A review by vegantrav
Young Money: Inside the Hidden World of Wall Street's Post-Crash Recruits by Kevin Roose

4.0

Young Money tells the stories of a handful of recent college graduates (most of them from Ivy League schools) who are beginning their careers on Wall Street as investment bankers and analysts of various types at some of Wall Streets largest firms: JP Morgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Credit Suisse.

These Wall Street neophytes work 80 to 100 hours a week in an extremely high stress environment: they often put in 16 hours or more a day during the week and many times even 10 hours a day on weekends. They make starting salaries of around $70,000 and received bonuses that can range from $10,000 to $30,000 or even higher. Their jobs are obviously very taxing to their personal lives and, due to lack of sleep and high stress, effect their physical and psychological health, but if they can make it through their first two years, then they can move on to better paying positions where they don't have to work such horrendous hours. But making it through those first two years proves exceedingly difficult.

In telling the stories of these young Wall Street bankers and analysts, Kevin Roose provides a fascinating insight into the financial world and shows us what kind of people it takes to succeed in that world. He also documents many of the recent changes on Wall Street in the aftermath of the 2008 fiscal crisis.

If you are at all curious about the inner workings of Wall Street, this book will pull back the curtain for you.