Ever Take a Huge Risk That Paid Off?

First job was an minimum wage internship in a boiler room type shop. turned down steady job offers in desirable cities. had an intuition and was advised by a trusted friend it would work out. changed my career path totally.

I was an international student that did an MSF at a target school in the US. First summer internship was at an endowment fund which I loved but could not secure a return offer, so I went until the second half of my masters program without FT.

I was able to get an offer in the fall with a top-tier economic consulting firm based in the US. I wasn't really interested in the HF path while I was in my masters program but some of my friends suggested I give it a try, so I also tossed a few applications there as well.

Luckily I ended up getting an offer from a large HF as a quant researcher but only as an internship after graduation. As an international student it was extremely risky because if I didn't secure employment 90 days after graduation I'd be forced to go home (I badly wanted to avoid this for personal reasons), thus I really needed to make sure I could land a FT offer. My friends and family all convinced me to go for it though as it was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and so I gave up a good FT opp to pursue another internship.

Turns out the PM I worked under was once of the nicest guys ever. I learned so much in those few months and worked my butt off. Eventually the team was able to open up a FT slot for me and here I am :)

Didn't wear a condom in Playa Del Carmen during spring break one year.

The company that made me decent money the first time required risking what little capital we had sitting in the bank account of another one of our companies. Literally bet it all on the one co working out and luckily it did. Was pretty stressful. I was maybe four months away from just quitting and getting a job too.

Bought TLRY Calls on Monday. Sold before lunch on Weds.

Quit what 75% of America would consider a good job (Financial Analyst at an E&P - not Corp. Dev) but knew that this wasn't challenging enough for me. Went to get an MSF at a school that had a strong BBA and MBA program, but the MSF was just getting started, making recruiting an absolute nightmare. Got lucky and secured an offer at a local L/S equity fund and increased my base salary 30% and total comp 60%. Definitely paid off, but several of my classmates are still unemployed or took a step backward in their career path.

Deep OTM weeklies...

I dialed into a conference call for my MD but forgot to queue up to ask a question. Sat there not in the queue for 10 mins until he yelled over “did you remember to put us in the queue?” I say yup. Hit the key sequence to queue up and right when it says to state your name to the operator I paused, realizing he would hear me saying his name and realize what just happened. I stalled for a second, hearing the operator asking me to say my name while hoping for a miracle and just then he took a call on his cell phone and didn’t hear me saying his name to put him in the queue. He wound up being first to ask a question, probably more a result of our street-high price target since the queue ends up being rigged anyway.

They say luck has a bigger influence in our careers than we would like to admit but I do indeed have no trouble giving Lady Luck her credit on this one.

Invested most of my portfolio in weed stocks. Bonus points that I'm now much wealthier and I don't have to/get to go to the US anymore because the orange guy is salty Canadian weed companies are making $$$.

I once had unprotected sex with a total dime in a hostel bathroom in Panama.

First interview was with a BB for their S&T analyst program. Second interview was with a hedge fund as a trading assistant. During my final interview with the CIO of the hedge fund, I fucked up on some of the probability/expected value questions. The moment I stepped out of that door, I knew I wasn't going to get it. I was told I will get an answer a week later.

Then I had my S&T interview at a BB. Everything went well and I was confident that I will get the offer. So I decided to take a huge risk. That is to tell the hedge fund that I had received an offer from bank X and that I do not mind delaying my response if I am still being considered for the trading assistant role. After some exchanges of emails, the hiring manager told me to ask for an extension to respond to the BB and he will get back to me in another week. (Note: At this point, I did not actually have the offer in hand from the BB).

A week later, I did end up getting the offer from BB AS WELL as an offer from the hedge fund. Of course, I opted for the hedge fund offer. It could have ended poorly if I actually did not get the offer from BB and that my bluffing didn't work on the hedge fund. A double whammy if you will.

Nonetheless, the huge risk paid off. And I will most likely not pull something like this again.

Lied on my college application. Proceeded to go to college.

I had several offers for different entry positions such as for REPE, Corp. Dev., M&A (IB) and Consulting. But my passion was always to get into PE.

So, I declined the offers and started an internship at a MM PE in Europe with the option, to get a FT if I will perform well. It´s is very hard to nearly impossible to get into MM PE in Europe, but I took the risk.

Last week I got the offer after 2 months. Quit good payoff for the risk.

I was unemployed, had multiple offers for random finance jobs for good pay and turned it all down with no further interviews lined up. Ended up at an EB.

Transferred university to re-start from year 1.. leaving behind great friends, turned out to be the best decision of my life.