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A review by khornstein1
Young Money: Inside the Hidden World of Wall Street's Post-Crash Recruits by Kevin Roose
2.0
OK, I read this on impulse...it was positively reviewed in The Week. It's a quick read and somewhat fun if you want to take a trip back to your post-collegiate years.
My husband has worked in finance since his late 20's. He now supervises and trains many 20-something analysts, really enjoys it, but is surprised by generational differences...but I digress.
Young Money can't seem to find its central argument or even a theme. Is this a book about finance or a book about being a young person and how people choose a career/mission in life? (that would have been a more interesting book).
Kevin Roose follows a handful of young people as they enter bank training programs. Guess what? Some of them like it in finance and some of them don't! Some of them--hold your breath--switch jobs and go to other banks or go join tech startups!
The kids work 100-hour weeks and take Adderall---or at least some of them do. Sometimes they don't sleep for three days. As a parent of young people, I am totally against this! But is this big news? This has been the way in finance training programs for years. And law. And advertising. And it's not that way everywhere and it's getting better.
Guess what? Some of the trainees' superiors are mean! They yell at them! They get mad when the trainees make mistakes in their Excel spreadsheets! Guess what people? As someone who has worked in a variety of fields for years, I can now reveal something shocking--people sometimes yell; people get angry when you make mistakes. Part of being an adult is figuring out how to handle that. I have techniques for calming people down. And fixing mistakes. And I check my work (which is usually not quantitative where a mistake representing millions or billions of dollars would be a bigger deal). Yes, people don't like typos. (This drives my husband crazy by the way--when things are done with tons of mistakes by young people being paid A LOT.)
The trainees are described as "depressed" which means they like to hang out on rooftops getting high, gain weight, or go to bars. They date people and break up. They sleep in minimally decorated apartments. They take up boxing or travel to Italy. I would not call this depression (and no, I'm not trying to minimize depression). This is called being in your 20's.
The biggest revelation for me was that what the entry-level analysts do is relatively easy--i.e. edit spreadsheets and create models. I think the jargon of LBO's and CLO's etc. always made me think that trainees already knew or somehow had to pick up some incredibly difficult stuff (like vector calculus).
Then Keven Roose shares his big expose--he breaks into the black-tie induction dinner of Kappa Beta Phi. Yes, it sounds gross and awful. And I am totally against homophobic and racist humor. But again--is this news? Have you ever read about Bohemian Grove? Google it. Yes, there are some really awful people in finance. Is this a big reveal? There have been countless articles on this over the years.
Young whippersnappers. Hmph.
My husband has worked in finance since his late 20's. He now supervises and trains many 20-something analysts, really enjoys it, but is surprised by generational differences...but I digress.
Young Money can't seem to find its central argument or even a theme. Is this a book about finance or a book about being a young person and how people choose a career/mission in life? (that would have been a more interesting book).
Kevin Roose follows a handful of young people as they enter bank training programs. Guess what? Some of them like it in finance and some of them don't! Some of them--hold your breath--switch jobs and go to other banks or go join tech startups!
The kids work 100-hour weeks and take Adderall---or at least some of them do. Sometimes they don't sleep for three days. As a parent of young people, I am totally against this! But is this big news? This has been the way in finance training programs for years. And law. And advertising. And it's not that way everywhere and it's getting better.
Guess what? Some of the trainees' superiors are mean! They yell at them! They get mad when the trainees make mistakes in their Excel spreadsheets! Guess what people? As someone who has worked in a variety of fields for years, I can now reveal something shocking--people sometimes yell; people get angry when you make mistakes. Part of being an adult is figuring out how to handle that. I have techniques for calming people down. And fixing mistakes. And I check my work (which is usually not quantitative where a mistake representing millions or billions of dollars would be a bigger deal). Yes, people don't like typos. (This drives my husband crazy by the way--when things are done with tons of mistakes by young people being paid A LOT.)
The trainees are described as "depressed" which means they like to hang out on rooftops getting high, gain weight, or go to bars. They date people and break up. They sleep in minimally decorated apartments. They take up boxing or travel to Italy. I would not call this depression (and no, I'm not trying to minimize depression). This is called being in your 20's.
The biggest revelation for me was that what the entry-level analysts do is relatively easy--i.e. edit spreadsheets and create models. I think the jargon of LBO's and CLO's etc. always made me think that trainees already knew or somehow had to pick up some incredibly difficult stuff (like vector calculus).
Then Keven Roose shares his big expose--he breaks into the black-tie induction dinner of Kappa Beta Phi. Yes, it sounds gross and awful. And I am totally against homophobic and racist humor. But again--is this news? Have you ever read about Bohemian Grove? Google it. Yes, there are some really awful people in finance. Is this a big reveal? There have been countless articles on this over the years.
Young whippersnappers. Hmph.