it.”
However, Roose adds that it’s hard to feel sorry for people who are making so much money at such a young age. “At times I’d want to break out the small violins when they were telling me how hard their jobs were. They entered as college students, and they left being able to carry on conversations about the global markets. They knew how to read a balance sheet. These are skills that will prove valuable throughout their lives. But I realized about halfway through the reporting that I wouldn’t do these guys’ jobs for any amount of money.”
Young Money: Inside the Hidden World of Wall Street’s Post-Crash Recruits
This is no scandal-ridden tell-all, but it’s a fascinating look at the life that so many of the country’s top students choose for themselves.
by (Goodreads Author)
3.65 · Rating details · 3,470 Ratings · 232 Reviews
Becoming a young Wall Street banker is like pledging the world’s most lucrative and soul-crushing fraternity.
Every year, thousands of eager college graduates are hired by the world’s financial giants, where they’re taught the secrets of making obscene amounts of money– as well as how to dress, talk, date, drink, and schmooze like real financiers.
| Title | Young Money: Inside the Hidden World of Wall Street’s Post-Crash Recruits |
| Author | Kevin Roose |
| first published | January 1st 2014 |
| Publisher | Grand Central Publishing |
| ISBN | 0446583251 |
| Language | English |
