There was a recent story of a senior from Downingtown East in Pennsylvania that lost his D-1 scholarship for football because of a rap video he uploaded showing the incumbent rapper extraordinaire smoking weed in a car. Here's the post. This was one of nine videos uploaded in attempt to kick start his career. This kid was also no chump on the field as ESPN had him ranked as the no. 17 senior and second best wideout in the state. Add to that the binding letter of intent he signed to Michigan State where he would be an instant campus celebrity. Would any of you ever consider giving up your career aspirations in (enter finance field here) for something as retarded as this?

I’ve seen so many posts on here bitch and moan about war stories or back to back to back all-nighters in the office prepping for a client meeting that ultimately didn’t happen or dealing with a huge jerkoff of a boss that I thought we could all talk about something a little more positive for our respective jobs. When did you know you actually belonged?

Wayne Gretzky was quoted early in his career as saying one of the greatest feelings playing in the NHL wasn't setting scoring records or receiving accolades but gaining that sense he belonged in the big leagues. As a teenager drafted to play in 1979, he didn't win his first Stanley Cup until 1984 but came in with pretty big expectations. Not to go off on too much of the “sports to business” tangent, but you could draw some parallels to a freshly minted ivy leaguer who joins a bank/pe fund/hedge fund as someone in a similar situation.

Did you ever have a moment that allowed you to really find that you’re in the right place and doing the right things?

Since many of the users already work in the financial services industry or aspire to do so, I thought for this week’s post it might be a fun exercise to see if we can crowd source a business model. We can channel experience into something that might actually fill a void in the various industries represented on this site.

Admittedly late to the game on this BUT, much has been written around the interwebs (including an old forum post on this site back from 2008) of mental stimulants and miracle drugs capable of turning your average state schooler with a middling GPA into the next techno-wunderkind but one I want to focus on today is a drug called Modafinil. This posting on Tech Crunch from a few years ago touches on the subject of this drug (under its prescription name Provigil) as being the Silicon Valley entrepreneur drug of choice. But is it all it’s cracked up to be? And just how good/dangerous is this stuff?

After watching the ABC story about the Steubenville rape crime, it got me thinking how often you hear about crimes that are not only posted online but police and prosecutors utilizing what people are willing to post to implicate and ultimately convict the offenders. This case in particular was almost exclusively researched and presented with evidence from cell phones and social media posts.

Disclaimer – this post is about over politicizing things, not attacking one belief versus another.

“Politics runs this country – doesn’t make a difference what party – all of the decisions are made in Washington and that’s the way it is. And nobody’s going to change that either.” That quote came from a World War II veteran I was speaking to over this weekend and it got me thinking how much more it seems to invade our lives in the most trivial ways. It seems like every news station, website, etc has some angle or slant that one person or party is to blame for whatever ails them and it seems to be dividing the country more so than I had seen in my short time on this earth.

The following is part two of an interview with Deal Team Lead Manager skylinegtr94 (he manages a small team to surface and source deal flow to middle market Private Equity firms). If you would like to do an interview, email me at [email protected]

He is also available to answer any questions you have, ask away!

See Part 1 Here

General Advice

1. What is the one tip you would give to current students (ugrad and/or grad students) to help them succeed?

Warning, here comes another boring post about drugs but at least there's real life implications for us all here.

Last week I saw this post about legalizing marijuana and then finding what the appropriate levels of the drug in your system that still let you operate heavy machinery and motor vehicles. Left me a bit confused and concerned for society in general. Allow me to digress a bit here. Also, apologies for my grammar but I’ve imbibed a bit as I wrote this over the weekend.

This stuff has been proposed in Congress before, but here's a few of the many reasons this is difficult...

The following is an interview with Deal Team Lead Manager skylinegtr94 (he is also available to answer your questions).

Are you a professional and want to do an interview? View our interview template here and then email me your responses to [email protected]

1. What is your current job title and a one sentence description of your primary job responsibility?

Deal team lead. I manage a small team to surface and source deal flow to middle market Private Equity firms.

Undergrad

2. Did you go to a “target”, “semi target” or “non target”.
   I went to a non-target state school.
3. What was the most useful thing you learned in ugrad that you apply in your current position?

   I learned to be pretty resourceful early on which has greatly enhanced my career to-date as our firm generally has a “here’s some resources, here’s what we want to do, now go figure it out” mentality. I don’t mean that in a bad way either but it pays to be able to research and coach yourself along the way, especially when someone isn’t there holding your hand or if you’re diving into a new business plan initiative.

Anyone that has seen the Terminator movies is familiar with SKYNET, the self-aware AI system that eventually wreaks havoc on mankind. A ton of my friends refer to Google as Skynet, and while most of the time they’re kidding, here’s a crazy story I recently found on Slate (via BGR) – The Happiness Machine

I think there are a few ways to think of this, but I’ll focus on why this might be good versus bad. On the plus side, they’re running tests on a large enough group of people to make them statistically relevant and affect policy and procedural changes to enhance the working environment for everyone. How can this be bad in any way? We’ll get to that in a second, but I think this is leaps and bounds ahead of any other HR team out there. I’ve seen a few deals in the “human capital management” space that are effectively consultants liaising with your HR group in attempt to achieve the same outcome. How many people’s lives would be markedly improved should such an invasive, in-depth practice be put in place in their job? Who the hell knows but any change toward the positive is a good thing right?

Not so fast.