Monkey to Millions | Andrew (Session 11) - End of the Road? Wrapping Up The IB Internship - Aug 21, 2020
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In this session, Andrew makes a bold decision as we near the end of the road of his participation with Monkey to Millions. Learn about his summer internship and what he likes and what his plans are for the future.
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WSO Podcast (Episode 11) Transcript:
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:04] Well. Hello and welcome, I'm Patrick Curtis, chief monkey of Wall Street Oasis, and this is monkey to millions. A show where you get a front row seat as I mentor young students and professionals to try and help them break into their dream jobs in the first cohort. You'll meet four students, all preparing for intense job interviews while trying to also balance a personal life and schoolwork. The goal of this show is to shine a light on the struggles of trying to break into competitive positions with a non-traditional background and to give you a roadmap for your own success. My hope is that as you get to know these four impressive students, you're inspired to dream big. Remember, these are real people, and this is their true story. Let's get to it in this session. Andrew makes a bold decision as we near the end of the road of his participation with Monkey to millions, learn about his summer internship and what he likes and what his plans are for the future. Enjoy. All right, man. How you been in a while? All right. Stick and stick inside
Andrew: [00:01:30] All day going to the gym in the
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:31] Morning. Is it done? Your internship last week is
Andrew: [00:01:35] Next week, so
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:36] That's long. That's a long way.
Andrew [00:01:38] It was a long haul for sure, like 17 weeks or something.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:41] She's. They get their money's worth, huh? For me, yeah. Absolute chaos here in California, besides Coburn and having to stay inside now, we can't even go outside like in our yard because the smoke really? Yeah, the air quality is so bad. That's crazy. Yes, I'm looking at this thing called like purple map or something every two seconds to see if the kids can go outside or not. And it's like, Nope. It's like red, still red. So it still smells like barbecue outside. There's. Yeah, it's crazy. The whole this beautiful national forest big basin burned down last night. Yeah. Yeah. So just kind of depressing. Just all around here. Santa Cruz Mountains. There's a lot of. A lot of bad fires going on because there's lightning storms like four days ago, five days ago, and it just started off like this place is just waiting to ignite, you know, when anything can hit so. So yeah, a little bit insane here. And on top of all that, on Wednesday, sorry, Tuesday night over to Wednesday, we did a major migration on the back end of Wall Street Oasis. So it was like it's been absolute chaos, like bugs and critical bugs and people like, I can't log in. And then it was, I don't get my notifications. I'm like, We're like, we know there's a lot missing and there's a lot of bugs. It's coming. The app is broken, we know. So, yeah, well, there you go. That's leading into the weekend. We got to we got another nice threat is like, why does the functionality suck like this? Like, have a happy weekend to all developers. Yeah, I just reminded people work for developers, not like thousands like Facebook. So. Anyways. Now that's my life right now. Oh, and on top. Sorry, on top of that, my five year old started kindergarten this week, so I have to sit next to her three days a week for like all morning. While the teacher's trying to explain how to do Zoom to a five year old,
Andrew: [00:03:41] That's got to be painful,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:43] Very painful. So that’s what I'm doing. How about you, your classes starting in a couple of weeks to you or you just so, yeah, tell me, what's the deal? How did how did the internship kind of wrap up? Do they communicate anything to you for next year? What's the what's the spiel?
Andrew: [00:03:57] Yeah. Well, I guess I can just kick off from where we last left off. I think it's like mid-July. See how we were doing the one private company, we were in talks with them, so we won that mandate. So like, I did a lot of work there just in terms of PowerPoint, like literally just lining stuff and like at certain points, I'd send these guys these logos and he's like, How about you just put them in instead? Yeah, it's just a bunch of funny stuff like that. It's all the comps. We got a
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:25] PowerPoint. We got a PowerPoint for finance course coming out just for that reason, because it's like so much of the life of the analyst is like just being fast in that program in Excel. So like it's kind of like one of those found you don't want to say it, but it's the it's one of the foundational programs like if you can get really fast at grouping and aligning, you can save yourself a lot of hours. Oh yeah. Anyway, so yeah, so you were you were having lots of fun time doing that. So you were up late turning those book
Andrew: [00:04:52] Stuff on, say, I did all that the buyer seller list, which kept going on and on. I worked on a few credit memos. There's one that I think only got off last week that was in the works for like almost two months because one corporate banker wanted something new every single time. There's so many hands in the cookie jar there. Hmm. So that was a little bit painful. And then we just started a new one for another Canadian company, which I think is pretty cool, like a niche real estate sector. So nice. That's in the works. Built out accretion dilution model for is like we wanted to do a case study. For this one, Canadian reid is basically saying if you issue convertible debentures, it's pretty much just going to be terrible three and but they still entertain the idea, I guess, to show them
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:43] How much dilution.
Andrew: [00:05:44] Yeah, yeah. And then getting a lot of reps on teasers. So we had one for a tech company and then we were just finishing one up for like a royalty company. So that was pretty cool looking to that nice. And then I guess, yeah. So in terms of return offers, they're on ice right now. So essentially the other intern and I like, we checked in with the VP. He's like, Well, the head of investment banking is out of office. He's on vacation for the next few weeks. We never really had it in the budget to bring you guys back, but we're going to have him check with, like the head of capital markets to see if there's any chance. So I mean. if they're bringing us back, that's fine, if not, I don't I'm not really heard about it like I wasn't really banking on it too much because I had a feeling that was the case. But they said they were, like, really pleased with us compared to like the past few years.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:40] So that's good. And did the deal flow itself was it sounds like you were doing you're pretty busy the whole summer. So if. Those bankers want that support continued, maybe they'll pound the table a little more to have you guys on board, we'll say we'll see. But it sounds like you got some good experience for your resume.
Andrew: [00:06:58] Yeah, I know for sure. It's definitely a learning summer. But yeah, then there's one week there. I was just doing like never ending dial ins for one MD for like all of his conference calls. But I have to say, like, I am this M.D. on the phone, it was hilarious. Just taking my head about it at some point.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:20] Yeah, you're doing a lot of. You're basically playing glorified admin. Yeah, exactly. Nice. So what do you think about in terms of like next steps like you're going into senior year in a couple? A couple of weeks. You don't have that return offer in your back pocket. What's the thought process now in terms of how you approach the you had mentioned last time, if I remember a couple of months ago that you were considering other stuff too?
Andrew: [00:07:46] Yeah, yeah. So it was like my first internship was like taxation with like a spin of like valuations in there. Right? So with the government and stuff. Yeah. Touch base with some of the people I used to work with there and I actually lined up part time work for the fall, which they bridge me in full time for the winter. So I think that's kind of my plan for now. And then I'd kind of start my CPA and everything in the winter and kind of go that route for a little bit and see where things are mid next year.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:17] Yeah, I mean, the thing with if you go CPA and you go taxation, I'll just say that. It's not that maybe with the government it is in terms of like work life balance, if you go big for. The Work-Life Balance isn't that much better. Yeah, but the junior year and you're the upside just isn't there. Do you know what you mean? Yeah. My girlfriend's
Andrew: [00:08:38] Actually she was in a taxation role
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:41] And she was one of my best friends from high school is like a senior manager at that. Like, I think he's at KPMG now. He's jumped a couple. But yeah,
Andrew: [00:08:50] Yeah. So she wasn't having too much fun there. But I mean, I know the government rules, it's a lot like it's literally like 30, 35
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:58] Hours a week. Yeah, I mean, that is awesome. Like if you can get a decent salary with a pretty limited hourly weekly commitment because that allows you to do so many other side projects start a business on the side.
Andrew: [00:09:08] Exactly.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:09] So that's or just like lift a lot. You can literally do like a whole second career or have like an amazing hobby or listen to have kids. Yeah, exactly. If you want kids, no assumptions. I got three now and I'm like, I'm not going to sue anything, but he's a little crazy driving me nuts. No, they're great. But yeah, so I think, ok, so you're thinking of that. I remember you telling me that's like a really nice back pocket you have, and it sounds like they're their game to bring you on like you have that.
Andrew: [00:09:44] Yeah. Well, I was doing part time work there, like, I think for like eight months and then I did an internship there, like two winters ago or last winter.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:52] And yeah, and they liked you. Yeah, yeah. So that was
Andrew: [00:09:55] A really good group there. Yeah, no complaints. And if I can get something else in my back pocket and just continuing education and everything, I think that's even better for the time being.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:07] Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's a good I mean, you're right. Have you thought the CFA at all? You don't want to go markets, you don't want to go public markets and all that stuff. I'm not too big on
Andrew: [00:10:15] Cfa, but I mean, if no CPR is more hard, like it's more of
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:19] A hard skill that you can always you can do stuff. It just depends on like what you want to go long term. Yeah, exactly. So is the real estate thing still a possibility? But it's more like just see what kind of comes through senior year?
Andrew: [00:10:31] Yeah, it's more of that. And then just kind of see what I can do on my own. I guess if I can build up enough capital to just start like doing like. All the like duplexes or whatever, I think I mean, I wouldn't be against that, I think that's kind of an idea of mine and kind of build out from there.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:49] Yeah, I lost you for a second there. You were saying if you can get enough capital, kind of do your initial first investment. I mean, that's a problem for real estate. It's just all capital. And like, it's like, you know, you could do like a smaller residential places, but it's hard. Then continue to roll it and roll it and roll it. But yeah, going to more entrepreneurial route, you can build a lot of wealth that way. Exactly. Especially if you get into the right markets. Be careful around Toronto. Be careful. Some of the Canadian markets seem pretty hot already like that boat sale 10 years ago. Do you think they're going to keep climbing?
Andrew: [00:11:26] Uh, I don't know, I think I think like Greater Toronto like Hamilton Area, I think that's like too hot. But I can still see it. I could still see it going further up. I know like some of my friends houses, they bought it like three hundred and ten years later, it was like nine hundred. Yeah. And like a secondary market, they're
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:45] Like, yeah, yeah, no, I know, but you got to be careful because in those markets, it's like, it's like, OK, you're like, So Cal in the U.S., it's like, Yeah, those markets fly up and then they are the ones that crash during the like from 06 to 08. I mean, maybe it won't happen for a long time because rates are so low, rates are staying so low. People really are everyone's plowing into real estate right now because it's like one of the few places where the nice inflation hedge, as all the central banks are like printing money, like print. Ok, cool man. That sounds. It sounds good. I mean, I don't I don't have much to add there. I would just say it would be good if you did a lot of work last year with networking, right? It would be good to kind of just give your people like an update because there might be like you had mentioned some real estate firms in, was it New York? Or something? Was it Toronto? There was a couple of people you had spoken with, I thought that it was a pretty good firm or pretty interesting that you might be able to get in some processes early this year.
Andrew: [00:12:54] Yeah, I think it's like I think there's a real estate debt shop, actually. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I know the one
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:00] I don't remember the names, but I remember you mentioning it and saying that might be something interesting for you. That might also be a good, good option. Yeah, it's tough to turn down like high salary, low hours. You know it is. It is. It's it just depends on like the only thing I'll say to you is like if you go that route. If you go that route, it's very hard to go up. Yeah, if you start at like the Kush, the job that's comfortable, If you want to like, go up in your career, the CPA helps because the continue education you can because then you can become a manager and go up into the big four and do really well for yourself. But that's like, that's hard work too, man. Yeah. Like when you start out there, that's like, man, those guys work like that. And especially during busy season, your girlfriend knows. Yes, he's laughing. And she telling you the same thing. Does she tell
Andrew: [00:13:56] You the same thing every day, man?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:58] Yeah. So like, be careful, like the CPA being like a ticket because it could be a ticket to like a lot of tough work. Yeah, she's like nodding. She's like, Yeah, listen to him. No, but no, honestly, like, I think. If you're going to get that that degree, I mean, it doesn't hurt to get it, it's just a question of is it narrowing your I mean, even with a CPA, you can still go for an office. You can still do all the stuff to actually look pretty fair favorably that you have those hard skills because you want to go to like a middle market or a smaller boutique and do something they're like, Oh, I don't have to train this kid like he knows his way around financial statements, so that's good. But yeah, it sounds like you're pretty decided or you kind of got a sense of where you're going. Senior year So yeah. Are you going to? Are you going to reach out and keep any of these people updated? I mean, I would just encourage you, even if you're not looking and you don't think you want that, that other stuff and it's like, not for you, like you're like after the summer, you're like, Hell, no, or whatever. And that's fine. That's totally fine. But if I still would encourage you. I would implore you not to lose, not to lose those contacts. Not because I don't think the other option is a great option, but more because you don't know in two years or in three years if you're going to be like, Man, I just burnt. I'm not. I'm burnt out, but I'm just bored out of my mind or I am. Yeah, like, I can't do this anymore. And then be like, Man, I should have. Maybe I should have taken that other job, or, hey, I've started up my own side real estate business. I'm good now. I have enough income from these three to three properties, and I'm going to keep doing that. Yeah. But things, you know, there's ups and downs, you know, you had the great financial crisis 08, 09 08 09 was really bad, took a long time to get out of that. You get COVID now. I mean, there's usually shit hits the fan every 10 years or so like you need to be like, you don't. You don't know when that's going to happen next. It may not be 10 years, it could be in another three years. We could have a huge. Yeah, exactly. Global recession. So just having. Having the CPA is a nice insurance policy, and I think there's definitely some. Some benefit to that degree, to that certification, I just would I would just please like, don't let all that work you put they completely go stale. They literally have. You have right inbox or boomerang or whatever in your.
Andrew: [00:16:32] In your I don't know that I would also like LinkedIn, I know who I have good messaging.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:37] Ok, so yeah, I would just. At least once a year. Yeah. Just, you know, let them know what you're up to and stuff like that, just keep it a little warm, it doesn't have to be like you're paying them every two weeks, like, Oh, I found this article and did it, but keep it. Don't let it just drop off, because that was that would have been a lot. A lot of calls, a lot of work for nothing. Yeah, exactly. And I think it's not doesn't take that much effort from you, especially if you're working thirty five hours a week. Like, seriously, you could do it in, you know. Twenty hours in like the whole year, you could do the whole. Yeah. Exactly. So. Yeah, I would just encourage you to do that, man. So what are you thinking? Do you think I can add any value, It sounds like monkey to millions may be coming close to an end for you if you don't feel like you know you're going to be pushing for that. Now, the front office roles and all that stuff you tell me, like if you still feel like I can add value to you, I'm happy to keep it going, but I don't want to like there's no forced participation here, you know what I mean? So what are you thinking? I think I think it is
Andrew: [00:17:44] Coming to an end. I don't know if it's this one or maybe the next one, but I think I think it's run its course, and I think it's been really good for me, for sure.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:54] You learned what you wanted, right? Exactly. I mean,
Andrew: [00:17:58] Even got in for this internship, I thought it would be all of this, and it's allotting logos
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:06] Reality sets in, right? It's not glamorous.
Andrew: [00:18:10] Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've loved the journey for sure.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:16] Yeah, it's been great, man, it's great to see kind of your decision making your hard work and then all the craziness that happened four or five months ago. Like how that worked out and then the remote internship thing going through it. it's been interesting to see because everyone's been at different stages. So I have Grace, who's like a freshman who's still like reaching and she has. She has a already has a banking internship, and then I have John who graduated already and he had he has a couple of offers, but he was like having to take an internship like a paid internship at like two different places post-graduation. So he didn't even have anything like lined up. And then he now has the offers for full time, which is great. But it was like a tough decision to there were like he was like bouncing it off and I'm like trying to help him negotiate. But it was actually really tough decision. I'm like, Well, I'll go with this company. This guy has the name and it's really, you know, has a strong name, but they're not giving you very much or a lot of growth and you're kind of in the wrong division and what you want to do long term for you. It sounds like you have it. It's very clear cut kind of what you want, which is great. A lot of people don't have that and don't ever tell people like, you have to go a certain path to be happy. Yeah, I think it's really important that everyone finds the path that they're happy with and you're valuing your time. You're valuing your time, which is actually really smart, and it's ahead of your years. A lot of people that come from the target schools or non targets that are hard, that are trying to just chase that thing, they lose track of the fact that like time is super valuable. You know, giving your twenties or your early twenties to a job or you feel no fulfilment and you don't feel any excitement is not worth it. If you can find a nice balance where it's a reasonable lifestyle and then do something on the side that excites you, then hell yeah, go for it. Mm hmm. Exactly. So you agree you're not going to be a glorified admin anymore. No, you refuse and you are sending no more diamonds.
Andrew: [00:20:20] I'm not mark today. No more. Yeah, no more. No more buyer's list
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:26] And sellers list for you. Got it! Ok, well, listen, you don't have to tell me now. I mean, we could even just touch base in three or four months. It doesn't have to be like over. We can just like very rarely touch in if you want, like once one, six months. And maybe I can take on somebody to help somebody else. Yeah, exactly. It frees up. But does that sound like a plan?
Andrew: [00:20:51] Yeah, that sounds great. Cool, man. Well, thanks for
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:54] Participating with everything and letting us kind of peek into the window of a young Canadian or IRA. Man, we'll chat soon. Let me know if I can be helpful with anything as you kind of go in to senior year, whether it. Whether it's like looking at your resume or whatever, If you are just really just definitely don't close all those doors, please, that's the only thing I implore you like it takes no takes, no work just to be like, here's what I'm up to blah. I'm thinking going CPA, whatever. Just to hear other perspectives, too.
Andrew: [00:21:28] Yeah, exactly. Cool, man.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:29] All right, that's all. We'll chat soon. Have a nice weekend. Ok.
Andrew: [00:21:33] All right. Enjoy peace. Bye.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:35] And thanks to you, my listeners at Wall Street Oasis. If you have any suggestions whatsoever, please don't hesitate to send them my way. Patrick at Wall Street Oasis. And till next time.
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