The Accidental Investment Banker
I had The Accidental Investment Banker, by Jonathan Knee, on my
Amazon.com "wish list" for a while, and no one got it for me ;) So I
went ahead and bought it for myself a few weeks ago, and I just
finished reading it.
Overall, I really liked this book. It delivered on all the promises
made: a true, insider, unembellished story of the life of an
investment banker on Wall Street. On one hand, I got the feeling the
author left out details, like how late he had to work and how often,
but on the other hand, it seemed like he was very honest about the
politics of the business. It was also interesting to hear first-hand
why he stayed, and then why he left, the industry (or at least, the
big boys on Wall Street part of the industry).
I can see how other industry insiders would scoff at some of the
comments in the book and say they're self-serving. The author does go
on and on (and on) about longing for a previous era of personal
relationship banking as exemplified by Sidney Weinberg. But least the
author put his money where his mouth is, and quit the big Wall Street
firms to join a much smaller, "boutique," alternative, and also teach
part-time.
The hierarchy of titles in the financial services world always amused
me. How many vice presidents can you have? And how many levels of
people can you have between a vice president and the president? It's
total title dilution, but that doesn't really matter I guess. The
directory of people in the author's group in his current company
illustrates this issue. Is there anyone who actually just works, or do
they all manage each other?
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