Why I Left Investment Banking

"The most fun you'll never want to have again."

Or something like that... It's the pitch that was used to lure me into the first two life trials I'd been through: pledging a fraternity in the South and completing a successful stint in investment banking, though these must seem trivial to people who've been in conflict zones or faced life-threatening illnesses.

But while both these experiences were influential, and tested the amount of shear physical and mental stress I could endure, the second became the more educational and life altering.

Setting my collegiate ideals on the shelf for a time, I took a job in investment banking directly out of school, and I began to grasp 'how the world truly worked': who controlled capital, how it moved, and the myriad decisions that rippled through societies and economies based on these factors. I also had my first real exposure to the world of high technology: the entrepreneurs, successful executives, programmers and engineers with mind-boggling capabilities to create (out of 1's and 0's) whole systems, applications and tools to ease, accelerate and expand everyday life, work and play.

But irrespective of all I was learning, I always knew that the world I was living was a decidedly small and elite one.

I was meeting the guys who built the ruggedized PCs, digital cable modems, email systems, online photo applications, and optical networks that allow you and I to live a plugged-in, supercharged, light-speed lifestyle here in America. And everyday I worked for the high-flying i-bankers who helped these companies go from public to private, independent to acquired, and big to biggest.

It was a fast-paced, feast or famine environment; every detail mattered, every pitch seemed like a life and death struggle to win the deal, and every piece of paper we sent out the door was critically important. I rarely slept.

After my second annual banking "bonus" I was feeling as though I'd conquered the challenges of M&A modeling, software comps, and powerpoint pitchbooks but still didn't feel much personal satisfaction.

I was making a six figure salary as a 23-year old. I had an expensive car, an apartment in one of San Francisco's nicest neighborhoods, and enough money to dine out at the Bay Area's finest restaurants on a whim. I was making enough to live the good life, but, working 80-100 hours a week, I had no time to actually live it.  And, though it sounds a bit stereotypical, I didn't feel in control, but rather controlled.

This is a reality of working as an analyst for a major investment bank. You are a resource, and no matter how benevolent your boss is, or how interesting and exciting the transactions are that you are working on, you are a warm body with a bit of grey matter between your ears that understands how to quickly process complex financial information and crystallize it into clean and glossy looking pages of colorful financial and strategic analysis.

I knew it was time for a life change. I needed to get my hands a little dirty, my brow a little sweaty and my heart a little lighter. I had spent two years helping wealthy people generate more wealth. It was time to help very poor people get a better shot at life.

So I left the Marina, and the financial district of San Francisco. I drove my jeep (above) across the country and sold it, along with much of my stuff. And after making a connection through an investment banker in Bombay with a microfinance social investment fund that was getting started in India (Lok Capital), I boarded a plane for New Delhi with a stack of Hindi cd's and a map of the old British Capital.

Riding high off of the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Mohammad Yunus in October of 2006, I could finally explain to all my finance friends what the hell I was doing. I was bent on changing the world one $100 loan at a time. I saw the small time money-lenders that dominated the financial services sector at the bottom of the pyramid in India as some provincial incarnation of the volatility-seeking hedge fund managers that had terrorized the small public tech firms we had advised during my stint in i-banking. And I was determined to use every excel shortcut I knew, every powerpoint trick I possessed, and every bit of bravado that i-banking and college fraternity life had given me to break these local "money-wallahs," outsmarting them, out-pricing them and figuring out a way to put them out of business.

Thus, I arrived in New Delhi, a metropolis destroyed and rebuilt eight times over, with an ironic history of absorbing and co-opting the foreign invaders who had stormed its gates repeatedly over its 3,000 years of existence.

Comments

[John]

Nicely captured. Your description gives new meaning to the word "perspective." Something all of us could benefit from in examining our own experience.

[Jenna Pirog]

Hi Mark, I don't know if you remember me nor do I remember how I found your blog, but I wanted to tell you that I think you are an excellent, thorough and engaging writer. I never thought I would enjoy posts about microfinance and investment banking, but lo, you write such a fluid and descriptive narrative that I can't help but read every post. You should write a book.
-Jenna P (JMHS, UVA)

[Kevin Sockwell]

Hey Mark:

Finally got a chance to write here instead of elsewhere. I think it is truly impressive to see what you have seen about life at so early an age. Some never get it. Life is about what makes you happy and what makes others happy. What use is living if it is all about making it through the next day.
Good for you. Sounds like you have a story that I might want to write down some day.

Have a great Holiday period!