The Leveraged Sell-Out https://www.leveragedsellout.com Living the dream... Wed, 29 Nov 2017 21:20:30 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 The Safest Space https://www.leveragedsellout.com/2017/11/the-safest-space/ https://www.leveragedsellout.com/2017/11/the-safest-space/#comments Wed, 29 Nov 2017 21:20:30 +0000 http://www.leveragedsellout.com/?p=191 Dear Women In Tech,

Do you ever get so stressed out at work that you indulge the idea of taking a moderately well-paying job with reasonable hours in a stable industry with men who aren’t going to constantly sexually harass you?  Do you dream of a place you can finally settle down and relax?

Have you recently considered Wall Street?

I know it may sound counterintuitive, but our industry is a cozy, welcoming environment now.  The combination of the 2008 financial crisis and the rise of tech has all but obliterated the alpha male ego of the average financier.  In 2017, Wall Street is full of a bunch of puppies.  Do you ever feel an overwhelming need to be around puppies?  If so, finance may be a great fit for you. We offer the burned out young professional female a bevy of other therapeutic benefits:

Dominance

Believe it or not, the normal Wall Street analyst and associate now went to a non-target like Purdue University.  That’s right – Purdue…the state school…in Indiana.  Gone are the days when you’d be working alongside some summa Harvard graduate in Politics who grew up reading Machiavelli’s The Prince and simultaneously wants you to be his best friend (with benefits), drinking buddy (with benefits), and mother (with benefits).  Now, you’ll be working alongside Rudy.

Non-Technical Founder
Soft Skin

Look – I’m not saying you can’t beat the Harvard guy or that you’re “weaker” than him.  Not at all.  I imagine you do it daily.  But Rudy listens.  He yields.  He cares.  Do you realize how easy it is to outmaneuver a male with those characteristics?  Think about all that hassle-free dopamine!

Stability

I know you’re capable of handling the giant emotional swings of the boom-bust Silicon Valley business model, but have you ever stopped to consider why you are exposing yourself to that kind of volatility.  It’s Wall Street’s 200th anniversary this year – that’s a lot longer track record than tech.  The DOW is about to clear 25,000.  Work-life balance is now enforced at every major firm here.  And when our bubbles burst, we get bailed out.  Can you even remember the last time finance was making headlines for doing something evil?  Men here are so terrified of losing the little social capital they have that they’re docile.  Now that’s peace of mind.

Zero Pretense

I know what you’re thinking – isn’t it “important” to be a meaningful contributor to society and at least try to fight through the battles to make your industry more progressive and balanced?  The answer is: No.  In finance, we know we’re not the coolest or richest or doing anything all that special.  And we gave up on progress decades ago.  In many ways, we’re the most liberated work environment around – is there any safer space than one where there’s no pressure and no one cares…about anything?

So the next time you come home at 1am after a long day of trying to build your own business or battling it out with a bunch of overeducated assholes trying to change the world with artificial intelligence or augmented reality software, ask yourself some deep questions: What is reality, anyway? Does any of this even matter? Am I actually making that big a difference, after all?

Allow yourself to really start spiraling down that rabbit hole until you can feel it destroying you completely.  Then remember that Wall Street offers everything you really need.  And in giving up on trying to be exceptional, you might gain what you were originally searching for:

Freedom.

Please send resumes to surrender@gs.com.

Cindy Kim
Managing Director
Goldman Sachs

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Obsolete https://www.leveragedsellout.com/2014/04/obsolete/ https://www.leveragedsellout.com/2014/04/obsolete/#comments Wed, 02 Apr 2014 22:03:38 +0000 http://www.leveragedsellout.com/?p=186 Non-Technical Founder

There were seven minutes left in the auction, and the price of the limited edition Apple T-Shirt was at $60. Gopal rapped his fingers on the keyboard on his lap. A Forbes magazine – the one piece of print media in the entire Dolores Heights apartment – was open on the coffee table in front of him. The left page announced: “The 30 under 30 Who Are Changing The World: Technology.” The guy on the list right above Gopal was Adam, a 17 year old Thiel Fellow who had invented a set of algorithms for detecting diseases in X-rays.

datakid97 bid up the price to $65.

Gopal growled. “I will end you,” he whispered. He’d been watching the auction for a full week. He’d set up push notifications and text alerts. When Gopal’s phone would buzz in the middle of meetings, he’d shake his head at the device and leave the conference room. “My fault guys,” he’d say to his team. “I have to take this.” And then he’d go to the bathroom and conduct fifteen to twenty minutes of research on the buying history of whoever had driven up the price of the auction by a dollar.

datakid97 had shown up out of nowhere. He had no history. He was a ghost.

Gopal slid his computer off his lap onto the couch, got up, and paced around the apartment. He walked over to the window and peeled down a blind. Adam lived across the street. Many days, Gopal saw him riding his bike. He always wore the same thing, even at events – loose fitting jeans or cargo shorts that fell below his knees and a technology company T-shirt. The shirts were always rare, limited edition ones, as if he’d just happened to be at the offices of the company during their creation or he’d received the swag in exchange for reporting an obscure early bug. Gopal’s nostrils flared as his synapses lit up. datakid97… he thought.

Gopal looked across the living room at his friend Pete. The 30 under 30 gala was tomorrow. Overnight shipping was available for $19.95. What’s the play, Pete? Gopal thought.

Pete used to have all the answers. When Gopal’s name was being pronounced like a low-end gem or a PayPal competitor, it was Pete who had suggested Gopal explain it this way: “Think of it like you’re encouraging a friend named Paul.” That had worked. When they were second year banking analysts, Pete had helped Gopal map out the series of backhanded compliments that threw another analyst under the bus and pushed Gopal over the edge to the top tier comp bracket. But sitting on Gopal’s sofa in a polo and braided belt with his BlackBerry Q10, Pete now looked like an anachronism. If Gopal didn’t win the shirt, he’d be stuck with his current wardrobe. He’d be corporate. He’d be Pete – people would snap pics of him and write captions like: “dude, sans clue.”

“I took this auction theory class in b-school…” Pete said, standing up and preparing to teach.

Gopal huffed. “What’s ‘b-school’?” he asked. Since Gopal had moved to San Francisco, he’d reinvented himself.

“B-school? Business school?”

Gopal shrugged. He didn’t do “business.” He was an entrepreneur. He looked back down at his screen, hoping Pete would disappear.

“Dude, we were the same year at HBS…” Pete said.

Lower your voice,” Gopal said. “Someone might hear you. You’re not in New York anymore. You think anyone here cares you went to ‘b-school’?” Gopal slammed his finger down on the magazine. Adam had skipped college. He was twelve years younger than both of them.

“Adam could probably teach your auction theory class,” Gopal said. Pete wasn’t listening. He was standing in front of a mirror across the room, as if he was going to begin drawing equations on it with a dry erase marker.

Gopal scratched his head. His index finger worked the crown. Since his hairline had started to recede, it itched when he was stressed. Adam had thick mop. He looked like the pictures Gopal had seen of himself when he was nine and in humid environments. Gopal needed to be him. Gopal let the blind slap shut and took a few deep breathes. He stretched. He cracked his back and considered his next move.

Pete’s BlackBerry vibrated. Pete picked up the brick, the “cunei-phone.” “You taking Priya to this event?” he asked.

“Are you kidding?” Gopal said. He huffed again. “I’m not tied down. I’m not in that life stage yet. I’m focused.”

Pete held up his phone. “Priya wants to know what you want for dinner,” he said.

“Take the 9V battery out of that thing,” Gopal said. Like a “nice to have” feature, Priya was deep down on the backlog. Gopal needed his company to get bought before he determined next steps. He needed a proper roll-out. “Just one more quarter,” he told Priya and his investors, every quarter.

Gopal went back to his laptop, sat down, and bid up the price by a full $65, doubling it to $130.

Pete landed on the sofa next to Gopal and looked over his shoulder. “datakid97…what do you think the 97 stands for? High school graduation?”

Gopal closed his eyes. “That’s the year he was born,” he said. “Adam may not have even gone to high school. Adam’s 17.”

“Who’s Adam?” Pete asked.

Gopal had signed up for a “sniper” service that would wait until the last minute of the auction and bid one penny over the highest bid. But he didn’t trust it, so every five seconds, he manually refreshed the page. A few years ago, when he worked in finance, a few hundred dollars would have been nothing for Gopal. He would have set his maximum bid at $2k and forgotten about it. But he had spent his entire savings on global study / Yacht Week trips during school and a few gut-driven angel investments. He was “cash poor” but as far anyone knew, he was rich, at the top of his peer group.

There were only two minutes left, and since Gopal’s bold last move, datakid97 had disappeared – not one bid. Gopal leaned back and breathed a sigh of relief. As the clock ticked down, he could envision himself wearing the Apple shirt at the event, bathing in the camera lights of the bloggerati. Maybe, he’d wear the shirt inside out. That would look cool, he thought. He’d close his next round of financing right there.

Gopal refreshed the screen another time. A bid came up for $130.01. Gopal refreshed again, and the price of the auction continued to rise. $155. datakid97 was increasing his own bid, like he was flooding the system. Gopal leaned in. Soon, the price had gone over $198. He tried to calculate what to offer, but the price was jumping randomly. Gopal’s head started to sweat, and burn.

Pete sucked his teeth. “Maybe you should just wear a blazer, man,” he said. “And a soft collar shirt? That’s pretty casual?” Gopal wanted to pin Pete up against the wall by his throat. Pete’s phone began to ring. It was an old school ringer.

“What the hell is that sound?” Gopal asked, as if he hadn’t been in the presence of a voice call in years. He clawed at his head.

Gopal could imagine Adam across the street, cackling into a black and green terminal window. Adam didn’t take voice calls – he only communicated via ephemeral media. He was bleeding edge. He had probably written his own script to win the auction. He was using technology Gopal hadn’t even heard of. The whole thing was one line of code and running across twelve cloud servers. In his mind, Gopal was back at the party, but now everyone was pointing and laughing at him. He had on the most embarrassing T-shirt possible, one that read: “N.T.F.” – Non-Technical Founder. The letters seared his skin. Gopal shot up and went back to the window. He peered through the blinds and looked out at Adam’s place. Through the apartment’s curtains, Gopal saw a shadow hunched over what looked like a laptop. The head of the shadow turned towards him. Then, it waved.

Gopal jumped back from the window. With both hands, he twisted the blinds shut. He ran to the sofa.

Pete finally picked up his phone. “Hey Priya…” he said. “Yeah, he’s here.”

“YOU’RE ADDING NO VALUE, PETE,” Gopal screamed. The statement echoed in the room. Gopal held the Forbes magazine up against the side of his face, using one piece of archaic technology to block out the other. Then he raised his max bid to $500.

At $355, Gopal won the auction. “BOOM,” he said. He almost went outside and kicked Adam’s bike.

“Exactly as I predicted,” Pete said, scratching his chin. He held up his hand for a high-five he intended to swing through and hit again on the turn.

Gopal went to his room and shut the door.

At the event the next evening, Gopal wore the t-shirt, where he created a small, undesirable buzz – people wondering if he worked at Apple’s Genius Bar. And all night long, Adam himself was ephemeral. Gopal would see him for a second, surrounded by people, and then poof – the teenager would vanish. Gopal finally cornered Adam at the bar. Adam wore a plain white T-shirt. Gopal squinted at it. He grabbed Adam by the arm and whispered in his ear: “Nice try on eBay, bro.”

Adam turned and, as if Gopal’s phone was ringing, asked: “what’s eBay?”

 

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The Book of Graham https://www.leveragedsellout.com/2014/02/the-book-of-graham/ https://www.leveragedsellout.com/2014/02/the-book-of-graham/#comments Tue, 11 Feb 2014 19:29:57 +0000 http://www.leveragedsellout.com/?p=128 Paul-Graham-Y-Combinator

I emailed my 22 year old cousin Eric, who’s graduating Summa in Economics from Harvard, to see if he needed any help getting interviews at prestigious financial institutions. I was sure there would be recruiters on campus, but I didn’t want to run the risk.

“Paul Graham says prestige is for suckers,” he emailed back within 2 minutes. “Paul Graham says I should follow my passion.”

“Who’s Paul Graham?” I asked. No response.

It turns out Paul Graham runs a “startup accelerator” located on 320 Pioneer Way in Mountain View, CA called Y-Combinator. Y-Combinator makes micro investments into very early stage companies and then helps these companies raise venture capital. Thousands apply for a few slots in two “classes” per year. AirBnB, Dropbox, and Reddit are among its alumni.

The accelerator takes small amounts of risk and offloads that aggregate risk onto a market of investors (the VC’s). Its Demo Day, which first showcases its companies, is a coming out event, like an IPO. And it attracts top young graduates, like my cousin, from across the world. I spent nearly a decade on Wall Street, and let’s be clear: that’s our model. Employing Type A personalities to shuffle around amorphous blobs of questionable value is not called a “startup accelerator”; it’s called Investment Banking.

And this guy Paul was about to steal Eric, brainwash him into thinking he was doing something else, and pay him next to nothing.

I could picture Eric at our east coast Christmas dinner in his startup T-Shirt, his sunglasses still on his head. “Every day we wake up and tell ourselves we have to just fail faster,” he’d say. My father would have a stroke. In six generations, our family had not failed once. Many Y-Combinator founders pay themselves less than $60k a year, about half of what you make your first year in finance. When I saw my cousin a few weeks later, he was flicking through his iPad. He raised his open hand in the air when I walked over to try to talk some sense into him. “Reading Paul Graham,” he said. “YC results in a week.”

I didn’t have much time.

I looked up Paul Graham’s essays. He attacks finance head on. “Prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy,” he says. “It causes you to work not on what you like, but what you’d like to like.” Instead, he encourages: “Do what you love.”

I researched Y-Combinator companies and found ones like HomeJoy and Prim. “Eric – what do you love more, house cleaning or laundry?” I emailed.

That day, I sent Eric a business class train ticket to come down to New York. We went out to dinner and then to PH-D. Two girls joined us at our table, and Eric asked which one he should go after. “Follow your heart,” I encouraged. And when the check came, I passed it to Eric and watched his eyes widen at the total. The host came over, expecting his card. I could see Eric sweat. “Oh, this shouldn’t be a problem,” I assured him. I turned to the host: “You accept equity, right?” Her face contorted. I elbowed my cousin. “Eric – tell her about your startup.”

That night, we were out until 5am, and at 8am, I woke up and saw Eric on his knees on the floor of my living room. His “love” was asleep in a t-shirt on the sofa, and he was hunched over his iPad, rocking back and forth, mumbling to himself. As I got closer, I saw Eric flipping through and reading Paul Graham’s essays out loud.

“The danger is when money is combined with prestige,” he said. “Odds are you just think whatever you’re told.” “Hackers and Painters are both makers.” He repeated that: “Hackers and painters are both makers.”

I kicked him with the side of my foot. “What are you doing, dude?” I said. The girl on the sofa rustled, but Eric stayed in his trance. I went back to sleep, and when I woke up, I found Eric in the exact same position, still studying his iPad.

“Your cousin is really…passionate,” sofa-girl said, yanking on her boots.

It was then that I started to realize just how formidable an adversary Paul Graham was. Eric had been ensnared in Paul’s net and now, wrapped in its warmth, all he and Paul’s militia of “hackers” felt they needed to survive was an Internet connection and a cup of Four Barrel drip coffee. Paul had actually convinced my cousin that he would be more than just a cog in Paul’s low risk (but Eric’s high risk) brokerage machine. I could feel him slipping away.

I texted a friend who still had YC ’11 in her email signature even though her company failed miserably. “What the hell goes on over there?” I asked. “What doesn’t?” she replied. I learned that Y-Combinator goes beyond just being a brand. It’s a community. In finance, we had a blowout holiday party and a liberal corporate card policy. Y-Combinator hosts weekly office hours and dinners and online forums. Constantly brainstorming and discussing and ideating their never-ending list of impractical concepts, Paul’s disciples begin to feel a shared identity, like they are part of something bigger than themselves. It becomes their religion.

“Eric!” I shouted. I snapped my fingers in front his face.

I had put together my own presentation for him. I called it: “Science.” I slid my iPad in place of his and began my pitch. Slides 1-5 were dedicated to the complete failure of venture capital as an asset class over its entire history. I had charts and quotes from the world’s most famous economists. Slides 6-10 listed all the defunct Y-Combinator companies, laid out in three columns in size 6 font. Next to them, the handful of wins looked insignificant. In my last slide, I showed Eric Y-Combinator’s hypocritical homepage, where it calls itself “the most prestigious program for budding digital entrepreneurs.”

Paul-Graham-Y-Combinator

“Do you see?” I asked.

Eric looked up at me, and for a moment, I thought I saw recognition. Through his eyes, I swore I could make out the gears slowly turning into place. Finally, I thought. My body started to relax. Then Eric picked up his iPad, turned it towards me so I was staring directly at his guru’s face, and said:

“But Paul Graham says I must create.”

I grabbed Eric’s iPad from his hands, lifted it over my head, and hurled it down towards the floor as hard as I could. The screen smashed, and a piece of Gorilla Glass spun out and cut the top of my foot.

“ENOUGH!” I screamed.

The iPad was still on, and through the cracks in screen, I could see Paul staring up at me, smiling.

I went back to my room and slammed the door.

A few days later, my family received a group email with the subject line: “Changing the world!” My head sunk into my hands. Eric wouldn’t be going into finance. He and his co-founders had gotten accepted into Y-Combinator for their startup. “The pest control industry has no idea what it’s in for!!” he wrote. He quoted Paul Graham quoting Steve Jobs and assured us that everything they would do would be “insanely great.” No one responded.

Congratulations, Paul.

The legacy infrastructure to snatch young talent was built on the basic human desire of greed. But you, you leverage a much deeper insight. In constructing your 2%-10% value capture contraption, you’ve utilized something that didn’t even cross our minds in banking. You’re able to drive people to risk their lives and work long hours on your behalf with no Seamless account, no black car, all under the guise that it’s their idea. And to achieve this, you play upon a much more powerful human emotion, one that every successful campaign to delude America’s youth and lasting institution throughout history has had at its core:

Hope.
 

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The Founder Hounder https://www.leveragedsellout.com/2014/01/the-founder-hounder/ https://www.leveragedsellout.com/2014/01/the-founder-hounder/#comments Thu, 09 Jan 2014 20:31:21 +0000 http://www.leveragedsellout.com/?p=77

“Girls here wear North Face fleeces at dinner,” Vivian shouted at the dashboard microphone of her Mini Cooper. She pulled forward, having failed her 4th attempt at parallel parking into a minivan-sized spot on California St. in San Francisco.

“Shut up,” Sarah responded in disbelief from her Midtown Manhattan office.

At the table,” Vivian clarified.

“Shut up.” Sarah echoed.

“Yeah, and these tech guys: they like smart girls,” Vivian elaborated, finally getting a decent approach angle on the parking spot. “They want girls who converse and will eat the occasional rich, delicious meal with them.”

Sarah’s disbelief began to turn to irritation. “Vivian, what you’re saying right now doesn’t even make sense.”

“SF guys,” Vivian continued, ignoring her friend, “They aren’t guys trying to work at hedge funds, Sarah.” Vivian bumped the car behind her. She slowed her pace for added effect: “…they’re the LP’s.”

Sarah literally couldn’t move from her Aeron chair on 6th avenue. She took a moment to digest all the information her friend had just relayed to her and attempted to play it back:

“Okay. So a girl like me, who has to go to SoulCycle 6x a week to even hope to attract some fucking Associate in New York, could be the one picking and choosing from any number of potential multi-millionaires in San Fran?”

“Exactly,” said Vivian.

“This is nuts, Vivian,” Sarah mumbled. “This is crazy…” she repeated. Slowly, Sarah’s tone changed from skepticism to one of hope and possibility. “This is…” she searched.

Vivian pulled forward a few feet, leaving her car at a 30 degree angle, tires facing into the downhill street and helped out:

“This is what we’ve been training for our entire lives.”

//

There is a new model being defined for females in San Francisco, and unlike any of the perpetually pivoting projects San Francisco calls businesses, a female of this breed is extremely focused, with well-defined goals and objectives. Her plan is simple: aggressively and exclusively seek out, seduce, and go home with the creators of technology startups. In SoMa they call her: The Founder Hounder.

But The Founder Hounder is more than any regular groupie and a far cry from the PR / investor relations girl of New York. She is well-educated, with a background in finance or strategy consulting. And it is this deep analytical training that has enabled her to ruthlessly assess herself and optimize her outcome.

“I looked at my options,” said Jennifer, a Harvard graduate and pioneering Founder Hounder. ‘VP of Corporate Development’ just didn’t sound as good as ‘Girlfriend of That Dropbox Dude.’”

As it turns out, The Founder Hounder may have the best business model in Silicon Valley. Unlike entrepreneurs, who end up tying all their risk to one venture, or VC’s who have to make numerous large bets in hopes of getting a handful of big hits, The Founder Hounder assumes zero risk and makes absolutely no commitments. She is able to do the deepest kind of diligence on a number of potential investments and, after she kicks the tires, cherry-pick a bet on her own terms.

Tim Draper, of Venture Capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson, made the following observation of the Founder Hounder: “She has, easily, the most attractive risk-adjusted return profile in the entire early stage ecosystem.”

These young ladies don’t talk about Brazilian waxes or how much celery they don’t eat, they casually use phrases like “anti-dilution” and “restricted stock.”

“One of the first things she asked me was: what’s your monthly burn?” noted Sumeet, a young UMich grad with a “working prototype.”

The Founder Hounder has caused a dramatic role reversal. Entrepreneurs are famous for treating girls like distractions, chores they’d rather be able to avoid all together, like eating and sleeping. But good Founder Hounders have become jewels, modern day muses. They set such high return thresholds that they drive those they date to outperform even their most ambitious projections. Inspired by stories like that of Mark Zuckerberg’s wedding, they scoff at tiny multiples like 30x or 40x. Staying true to the Silicon Valley blueprint for business building, one deluded sense of self worth fuels the other.

And, like the entrepreneurs they attack, Founder Hounders have all read Steve Jobs’ biography and engineered their own deliberate personal quirk. Except theirs is not a T-Shirt stitched into a Blazer or distinct daily sets of argyle shoelaces. Their twist: abstinence.

Jeff, founder of an AirBnB meets Snapchat for seniors, related his experience.

“The first time I met Claire I was like: ok, this girl is an 8.5 and I haven’t seen anything above a 6 in months. And after 3 dates: nothing. We’ve gone hiking, hit Napa, I’ve casually exposed my eight pack. I can’t do anything to impress her. Then I hear about the other guys she’s dated, and it clicks.

So I start rattling off metrics: user growth, repeat visitors, viral coefficients. She just sits there, playing with her iPhone, huffing occasionally, unimpressed. I even open up Google Analytics on my iPad at dinner and show her our average 15 minute time on site (first time visitors). But NOTHING. I couldn’t pry the Lululemon’s off of her.”

“After 3 weeks, I’m thinking: what do I have to do to fuck this bitch? IPO?”

We were able to catch Claire after Pilates class in the Marina. Her cold, hard response:

“Yes.”

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Study shows upwards of 80% of hedge fund employees never actually knew what the word “hedge” meant https://www.leveragedsellout.com/2008/11/study-shows-upwards-of-80-of-hedge-fund-employees-never-actually-knew-what-the-word-hedge-meant/ https://www.leveragedsellout.com/2008/11/study-shows-upwards-of-80-of-hedge-fund-employees-never-actually-knew-what-the-word-hedge-meant/#comments Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:58:38 +0000 http://www.leveragedsellout.com/2008/11/study-shows-upwards-of-80-of-hedge-fund-employees-never-actually-knew-what-the-word-hedge-meant/ Chicago, IL—A recent study conducted by the Gallop Group showed that of 5,000 hedge fund employees surveyed during 2006-2007, 83% of respondents were unable to correctly define the word “hedge.”

“It’s just like, you know, part of the title” said one trader confidently. “Another way of saying ‘badass’ fund or ‘rockstar’ fund.” “My Range Rover is hedge,” he insisted, as if to corroborate. Other responses were equally absurd, ranging from “a Greek word” to “some Jewish dude’s last name.”

When told that hedging involved systematically eliminating risk, most subjects just stared ahead blankly. Others checked the time. Several respondents were able to eventually grasp the concept, but they found it quite novel. “Ohhh…you mean that…” said the portfolio manager of a $500M fund, as if a light bulb had gone off inside his head. He then added: “Yeah, we didn’t do that shit at all.”

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Ex-Investment Banker and pending Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel says America lacks “attention to detail.” https://www.leveragedsellout.com/2008/11/ex-investment-banker-and-pending-chief-of-staff-rahm-emmanuel-says-america-lacks-attention-to-detail/ https://www.leveragedsellout.com/2008/11/ex-investment-banker-and-pending-chief-of-staff-rahm-emmanuel-says-america-lacks-attention-to-detail/#respond Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:56:06 +0000 http://www.leveragedsellout.com/2008/11/ex-investment-banker-and-pending-chief-of-staff-rahm-emmanuel-says-america-lacks-attention-to-detail/ Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emannuel, an ex-Managing Director at the investment banking firm Wasserstein Perella, issued first his public statement, expressing frustration with America’s lack of “attention to detail.”

“Sloppy…” said Emmanuel, shaking his head in disgust as he inspected a stack of Congratulations cards sent to his office by a class of local schoolchildren. “This is what’s wrong with America,” insisted Rahmbo, as he’s been nicknamed for his tenacity. He pointed to a flag drawn crudely with crayon, containing only 12 stripes. “Right here,” he explained, before methodically ripping the card in half.

Emmanuel has also reportedly taken a red marker to many government documents, underlining, crossing out, and writing “are you fucking kidding me?!” all over various propositions, memos, and existing statutes. He is already looking to create a national font, somewhere between Bill of Rights and Helvetica, and an associated palette and template to be used for all “books,” as he has begun referring to legal codes.

“It starts with the details” is his ethos, obviously ingrained into him from his stint in finance. And he has a plan to correct these issues—several times a day, he can be heard in his office screaming: “Could somebody get me a fucking Analyst in here?”

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Ghana unveils $14 economic stimulus plan https://www.leveragedsellout.com/2008/11/ghana-reveals-14-economic-stimulus-plan/ https://www.leveragedsellout.com/2008/11/ghana-reveals-14-economic-stimulus-plan/#comments Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:25:49 +0000 http://www.leveragedsellout.com/2008/11/ghana-reveals-14-economic-stimulus-plan/ Accra, Ghana—To help their countries weather the current financial storm, nations such as the United States and China have created large economic stimulus packages of $700B and $586B, respectively. And now the The Republic of Ghana will be joining their ranks with a newly approved plan of a staggering $14.

The package, which amounts to approximately 10% of Ghana’s GDP, will focus on increasing consumer spending but also target infrastructure through tax breaks, primarily on purchases of donkeys for transportation, as well as shovels, plows, and other equipment on the cutting edge of Ghanaian farming technology.

“This is a bold move,” said Kwame Armah-Attoh, a locally-based economist at Citigroup, referring to the sheer magnitude of the stimulus package vs. the present size of the economy. “Very aggressive,” he added, swatting away a swarm of flies from his face.

“We are set on keeping The Ghanaian Dream alive,” said President John Kufuor, likening his project to the New Deal. Kufuor was confident that the $14, less than a vodka-soda at The Gansevoort Hotel, would breathe life into his country’s economy and catapult it into G20: “From the dust,” he insisted grandly and without irony, “Ghana will emerge an economic powerhouse.”

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Banker of the Year: You https://www.leveragedsellout.com/2008/11/banker-of-the-year-you/ https://www.leveragedsellout.com/2008/11/banker-of-the-year-you/#respond Wed, 05 Nov 2008 18:54:57 +0000 http://www.leveragedsellout.com/2008/11/banker-of-the-year-you/ New York, NY—Every year, the trade publication American Banker presents a Banker of the Year award to one individual, celebrating his contributions to the field. This year, however, the magazine took a very Time approach to the concept, giving the award to the collective “You.”

“We just really felt everyone had to be acknowledged,” said Richard Melville, Editorial Director at American Banker. “This massive clusterfuck could not have happened without each and every banker out there.”

Melville’s middle finger to Wall Street, however, has been somewhat misinterpreted by the award’s recipients.

“I’m so happy!” said Goldman analyst Melissa Chang, holding up the magazine like an Oscar. Giddy, she fanned herself with her free hand and added: “I’d like to thank The Academy: my associate, my VP, and most of all, my MD…” Emotion overwhelmed her, but Melissa stammered out: “It just feels good to be noticed…”

“Most Valuable Banker, bitch!” screamed another young Asian girl from over Melissa’s shoulder.

Many industry experts, however, did not take kindly to the act and felt that in these tough conditions, more traditional candidates such as Ken Lewis and Jaime Dimon merited recognition for their efforts.

But Melville stood by his decision. The editor, whose own 30 year long career of financial journalism has been seriously threatened by market conditions, was sardonic as he responded: “I guess I just wanted to say ‘thanks.’” And then he coughed out: “Assholes.”

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Wall Street trader seriously regrets naming his dog Bonus. https://www.leveragedsellout.com/2008/10/wall-street-trader-seriously-regrets-naming-his-dog-bonus/ https://www.leveragedsellout.com/2008/10/wall-street-trader-seriously-regrets-naming-his-dog-bonus/#comments Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:47:02 +0000 http://www.leveragedsellout.com/2008/10/wall-street-trader-seriously-regrets-naming-his-dog-bonus/ Central Park, NY—Given the projections for compensation in the finance industry this year, David Goldstein, a 29 year old Wall Street trader, is starting to realize that naming his pet dog “Bonus,” might not have been prudent. “Bonus was a 225 lb. great dane, and when I got him two years ago, calling him Bonus just seemed so appropriate,” explained Mr. Goldstein, seated on a bench in Central Park. “He was fucking huge.”

“I’d walk him around here on his Hermes collar and leash, and girls would bite their lips and then just take off all their clothes when I told them what his name was,” he recounted nostalgically. But now Bonus sulked at his feet in a PetSmart collar, skeletal, still refusing to eat anything besides Del Frisco’s steaks.

“Look at this skinny little bitch,” said Mr. Goldstein, kicking Bonus in the side and forcing out a pathetic whimper. Women still walked by, but their clothes remained on. And they didn’t respond to Bonus with awe; rather, they offered concern and said: “Aww, he’s so tiny!”

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MBA students flock to new course: Hunting and Gathering https://www.leveragedsellout.com/2008/10/mba-students-flock-to-new-course-hunting-and-gathering/ https://www.leveragedsellout.com/2008/10/mba-students-flock-to-new-course-hunting-and-gathering/#comments Fri, 24 Oct 2008 20:14:22 +0000 http://www.leveragedsellout.com/2008/10/mba-students-flock-to-new-course-hunting-and-gathering/ Cambridge, MA—Business schools across the country have been scrambling to add courses to their curricula that will provide their MBA candidates the skills they need to survive in the current economic landscape. Courses like Modeling for Quantitative Analysis and Building Strong Global Brands have been replaced with modules more pertinent to businessmen navigating today’s climate, such as: Monetizing Your Oxen and Bartering Theory—Accelerated. Also, Special Topics In Entrepreneurship: Alchemy. Most popular, however, has been a course at Harvard Business School entitled Hunting and Gathering. Taught in the classic HBS case-study format, the class focuses on teaching students how they can profit from even the most primal ventures. “This week’s case was great,” said one student. “It was about a caveman who killed a boar to feed himself and his family. I read it, and I was like: this is exactly the kind of shit I need to know right now.”

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