Bulge Bracket IB Analyst and Co-Founder of a Startup....At the Same Time?! (Part 1 of 2)
Summary
In this two-part series, member @LateralMonkey shares her story from a non-target school all the way to the front office at a bulge bracket investment bank. Find out what helped her land a rare sophomore summer internship in capital markets and why she despised it. Why she stayed at the same bank for her junior summer and what saved her time and time again. This is part 1 or 2.
Check out part 2 here
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Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:06] Hello and welcome. I'm Patrick Curtis, your host and chief monkey, and this is the Wall Street Oasis podcast. Join me! As I talked to some of the community's most successful and inspirational members to gain valuable insight into different career paths and life in general. Let's get to it. In this episode, member LateralMonkey shares her story from a non-target school all the way to the front office set a bulge bracket investment bank. Find out what helped her land a rare sophomore summer internship in capital markets and why she despised it, why she stayed at the same bank for her junior summer and what saved her time and time again. This is part one of a two part series. Enjoy. You know, my. Lateral monkey, thanks so much for joining the Wall Street Voices podcast. Thank you for having me. So it'd be great if you could just give the listeners a brief overview of your background.
LateralMonkey: [00:01:10] Sure. So I graduated from a small, liberal arts college in 2016. I'm originally from the Midwest, the Rust Belt, and I majored in economics with a minor in a regional studies with the regional studies focus. And I ended up going to a bulge bracket investment bank. I did two summers in investment banking during college. In between, I also co-founded a start up focused on the health care industry. I had an army on the Wall Street Oasis, but I ended up leaving my investment banking job to go to a more back office oriented role. It was a strategy role focused on the implementation of artificial intelligence processes on the bank. And then I have since actually left that role. I backpacked around the world for a few months and I am now looking at opportunities, so I've had a bit of a varied background. Done a bunch of different things, slightly unconventional background for a person. I think I should also mention that I am a woman of color, so definitely not the most typical profile for an investment banker, but it's been fun.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:21] That's interesting. So a lot to dig into there. Let's start all the way back at the non-targeted school. Was there any on campus recruiting? Was it? How did you know investment banking was your dream job now? Just kidding. How did you know that investment banking was an option even coming from this small school?
LateralMonkey: [00:02:41] So I actually had no knowledge of investment banking. I graduated from high school. I wanted to be a human rights attorney. I wanted to save the world, specifically women, and I ended up taking economics courses. It was part of the international relations discipline at my school, and that's what I ironically thought that I would major in. And I wrote a paper and it was on a cardinal health acquisition. And basically, my economics professor took that paper and gave it to an alum that was visiting that day. She was a director at a record bank and said, You need to read this. So I suppose I did a good job on that paper, but she read it and she actually chased me down on my campus green and I thought, Oh my goodness, I can only imagine when she saw that day because I don't think I had gotten sleep. I was. I was.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:33] I were you in like, were you in like sweatpants and the typical like college attire being just like a slob like I was?
LateralMonkey: [00:03:41] Oh, it's so much worse. I had just attended a protest, so I was wearing a protest t shirt and I had. That's so, and that's why I hadn't slept, because I spent an entire an entire night prepping posters. So, oh my gosh, she does. She introduced herself and she talked to me and she said, have you heard of invest in thinking? And I said, Oh, like, those are the guys that caused the financial crisis, right? Because Nate, I'm like, I've read all about introductions on Wall Street and Oasis, and none of them have included this. I can't imagine that made the best impression. But she kind of talked to me about it and she said, No, it would be such a great opportunity. You should really look at it. You seem to have a good head for the business. So I started going to info sessions on campus. We had info sessions for I can list just a few of the bank. The main one was Bank of America Merrill Lynch. A couple of other banks used to recruit about 10 15 years ago. But as those alums, you know, in some cases died out, in some cases retired, those opportunities went away. So I would say that my my school was a semi target because we had one school recruiting. But if I'm being honest with you, they only took one to two people every year from my entire graduating class.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:56] But we'll call it a semi target because there's probably a very small percentage of the kids actually targeting this career anyways, right?
LateralMonkey: [00:05:03] Well, actually, that's not necessarily true. We actually had a very large number of kids that were interested in. The reason why is because banks are one of the few organizations that still sponsor, and they take people from a broad array of backgrounds. So international students are super, super interested in banking, I think are these struggles with recruiting domestic students because if I'm being honest with you, my protest attire was a lot more typical for a student on my campus than a suit. And, you know, my resume printed out and going to an investment, making it professional.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:34] So from that first meeting where you know, you kind of made that probably maybe negative impression, but it just didn't seem like she cared to the to the banker. I know she was a VP of some sort and she convinced you to come to the dark side and join investment banking. Or like, how did it, how did it happen? How did it like, what was the next step or was it like you were? Basically, they were so impressed with the paper that you were given a Super Day right away. There was there, you know, how did it all go down?
LateralMonkey: [00:06:03] First up was discovering Investopedia existence, and that was that was me just Googling what is investment banking? What is the process? And it's kind of funny because I've personally attended the info sessions. I had no understanding of how competitive the process was. It wasn't until I started, you know, this is my freshman year, so let me give you a little bit of background. So this is my freshman year of college, a second semester like, I'm prepared to go abroad for a summer, to study a language, and I'm sitting here thinking, Oh, that's why I'm thinking, like, this is something that I could totally just walk into. No, it's not the case. I, you know, I think it was during that summer that I kind of solidified my desire to do this because what everyone had told me was, Oh, this is such a great opportunity. You're going to need a lot of great people. And for a kid coming from a small town that was so, so attractive to me, the opportunity to brand myself without necessarily going to a Harvard, Yale, Princeton or something like that. So the first step after that was really just figuring out who I could talk to. So I started with kids who had interned and investment bank and not gotten offers because I figured I could make a horrible impression on them. And it wouldn't be that big of a deal because we didn't get offers anyway.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:18] How did you know? How did you know? How did you screen for kids who had an internship and didn't get an offer? You, like, put it into LinkedIn and just started reaching out?
LateralMonkey: [00:07:26] One thing you learn as a college freshman, especially a college freshman woman, is how to stop people really effectively on the internet. Ok. You do this all Tinder matches. So I I just I'll be honest with you, I just completely stocked them. You know, I looked up. If they didn't have like photos celebrating an offer on Facebook, they probably didn't get it. You know, that's not what actually turned out to be super accurate. If they didn't, if they didn't have it on LinkedIn, they probably didn't get it. That was probably the easiest way to track. Mm hmm. And also, just like through the grapevine.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:06] So did you graduate to people who actually did get an offer? So you started out like just trying to get information for the people who didn't so that if you messed up, you didn't sound, you didn't sound stupid.
LateralMonkey: [00:08:14] Um, well, I did graduate with kids who did get offered. But the nice thing about the nice thing about the whole process is that at least on my campus, kids, you know, if you if you like met one person and then you met a second person and it was clear that you had growth, it wasn't that big of a deal and it was the kid who didn't get offers who were honestly the most lenient. That's something I realized later on. But my immediate logic again, I was not a very smart college student. My immediate logic was, Oh, these people didn't get offers so like I can just like, ask them all my dumb questions. Not the greatest approach, not something I'd recommend, but it's something I did, and I eventually did.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:57] It help? It helps you. It sounds like it helps you
LateralMonkey: [00:09:01] At least get out. Ok. I learned the do's and don'ts. You know, people were so honest with me. Like, everything’s like, this is what you don't do. And it was like a full list of things I was actually doing. And these are things you do and like. Is it simple things like, you know, don't ask questions that are doable? One person actually helped me put together a list of questions that I should ask employees and directors. So like more like long range, like industry specific, like what's the outlook in the industry type of questions and then stuff that you ask like analysts and associates. So you think these are the hardest?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:32] You like sound smart, basically. Basically show that you've done your research stuff like that.
LateralMonkey: [00:09:37] Precisely. And that I would say that that process took about a month. So that was like August to mid-September and then around mid-September, and this is my sophomore year. So we're speeding up. Look around mid-September is when I started reaching out to people. So I started with a lumps from my college and they were great. And then I just started getting super aggressive. And this is where I really honed. I think I developed skills. Honestly, the most valuable skills that I developed in college, like those skills, carried me through every single career change I've made. And it was really just how to talk to people, how to read people, how to understand cues. If a relationship isn't a click, I understood when that didn't happen and when to let it go. Those are really important things. I, by the end of it, I mean, I had talked to something like two hundred two hundred and fifty plus bankers on Wall Street. Wow. And you know, kids used to ask me all the time, how were you talking to X, Y Z person? And I would not even have any idea because like there are just in such a chain of people, you know that I talk you that I was like, I have no idea. We're just introduction even came from.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:51] So do you feel like you were? You were just able to leverage each connection you made. You're able to get in one or two more from that, like you'd always follow up at the end.
LateralMonkey: [00:10:58] And yeah, yeah. So I think the advice that I usually give people is this you have to approach every conversation with this idea that you can't waste their time and you want to make it interesting for them. So like remember, I talked about those talking skills. Will I provide them with this? So let's say I'm talking to John Doe and he's an analyst and I'm going to give you an actual case. So sure, he's an analyst and leverage finance. He went to a school that was actually kind of geographically close to mine. Oh, look, he did tennis. My whole family is obsessed with tennis. You know, why don't I research? Like, what’s the latest? I'm not that familiar with tennis. What's this like grand slam happening? Who won? What's the significance of it? Right? You know, and kind of integrate that into a conversation. So I make it a little fun for him. And I think that like people. Here's the thing that people don't understand. Everybody knows the tricks you're using. They weren't born yesterday, and they did the exact same thing themselves. But they appreciate when they see that you're putting in the effort to do it right.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:56] You know, it's like you're not just like dialing cold and completely cold and aren't prepared that type of thing. Yeah, exactly. I never asked
LateralMonkey: [00:12:04] Anything more than an introduction. I would usually leave it open, so I would always start with, like sometimes like with certain phone calls. If I knew someone with a little drafty, I used to always say, Here's my here's like the schematic. All right. I'm going to this list of analyst associates. Never seen your bankers like, OK, I'm going to ask you three questions about the recruiting process. I'm going to ask you three questions about the analyst's life and what it means to be a really good analyst. And then if time is left over, I would love to ask you a couple more questions about whatever it was. Three questions, two of them three questions about the recruiting process and three questions about. And that was how I did it.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:44] And how long do those calls typically take? That sounds like a lot of time.
LateralMonkey: [00:12:49] It is I never got past the second question, but
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:52] That's what I figure, that's how I was about to say. I'm like, if you actually got through all the all of those, that's a lot. I was like, That's going to be a long that's going to be like an hour long conversation. I'm surprised. Did you put that in the initial email and it didn't scare off a lot of people? Your conversion rate was high.
LateralMonkey: [00:13:05] I didn't put in the initial email. I didn't put in the initial email. I got it in the initial one minute of the call. I would be like, God, whatever time we have, this is what I want to cover. And they and a lot, this is only with a very specific type of person like this is a guy who seemed a little dressy, maybe did a bunch of weird stuff on LinkedIn and like that was actually like a solid number. I would say that was 50 percent of my calls and went over really well because people like especially bankers, they like structure. They're in this field for a reason. So when I said something like that, they were like, OK, she's like, Got through this call. She like, knows what she's doing, yada yada yada. You know what I mean? Right. And I never got past the second question. It was almost always a conversation about you and your journey and your experience and thinking. And like, there were a lot of things that I could sympathize with. So like if somebody talks about being a history major and not knowing like basic math stuff, like, that's something I would be like, Oh yeah, I totally get that. Yeah. Regional studies major over here. I understand that even though I did advanced mathematics in high school, we're not going to Typekit. If somebody was like on the pre-med track, I was like, Oh my goodness, I wanted to be a doctor like the duration of my time in high school. My dad's a doctor. I'm Asian. This is how it works.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:22] Yeah, that's funny.
LateralMonkey: [00:14:24] Like, there are little things like that. You can sympathize with people and it makes them more human.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:29] Very cool. So tell me a little bit about. So you started kind of reaching out. You had all of those networking calls, I assume. Did you were you able to meet anybody in person? Did you do a trip or was it all just over the phone? Yeah.
LateralMonkey: [00:14:40] So I did a lot of trips to New York City and I was also broke. So I ended up I had a couple of friends who lived in New York and I would just crash on their couches. And it was actually really kind of awful because I would say things like in a call where I thought like or not, even in a call, in an email, or I thought, you know, I maybe talk to them one to two times, maybe three times, and I would be like, Hey, I'm in New York City on this date, and I would be like simultaneously booking my like Chinatown bus tickets for seventeen dollars to get you to New York City and be like, Oh yeah, I'm going to be in New York on these day. Like, let’s talk. And did it. I was like, sleep on couches. And it was, oh my goodness, it was horrendous. There was one point where I had like, I had two outfits for networking and I used to swap the sweater and they would look like me outfits. And I realized I kept meeting. I missed 25 people at JP Morgan and I realized I kept meeting people in the same outfit. So I started like changing it up, and I remember I dove into a gap and time square and bought a new sweater just so people wouldn't think I couldn't afford another suit.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:49] That's pretty awful. So funny. Well, no good. I mean, it's awesome hustle. Yeah, I remember those old Chinatown buses I used to make that trip as well. I think it was like there was like the Peter Pan. There was the lucky star. There was the yeah, half of them like blow up and turn on fire. So you got to be careful, ready to run out.
LateralMonkey: [00:16:07] But luckily it was so bad.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:10] It's yeah, it's not the best way to travel, but OK, so you're doing all these trips. You're it sounds like you're hustling. You're going to you're going to make it, obviously, because you're it sounds like you got really determined, like it's just something you decided and is that is that has that always been the case with you? Like when you find you when you figure out you want something, you just go after it.
LateralMonkey: [00:16:29] Yeah, I tend to be obsessive, so everyone has their own approach to doing things. My approach is like knock down walls. And I was so determined. I remember there were a lot of kids getting interviews with things. And, you know, I just remember getting so disillusioned because here I am very much farther ahead than just about any kid, any kid who is comparable, like sophomore, junior or senior. And I was like not getting where I needed to be.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:58] And why do you think that was just a school?
LateralMonkey: [00:17:02] I mean, it's slightly controversial to say, but I think like especially at certain schools like they're looking for a very specific type of person and they're looking for to round out their classes and that. Like a lot of times, I didn't fit that profile necessarily, and I also think the other reason and the far bigger reason was that I was super young. You know, I was I mean, we're talking about me doing this, recruiting when I was 19 years old, I was a sophomore. I was trying my best to, you know, get my foot in the door. And people were like, Why aren't you going to do this? Why aren't you doing this when you were a junior? The process wasn't was what it is now. So now you have to recruit a year out, year and a half out. My sister just successfully got in a sales and training gig. And by the way, she is like a three point one five. So like her, getting that from a non target was insane.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:56] But I want to interview. I want to interview her too.
LateralMonkey: [00:18:00] She's amazing. I mean, I'll be. I'll be honest with you. She is so amazing. She did the exact things I did like. She was super aggressive with networking. I.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:10] But so, so this is your sophomore. You're trying to get a summer. You're basically trying to get a sophomore summer internship, right? And so you're like a year early people like, what are you doing? This isn't the time you weren't using any diversity or accelerated recruiting programs or anything like that at this point. Or you were
LateralMonkey: [00:18:25] Okay. I did a couple, but I am. I'm, you know, I'm a Asian woman. And so that necessarily that wasn't necessarily again the profile that people were looking for. We got a diversity hire. Got it. But again, like every single person who was at the diversity events, regardless of what made them diverse, was insanely qualified and just super brilliant is super, super smart. So in no way do I want to diminish those accomplishments because that would be awful with me. That said, again, people were looking for a certain profile, especially for the diversity event. And I don't mean that as a race. I mean that more than, you know, school and things like that got it
when school and like finance major or whatever, people who've shown like a drive for that got to finance major. They were looking for the kid that had gone to Harvard and also started a I don't know, I met this kid at one diversity event that actually blew my mind. He had founded like a microfinance organization, and it was a cool thing. I remember questioning like, Why are you here?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:32] So, OK, so anyways, you're hustling anyway. So what happens? You don't get a summer internship, your sophomore year, what's the outcome?
LateralMonkey: [00:19:41] So I did get it, and I think the main reason I got it was because of the networking. And so basically what happens is I get dinged from like three banks and that is like heartbreaking for me. I after this one rejection from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, I really just growing up in my bed and I spent an entire weekend crying my eyes out because there was another girl who had gotten it from my school and she had not talked to a single banker. And right before her interview, I had to explain to her what investment banking was, and it killed me on the inside.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:12] Oh my gosh.
LateralMonkey: [00:20:15] God was like a major trader on Wall Street and like, she was the sweetest girl. But I just remember doing that and I just like something inside me just died.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:24] So I feel like this is not fair.
LateralMonkey: [00:20:27] Not okay. So I ended up like crying my eyes out on the weekend, and then I sent him the application for the bank that I eventually ended up working for, and I got invited for an interview. And I remember, like the alum from that particular bank called me and it was in December, and it was like right before we were all leaving for holiday and I was on this cruise ship and I'm terrified of heights and I'm leaning over the rail of the cruise ship before it left the dock to continue getting reception and talk to her. And I was like, oh my goodness, I was so loved.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:01] You're lucky you didn't like, lose your breakfast when you were talking to them.
LateralMonkey: [00:21:06] I was. That was so bad. There's so many moments in the call where I said that was terrible, but that's really what it is. And I think if there's any takeaway from my experience, I think it really is. Relationships are everything. I think that's true for anybody. If you if you are a young person and you are from a non-target or a tiny target like me, and if you don't fit a certain profile and if you're know you didn't grow up knowing about this industry and you know, I have to honestly, when I got my internship, I called my parents and they were devastated. Like, my mom cried for three hours because she was like, I cannot believe you're becoming a bank teller in college and you're becoming a bank teller. Are you joking? And I had to her one. Investment banking was, I love it. I love it. It was a whole thing. You know, there's
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:57] A there's an ad. Have you seen those? Have you seen those really old Adam, the analyst like cartoons where he's trying to explain to us? I got to show you that. I'll link to it in the show notes. It's Adam, the analyst. It's like these really funny monotone old cartoons where, like Adam, the analyst, he's like trying to explain to people like. Funny situations, one of them is with his mom trying to explain to her what an investment banker does.
LateralMonkey: [00:22:20] You know, it's great. All these kids I remember, like in my incoming intern class, all these kids are like, Oh yeah, like my parents are so happy about this and I'm sitting here like my parents think I can't pay rent. I got the situation right.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:35] So, so they get over it. You end up accepting, obviously. And tell me about that summer. What was it like?
LateralMonkey: [00:22:42] It was terrible. I absolutely hated it. Tell me why. First woman on I was in capital markets and I was the first woman on that desk in five years. Mm hmm. There was a lot of difficult stuff that happened. I mean, I'm not. I was. I grew up in a post-9 11 world in a very tiny town that is 97 percent white. And I am more than used to insensitive comments and bad things happening, like when I was a when I remember when I was a little girl in third grade, my teacher wouldn't let me stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance because, you know, on the anniversary of nine 11, because she said, my people had done this. So we're not talking about someone who's sensitive here, like, I'm not at all. But there were some awful, awful things that were said to me during that summer. I came away super demoralized. But one thing I'm
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:33] You know, I'm surprised that this isn't that long ago, right? I'm surprised that that's still, I guess maybe it's just group dependent, like it's a super like different groups are a little bit more progressive than others, but it sounds like that is that one is back from the 80s or something like that.
LateralMonkey: [00:23:49] Yeah. And it's like for me, you know, I ended up staying with the same firm for years. If you think about it like I was there for those two summers and then I was there for another two years, really two and a half years after and I stayed there for a while. And it really is good dependent. You know, you can join one group and they're absolutely fantastic and you can join another group and they're like descended from Satan. Sure.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:13] And so can you tell me like some of the stuff that happened to you, was it just like, was it racist, sexist? Was it more just like
LateralMonkey: [00:24:24] It was mainly racist and sexist? Honestly. And I didn't tell anybody because a it's really difficult to go to air with these kinds of things like people will say, Oh, you totally can.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:33] Yeah, you can't.
LateralMonkey: [00:24:34] The reality is, you can't be the person that does that.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:36] Yeah, it's really hard to.
LateralMonkey: [00:24:38] It's really hard to. It's hard. It's really hard. And you know, I I there were some things that were said to me that were really, really nasty and I'm not going to repeat because they were so inappropriate. I do. Let's keep this podcast G-rated.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:52] I can put the explicit mark on it actually after. So it's not a problem. But yeah, go ahead. No, that's fine. You know, whatever you're comfortable sharing, it's fine.
LateralMonkey: [00:25:02] I'll say it. But there were it was just really unacceptable. Some people use I'll give you, OK, I can give you a few examples. Some people use the C-word. Not OK. No. When we were talking about certain things, I heard this was also the same year that the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage. That was a really big deal. I heard some homophobic slurs from my group, like I'm talking like 80s stuff. Like nasty stuff. Yeah. You know, I I would. There was a holiday from my, from my faith that we were celebrating, and I never took off a day of work. I worked insane hours. I worked coverage hours, even though I was in a capital markets group. And there were some really disparaging comments about that, which I was like, I don't know why that should even be something you discuss because frankly, I haven't confided to anybody at the firm that I'm celebrating it right? And it was nasty stuff, and I looked super demoralized. I was like, Oh my goodness, I cried my eyes out when I, you know, when I didn't get it, I cried my eyes out of happiness when I finally got it. You know, when they called me with my offer. So a lot of tears. And I did it for this. This is terrible.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:18] Yeah. So this is this is like your experiences. After that first sophomore summer, some surprise you came back. Was it more like, Hey, I just got to see this through and be strong and. And what did you, I guess? How did you how did I assume you wanted to get to a different group, right? And you thought, Hey, maybe you'll be better at a different group? And how did you even know to ask for that?
LateralMonkey: [00:26:36] So there were two things. The first one was I knew I literally knew after, like the fourth or fifth week that there was no way I was getting an offer just based on my group liking me. That was not going to happen. So I network like a demon and I do mean like a demon. I had no shame. I would email heads of groups or stuff like that, and I would make it very well known that I was getting coffee with them. I'm talking about stuff like walking up to like my VP and being like, Hey, do you know where so-and-so's office is located? Because I can't find it on this floor? But like again, that got the message across, right?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:10] So you were basically you're showing that you had no fear that you had nothing to lose. You're going to just basically go up and network and be aggressive.
LateralMonkey: [00:27:17] Yeah, and when I was really aggressive, you
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:19] Were you using that as a signal? Were you using sorry, we're using that as a signal of some sort. It seems like you were trying to make that clear.
LateralMonkey: [00:27:27] A little bit, I was using it as a signal. I honestly part of me didn't even care if I got the offer. Part of me was just like, I'm going to squeeze out as many relationships as I can because my recruiting process taught me the importance of relationships. But I think that scared them enough because there was one analyst that I was really close to in my group who later on actually ended up getting fired. But that's a story for another time. He he literally told me he was like, we didn't like, nobody wanted to have to explain why we fired you with all these people that you were grabbing coffee with. So we just like, gave you the offer because we just didn't want to deal with it. Like one, in turn, was not worth it. So I was like, Okay, what works?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:07] That's a really important lesson right there. They're just like, Well, she's too well, even just from a summer internship, you got to well-connected into the firm that you did. They didn't want to have to explain to like these three senior people. Why you?
LateralMonkey: [00:28:19] Oh my goodness, I was so good about it. I remember there was one guy and just throwing a ton of veggie juice, and I brought in veggie juice in the morning for the duration of that. Like, I'm not even joking. He was like a global head of such and such. I'm not going to say what's so funny. And I was like trading recipes with him. And then there was another guy who I found who's like, who's like daughter and granddaughter had like, attended my school. And I found that out like just through like the grapevine and I like, made sure to, like, create a relationship with him. And I used to meet him all the time, and he was a really gregarious guy. So he was like Belle, my name across the floor because like capital market style, you sit on the trading cell floor. Yeah. Oh, goodness. It was like, now that I think back on that, I was like, Wow, that was really smart. And then also a big part of me is you had massive koné.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:12] Yes, you did. Yes, you did. What, 20 years old?
LateralMonkey: [00:29:16] Yeah. But that's I think that's a small town kid coming out like this scrappy small town kid being like, what do I really have to lose? Like, worse comes to worse. My parents will absolutely support me switching to being a doctor. Do you feel like
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:28] That's do you feel like doing that? So doing if you had not done that, you would have not gotten the offer that the group did not like you is pretty obvious, right? So like, you just didn't, you just didn't fit in. You weren't one of the guys, right? So it seems pretty obvious. You wouldn't. You would. It would have been a struggle. Do you feel like that's the case for most groups? Do you feel like it sounds? My guess is that most, most young women in your situation would have actually really struggled in that seat just because a lot of people at 20 years olds, I know at least myself at 20 wouldn't have, wouldn't have had the cojones to go up to heads of groups and try and be like, Hey, like, let me get you some juice and, you know, making all these connections. I know you had kind of honed that skill over the previous year, but talk to me a little about that, about how other women can kind of if and maybe not, not as aggressive as you, but how what else can they do?
LateralMonkey: [00:30:22] What?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:23] Like, what could they do in your situation if they if they don't don't they don't have the confidence that you have to do that? How else can they protect themselves?
LateralMonkey: [00:30:33] That's really, really tough. I think the first thing is to make sure your work is unimpeachable. I think that's the biggest thing I would. I would talk to HR quite a bit. I would be in constant discourse with your recruiting partner and not just about like, Oh, the group doesn't like me. Don't say that. Don't ever say that. Right. So that's not a good idea. I think it's more
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:55] You don't want to be causing headaches for HR, but you're saying being in touch with HR about like different groups and what your future is. And yeah,
LateralMonkey: [00:31:03] That's a group talking to different groups. And then I think and this is this is maybe a little counterintuitive. I think that if you're going to be in banking, you need to know how to talk to people and you need to develop that confidence. I don't care if you are a summer analyst or if you are a first year associate that graduated from Harvard, you need to know how to talk to people. And so I think the biggest thing is if you're in coverage, this wouldn't work. But if you're in capital markets, you need to approach someone senior. I'm talking to director or someone, and you need to be brutally honest, like talk to your staff and first figure out how your performances go to your director, go to someone senior and say, I've talked to my staffers. Here's some of the things that I'm thinking about my performance. Here are some of the things that other people have said about my performance. Here's the project I've worked on. What do you think? What can I do to be one of the best analysts you have ever seen? And when you put it really directly like that, some directors like that. Some directors really dislike that. It depends. I would never do that in the covered situation.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:03] Why? Why is it so different? Why is it so different? Capital markets to cut to coverage?
LateralMonkey: [00:32:08] Capital markets is a lot flatter in hierarchy, the hierarchy is still there, but you're sitting with your director in your undies and a camaraderie develops there, and they're more open to talking to juniors, whereas in coverage, the directors in the NCVHS are behind closed doors, as are the VCs in some situations. That's very much specific.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:26] Yeah, you're like in a bullpen with all the juniors in the associate. Analysts and associates and interns are kind of like the they're in the cages in the middle of the in the middle of the firm and the directors and employees are.
LateralMonkey: [00:32:39] Is there any analyst full time? I think what's more important? I mean, you obviously have to understand your dynamics, but I think it's more important to understand the analyst's bullpen. So understanding like who's the best associate, who's the best analyst, who do I need to work with? Who absolutely sucks? Who did this director really hate? Which is something I had to learn the hard way. And like, those dynamics are super important. But when you're within a capital markets group, you'll maybe have like one to two analysts. It just depends. I I have not really seen capital markets groups the three analysts, but that's happened, I'm sure. So within those tinier group, you can you can really you can talk to seniors much, much more easily makes sense. The thing is, will always be interacting with them a lot. So I think I think you should just lay all your cards out on the table because again, what you really have to lose. You know, lay your cards out on the table and say, Here's what I think my performance is. Here's how it actually is. Here's how the project I'm working on. What do you think? What can I do to be the best analyst I can possibly be? I'm collecting feedback from everyone and just talk to them. If you're if you don't have a very high IQ. Again, just be up front and people are going to respect that.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:55] Sorry, you said it's cut out. If you don't have a very high IQ, do what?
LateralMonkey: [00:33:59] If you don't have a very high IQ, don't play game, don't play game, don't play games. Terrible idea. Yeah. Just be direct. Try to do what I.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:07] Yeah, I don't do what you did.
LateralMonkey: [00:34:09] Ok, well,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:11] It protected you. In a sense it did. They did. Did the the rest of the group kind of get a sense in like, know what you were doing?
LateralMonkey: [00:34:21] Yeah, I'm sure they did, I mean, these guys are much smarter than I am. They have played far more complex games than I have. I'm certain they knew exactly what I was doing, but what were they going to do to stop me? Are they going to sit me at my desk and be like, you can't leave the senior person? Yeah. Good luck explaining that one. Yeah, true.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:37] Fair enough. Fair enough. Ok, so so tell me. So you kind of went through a really tough sophomore summer analyst gig? And then how did you kind of angle for a different, different group? And were you trying to get cover? You're trying to get the coverage. It was that the goal or what was the what was the kind of
LateralMonkey: [00:34:56] The end goal? Yeah. I didn't really have to angle because they required you to leave the you were in your first summer anyway if you were a sophomore intern. Got it. That was pretty good. But actually, the way I got my junior summer is actually quite fun. So I had developed all of these really great relationships with really, really senior people. My first summer, right? Yeah, which is awesome. You know, I I actually got paid off massively because when I started looking at opportunities, I knew I wanted to go to a group that had a great culture and one that had amazing deal flow. I wanted one of those like prestige subjects, and there were two groups that I was immediately pointed to for the sake of anonymity. I'm not going to say which ones they were, but one was significantly more fatty. The other was like they had their frat moments, but they were like they were for people. I think that that group was more for people that were gregarious, like outgoing, had their thing, but weren't necessarily all the same. Right. And I didn't in much. So call it Group one and Group two. I fit in much more with Group two. Yeah. And we went for these managing directors that I had gotten to know, one of whom I didn't want to go to the alumni for my school, that person, because I had cultivated a great relationship with her. But I didn't want to keep asking her for stuff like fatigue real. When you keep asking people for stuff like, don't do that too many favors. Yeah, yeah. So I work with these other people and I was like, You know, I really want to go to this group and they were like, Oh, I got you like, we got this. And basically, we sweep the entire junior analyst class not being able to talk like the entire junior analysts like pool from that group, a good number of associates. And you know, and like this woman who was like a really big deal in the bank, I again, for the sake of anonymity, I'm not going to reveal who it was and be seeing my old group and which I thought was hilarious and was like basically put down. Like, I can confirm that she was excellent in my idea, my accent and be put down. Yes, she handled herself with great maturity and she was very detail oriented and said, all this nice stuff about me. I told, I told my boyfriend later I was like, I'm going to print out that email that might be my ex and wrote, like, nice things about me, and I'm going to frame it in the next part of Ubuntu.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:30] So is it because do you feel like the X, the X MD was saying that because he felt like his arm was like he couldn't kind of disagree.
LateralMonkey: [00:37:41] Super pressured because again, everything in banking is about like capital. Right? And I mean that. I mean, that kind of is a pun social capital, to be specific. His group had not been performing well for a fairly long time. I'm just going to be honest. Yeah, it was one of the worst groups in the bank. And so, yeah, he felt his arm was twisted because he was talking to, you know, people that were in one of the best groups in the bank. What was he going to say? Oh yeah, this movie's giving her this great recommendation. He's full of shit. Like, that's not true. Yeah, yeah. That was not going to happen, right? There was a lot of peer pressure there. So I ended up getting into that group. No surprise there. And I had a fantastic summer. That summer was awesome and I, you know, never accept an offer on the spot. That's my advice to any young summer analyst.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:30] Don't sign on the spot. But wait before you get to that, the summer. Let's talk a little bit about that. What made it so great?
LateralMonkey: [00:38:37] The people, it's always the people and did
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:40] You did you feel like the work product, the work was really different though, right? Because you're now in coverage, were you doing modeling and did you feel like coming from a liberal arts college or small college? Did you feel like you were prepped? You're ready.
LateralMonkey: [00:38:51] No.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:53] How did you survive that? How did you survive that?
LateralMonkey: [00:38:56] I came in by myself on the weekends and I would just practice OK. And if I didn't come in on the weekends because of this one time I came in on the weekend, there were always families there. But this one particular analyst stopped me and I was like, Oh crap. So I started going. I started going to the public library and I would just practice and I put in horrendous hours summer. Oh my goodness, I. What were you working? I was dating my boyfriend at the time and he was like, I never saw you. And that's the truth. But because of that, I became one of the most popular summer analysts in that group.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:29] When were you? When were you getting in during the day and when did you leave at night or in the next morning?
LateralMonkey: [00:39:35] So I was getting man around nine a.m. and I was leaving. It depended I could leave anywhere between midnight and 3:00 a.m. There was one time I stayed until 5:00 a.m. That was pretty awful. Yeah, I remember. I remember I stayed until 5:00 a.m. and we were allowed to come in at a.m. and I met my associate who is such a nice guy like in the Union Square subway station. And he just kind of waved to me and was like, Hello, there. You don't look wrestler at all. And I said, No, I'm not.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:40:05] You're like, I'm going home. I'm not going into the office right now.
LateralMonkey: [00:40:09] That's funny. I was like, No, we were both going into the office together. It was actually very funny. But he yeah, I you know, I went from, I think, being one of those like average summer analyst. My first like, I would say, three weeks to being a really, really, really good finalist. And again, the gender ratio was not improved for the record. Yeah. You know, we had no women in the senior team. None had barely any. We had no. We had no women in the beats, either. Now that I think about it.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:40:40] But tell me about like that transition before we get into like the gender ratio. What? What like, OK, the first three weeks? Is it just because you were you weren't? Like, was it the actual technical skills that you were building? Is that why? Or was it because you just you kind of got in with the right people at the right team and you knew how to work with them?
LateralMonkey: [00:40:59] I think this is entirely merit based. I just had the skills I had the, you know, I was super enthusiastic. I would always ask everyone, what can I do to help you? What can I do to help you? What can I do to help you? And then I would focus on absolutely killing it in whatever I did. And like, you're going to make mistakes are part of it. But the trick is these super detail oriented, and I know everyone does that. So I'm going to flesh that out a little like, make sure your numbers are as accurate as you make them. Make sure the format looks clean, right? If you need like, there is no such thing as reinventing the wheel and thinking you can find a precedent. Go and check the president, you know? Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:41:42] How do you how do you check your numbers? How do you make any tips on to make sure that your numbers are right? I know I have one, if you don't know
LateralMonkey: [00:41:51] it's okay, honestly, for me, I would pull out, so we got these models that we're practice and I would pull out and I would punch in like whatever you know, I would just like trade in for the numbers I had and see if I got similar numbers. That's really it. I would just use a model that had already been done that I knew was perfect and I would punch in the numbers and I would see if there were somewhere close. When you were young.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:14] Did you ever have to print out? Did you ever print out analyses and like, Look at it on paper, I felt like that would always help me like just sense checking it on paper versus I did. I did that a lot. And then when you're turning like a PowerPoint, they would have this thing where like, you'd look at the turns and then you'd confirm every single little thing done, you'd highlight each one as you went through. Did they do that as well?
LateralMonkey: [00:42:33] Yep, yeah. Just like did all of
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:36] That super detail oriented,
LateralMonkey: [00:42:39] I put it in PowerPoint, I a lot of times I would also, they have these like ways that you could print out. Do you remember how you were making as well? Do you remember how like on the Excel sheet you have like the pages and the one page or two page and you can just like print out a sheet and excel and double check it? Yeah, I did that for a lot. Yeah, that was something I did.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:59] And then you see a number that makes no sense. You're like, Wait a second, let me go back.
LateralMonkey: [00:43:03] Yeah. I did a lot of stuff like, I wanted to touch stupid mistakes for the precedent. Model stuff is really what I did, because if I miss a certain detail here or they're fine, right? Yeah. But I want to make sure that my basic, basic stuff is right formatting. I mean, no one starts you with a model like maybe some crazy people do, but like for the most part, nobody like threw a model at me my birthday and was like, Go do this. You know, it was more like I was thrown like formatting stuff or like basic stuff like put together a pin, you know, stuff like that. And then the responsibilities grew over time. And honestly, by the time I was ending my summer, you know, it's always good when you hear people say things like, Oh, why can't you? Why can't we just keep you? Why can't you just start now? Like, do you really need to go back to your senior year? That's a really good thing. That's when you know you're going to get the offer. And I did get the offer,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:56] But you didn't accept it right away. No, of course not. 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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