WSO Podcast | E149: "Very poor" to VP at Goldman Sachs in PWM for over a decade
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In this episode, we hear about Pierre's improbable story. From growing up with almost nothing to being a first-generation high school and college graduate and earning $30,000 in his first job out of school, to pursuing a master's in organizational psychology and eventually landing at UVA for his MBA at Darden. We learn how he managed to secure a job at Goldman during the great financial crisis in the Private Wealth Management division, how he navigated feeling like an outsider and why he eventually moved back out west.
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WSO Podcast (Episode 149) Transcript:
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, we hear about Pierre’s and probably story from growing up with almost nothing to being a first generation high school and college graduate and earning $30000 in his first job out of school to pursuing a master's in organizational psychology and eventually landing at UVA for his MBA at Darden. We learn how he managed to secure at Goldman during the Great Financial Crisis in the Private Wealth Management Division, how he navigated feeling like an outsider and why he eventually moved back out West after over a decade. Pierre, thanks so much for joining the Wall Street Voices podcast. Sure, man.
Pierre: [00:01:05] Glad to be here. I know it's a little longer, a little bit overdue, but definitely let's make the most of our time today, so thank you for having me.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:12] Awesome. So real quick. If you could just give the listeners a short summary of your bio. That would be awesome.
Pierre: [00:01:17] Sure. So I am calling you now from Los Angeles, which is where I'm from. So specifically the Long Beach area, Long Beach, California. I went to undergrad Lumbee State, was a psychology anthropology major there, graduated many, many moons ago in2002,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:34] The same year. We're the same year.
Pierre
: [00:01:35] Yeah, yeah. From there I I ended up working in my first job out. I worked at a drug rehab facility with statistics. So outcomes research. I've always had a very strong stats, orientation. Even my undergrad programs were like leaning stats. Then from there, I got a master's in this field called industrial organizational psychology. So we're a little bit aged. Do you and I so like for the old or the older listeners? There's a movie called Office Space.
Pierre: [00:01:59] Many people may know about it, but like there is Bob and Bob affecting the consultants. I was a bob, so like we would come in and and show organizations how to be more efficient from a management perspective so that for a couple of years and then went to the University of Virginia and the Darden School of Business, took an Mba graduate from darden in 09. In between there I was a summer associate at Goldman Sachs and their investment management division with intentions of being in their mid-Atlantic office, which is really D.C., had a great summer. There was an effort to come back. We'll talk a little bit more about that and coming back to Goldman in their New York office. So it was a 10 year banker at Goldman in New York City, although I've never lived in New York and no connectivity to it. We'll talk about that
for a while. Had a great experience there in terms of relationships. They came out back to the West Coast and it worked for a small regional bank called the Bank of California, covering real estate developers, venture capital and private equity investors doing capital call facilities to effectively extending balance sheet. And now I'm at a full service digital marketing agency called Power Digital Marketing, where I run in venture capital and private equity for them. And what that means is that we have this proprietary tech, this delicious Tech that's been around for seven years since machine A.I. And what it does is it allows us to quantify the score of a portfolio company digital marketing score. But more importantly, it allows us to forecast revenue growth. So if the PE and VC investors they come to us, they incorporate us as a part of their diligence process and we're helping them make better investment decisions. So happy to be here, happy to kind of dig a little bit deeper on any asset or pivot in my life and go way back there.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:30] Let's go way back all the way to undergrad because
I want to know figure a
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:35] Little bit more like the quant stats background you did. It looks like you've graduated in three years. Is that accurate? Yeah, man. So we're talking over
Pierre: [00:03:43] Verticals or our little ones. Yeah, yeah. So my birthday is May 9th. So even when I graduated high school, I graduated high school in 99, but I was supposed to be the class of 2000. So many, many, many, many more moons ago, when I was a little one, my mom was like, You know what? I'm not going to pay for childcare anymore. We're just going to put you in a school early. So I started school a year earlier. I had a decent time in high school. It was hard because I was I'm a big guy and you can't see through the screen. I'm six, four to 40, right? But when I was at high school since I was younger, I was smaller, right, and I played sports and they're really going to work out well with being a year ahead, you know, like you typically want to delay a year, right? So. And I went to the high school, I went to high school. Very well-known sports program like the John Jackson Lewis, one of the top premier programs like NFL and NBA athletes like. Long story short, like, I knew that I wasn't going to college football because I just I wasn't getting a lot of burn. I was getting burned in high school. I was getting any playing time in high school. So when I got to college, you know, everything was about, you know, moving quickly and trying to find a way to get a job to contribute to the household. That was to take a step back. I was first generation, first generation high school. Pledge, you know everything, right? Yeah. So I went to hurt me, graduate in psychologist initially because I wanted to help people like in terms of like helping my community. I have some, you know, some challenges as a kid in my household structure and whatnot, I went back, that's really what I wanted to do. Yeah, I randomly came across anthropology and I was like, Well, this is pretty cool too. Like, I love culture. I love people. It's like understanding like, you know, that was the best way for me to travel is to come and like, learn about other cultures, right? I wasn't traveling physically, but like, you can learn about other aspects of the world by reading and whatnot.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:20] So, you know, or anything around that was not even on the radar at that point?
Pierre: [00:05:24] No, no, no. I do like I'm like an L.A. Long Beach Typekit like nobody was a banker in my house. So like, nobody like nothing like nothing like I didn't know about Wall Street. I didn't know about any of that stuff. It'll make sense to when we talk about, like going to business school. But my program was like very like stats or like research, and we used to use this software called SPFs statistical packages for the social sciences. So like, I came with the background, like not knowing how to use Excel like, you know, it's like, you know, people nowadays like, you don't touch your mouth. It's like, I'm literally like hugging my mouse. I'm like touching the key words like, you know, one or two fingers. It was just crazy, right? When I started like working in finance. But nonetheless, when my first job out was literally looking at the success rates of people that have gone through like drug treatment facilities and it was like mandated by the state. So I'm still doing well, I'm doing it's like for a good cause. We're like, I'm getting foundation funding by showing the research results, and I'm doing like all these multiple regressions, like high end statistical analysis. And you know, from that point, I was like, well, psychology is great, but like, I got to find a way to kind of get paid more. So like industrial organizations like you guys
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:20] Like, what were you get paid right out of school for that? I do. I mean, you got to for like 40,
Pierre: [00:06:25] Something like that. I think with that role that I go say, like thirty two thousand right. Like literally. Yeah. But it was it was a
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:31] Cool gig because it's a job. Yeah, yeah.
Pierre: [00:06:34] But you know, what's cool, though, was like I was able to work remotely from home and it was like I ran. I ran the group like I didn't report to anybody, like I reported to the founder of the foundation. And I'm just doing research like at the house, you know, kind of like working through numbers and it was like I had to be. I had to be in the suit. I do anything like that. So anyways, I ended up concurrently going to graduate school in San Bernardino, which was like two hours away from Long Beach and, you know, got this master's in Io Psychology, the firm that I worked for in terms of consulting. It's called PDI Personnel Decisions International. They were acquired by a couple of the firms by now, but like 90 percent of the consultants there had Phds in psychology. So if you think about for those in the audience that have gone like the business majors as undergrads, it'd be like your organizational behavior professor or like your leadership development professor, right? Right. So like, you know, so for me, so I had came in with the master's and what I was doing was effectively assessing managers on like the cognitive ability, their personality tests, like some role plays and like digesting
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:32] Or doing it and trying to figure out who should be cut, who should be kept kind of thing. Literally, yeah.
Pierre: [00:07:37] Like who should be, who should a office space? Yeah, yeah. Who was a high potential performer and so forth, right? It's like there was a lot of like executive one on one coaching that took place. But once we identified the holes in your development areas,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:48] You feel like there's like there's enough there because I looked into a little bit of that in terms of um. Like mapping, mapping, the scores of like your best performers, like the personalities within an organization, then trying to map it to the new hires,
Pierre:: [00:08:04] Try to hire. Yeah. So that's why it's almost like there's this constant like competency modeling, right? It's like, So how do you define like you'll take your high profile, high performance within your organization and your map
Pierre: [00:08:13] Their personality. You'll map their approach to the job and you say, OK, these are the things that we actually want to hire for, right? It's like, and then you do that. And I would create the interview questions based on I would create the scoring sheet. And then, yeah, there's definitely science behind it. There are 110 percent there, science behind it. So like all we were doing was like thinking through the numbers, like basically applying psychology to the workplace. Like, what was it?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:33] Sorry to interrupt, but why were you? What even pushed you to even know to go to industrial organizational psychology? Like, was there somebody who was like, Hey, you should go?
Pierre: [00:08:40] You know, I took a I took a class man. I took a class. It was, I'll say, it was like an upper three or four upper 400 level class, and it was like that was the highest playing field of psychology. I literally thought I wanted to be a clinical psychologist at that point, right? Like I went to help the community.And it was the highest playing field of psych. And like, they weren't that filled. A psych is not hiring undergrads directly, right? So like so doing he research and within iOS, like there's a stats, there's a math component that's implied. So that's why I kind of went the other route. But yeah, I took a class. You know, I was taking all these side courses. I'm like, you know, I got to find a way to get paid. It's great to be community focused, but it would be nice to kind of think about it. It was. It was like it allowed me. I thought it was a business guy as a young kid, right? Like, everybody thinks they're kind of an entrepreneur and rightfully so, and they should be. And it's like, this is the closest that you can get within the lens of psychology of the business. So my clients back then we're like, it was great. It was great, man. It was like Sony Electronics and San Diego Nestlé Arena and St. Louis,like New century Financial, Countrywide Financial. And this is like back in. If you think about it, this is like back in 07 06. Yeah, so I've seen it all right. And so like, I'm hiring, I'm hiring for the sales reps that are like slinging mortgages like crazy. And I'm like, I'm like. And like, I get to see their personality types and get to see their cognitive ability scores and like in training them up right and outlining a plan. So it was a great experience. And what I realized is that I knew about I knew I was a consultant and I knew about like effective management leadership, but I didn't really know. I didn't know how to read a balance sheet. Right. It's like in terms like competency models like strategic thinking, being collaborative,Like inspiring others like these are these big kind of like buckets in terms of like being effective business person.
And another one is like financial acumen. Like, I was short personally on financial acumen. So how can I coach somebody else on financial Acumen? And you know, I was surrounded by great resources, but I didn't know it myself and I was a younger guy and I didn't really have it like I was coaching literally people that were 10 or 15 years older. To me, it sounds crazy. You were like, Yeah,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:36] But you were like twenty five at this point or twenty six?
Pierre: [00:10:38] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, barely, you know, it's like I was well versed in the research we had. Like, we had our own proprietary insights, right? And like I knew it, I knew how to do the top. I knew what leadership looks like. I knew the formulas, but I was like, I didn't have the experience, real experiential concepts. I didn't. I wasn't a business unit leader. I haven't ran a business before that right and like and not even really after that as well.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:00] So just coming out of that that mastered. What did you land, did you get that big race from the 30th? Did you get something, you know, more kind of closer to six figures or
Pierre: [00:11:11] Yeah, no, sir. So, so the so the firm that I worked for, yeah, so.towards my tail end,Like my it was a two year program. It's like the last semester I worked at that firm PDI personnel, that's the firm where they had 90 percent PhDs. Yeah, yeah. The bump then was probably like I went from like 30 to like forty eight.Maybe or maybe I maybe it just touched 50. Yeah, and I wasn't completely done with my program yet. So like, they gave me a little bit of love and allowed me to start before that. But. And that was back in. Had to be old school seven, so it has to be like, yeah, yeah, it had to be like, oh, four had to be off work. I spent a year, I did a year teaching math at a local high school as well. At Dominguez High School in Compton, California, which like one of the best jobs I ever had, actually like, that's cool. I think the firm that I'm at now is really the best job I had,Like before I came to power. I would say that although doing 10 years at Goldman like my job as a teacher was literally the best job ever.But nonetheless, yes, I bumped it to like forty eight thousand I'm working in in Century City, which is like a high end area where I got a business card, you know, like I got, you know, like a little bit of like, I'm a consultant. I'm traveling all over the place, right? Like, I'm doing all these billable hours and like, I'm working with these firms and and my job was a young guy and like, I was literally like your age and like, I'm I'm talking to people that have been in business, like I'm advising people that have been in business longer than I was on this Earth,Literally right.So it was a very humbling experience to that point. But then it came a point where, like, the world was like, you know, the world's going to fall apart financially, right? You see, people get mortgages because I'm covering these mortgage guys and I had to personally make a decision. Did I want to either get a PhD, continue my my psychology training, get a Ph.D. in psychology to stay within the field? Or if I wanted to get an Mba and I made the right choice, but I just decided to get an MBA, so I ended up applying to business school. And, you know, silence and that sign in saying I applied when I applied to business school, and hopefully we can kind of go down this path. I was purely thinking consulting.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:08] You were thinking, Yeah, I was truly thinking like management consulting out of the full out of the way I
Pierre: [00:13:12] Went to work. Yeah, great. You beat me to it. So I went to work at like a boner on McKinsey. Yeah, right. Like, I wanted to be like, yeah, like a like a shrink. And so like, like, like you said out of this like very narrow assets to something that's more broad, right? And like me
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:24] Before, it's like you had something you did something at UCLA called MBA Prep or post back. Tell me why you feel that just to give you a little
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:33] Bit of grounding in the finance stuff before applying? Or is that something you recommend or did that help you? Kind of. Yeah.
Pierre: [00:13:38] So, so so it was it was. It was. It was definitely beneficial to me in
A sense that it was like it was and still is a highly coveted program called UCLA the Rearden program. But they had like the scholars, which for high school kids and the fellows,Which is like basically post back as you described. And it's been around since the 80s. It was founded by Mayor Richard Riordan at the time, who was the mayor who passed away.But nonetheless, it's like to bring kids who have never had exposure to finance on campus. The UCLA Anderson School of Business. You're there, you know, one Saturday at the month. Commendable Saturday they kind of walk you through your high school or they walk, sat prep, stock pitch and everything else.If you're post back,You're doing like GMAT Prep.You're doing like industry kind of like chats. You're you're doing like
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:23] You get into that, you pay for it. You got to compete.
Pierre: [00:14:24] Yeah, no, you got to. You have to apply and you're selected. They primarily focus on people that are first generation, but I've never, you know, that don't have anybody that's gone and gone to the university Process, and it's been a rewarding experience like that. In that instance. That's what I'm starting to finally come across that work in finance, right?It did it kind of indirectly to my job. Like that wasn't the industry that I covered, but like now, like, yeah, like they would have. The people on the board that were hedge fund managers that will come in and kind of talk to us and provide exposure to this population of young people that never really had it right. So I'm a big, big, big supporter and fan of the reading program. Now they're doing great work that create a lot of talent,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:02] Especially now because of you.
Pierre: [00:15:04] Yeah, exactly. A lot of there's so many kids that are like that are like, you know, from underserved areas within L.A. That get to get bussed, they get busted and amateur school of business, they get them going by the jails and the Harvards of the world. And they probably would probably have gotten it on their own.Who knows, like they wouldn't have the exposure had it not been for Reardon. So I was able to see that as an adult. And yeah, just like exposing. So before that, I was never I'd never been on Anderson in the Anderson School of Business. I have people that went to UCLA and I kind of hang out on campus every once in a while, but like, it puts you in the seat so you're able to envision yourself there. And it sounds like something that's very basic. But the reality is like for a lot of people go out there like they've never really seen themselves in that capacity.So like to even
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:45] Get an MBA. It's like, kind of. Yeah. And so like, it's just sitting there kind of getting a little bit of the exposure, doing the GMAT prep there on campus. It kind of like going
Pierre: [00:15:53] There and navigating the building. And then they mathematically match you up with other current Anderson students that were there will be your your your mentors, right? So like, yeah, it was just a great experience.And then when I was when I was so well, typically what they were required regard, what they recommend is that you do really first and then you apply the next year. But me, I'm always kind of clicking, right, I'm doing everything quickly like an idiot. I'll say it was because it was like it was challenging because the program was exhausting. It was like I was working in consulting, doing reardon and applying to business school concurrently and studying for my GED at all in one right. So these are the things that you know.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:32] Yeah. Yeah.
Pierre: [00:16:33] Like what? Like, I gave my like, Yeah, my full Saturday was dedicated career. Anyways, then we had like, there were some the projects outside of the program, like community service projects meeting with your team. Yeah, my gym mat, everything else, right like would've been better to delay a year. But nonetheless, like I knew, I went to hurt me. Get out, go to business school. And yeah, just like study for my gym, I always tell people like, you know, really commit yourself to study as best as possible so that
you can only do it once, right? And because you don't want to
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:01] Do it, you want to make sure I did it twice.
Pierre: [00:17:02] Yeah, but yeah, I know for sure. But you want to make sure and I probably should have done it twice. I snuck in and, you know, got lucky and got in right. But the reality is like, you don't want to feel like you left anything on the field because it's such A, you know, it's such a big like it's a big investment and like, you're missing out socially with your friends. And to do it kind of half hearted, it's like, then you got to do it again. Yeah, yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:23] Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. On the weekends they had to. Yeah, like, yeah.
Pierre: [00:17:29] And it's easy to lie to yourself and to tell you to tell yourself that you're studying and you're putting forth the time like you really have to like, commit yourself. So for those individuals that are in the audience that are thinking about going to graduate school of any sorts.This is actually like the most opportune time, right? Because like the world, you know, it's unfortunate, but the world is like slowing down, right? And it's like, you're not missing out on anything socially. So this is the opportunity like for those that are thinking about, like going to graduate school, study your your, your your exams if you think about picking up a new skill. It's a great time to do it right. Think about being on the plane. Whatever the case may be, I'd really like to stretch yourself a bit,But not miss.I did that. Reardon was great, and it opened me up to even thinking about applying to Anderson, which is the UCLA school of Business. Yeah.
I knew that I wanted to go away, so I'm through and through a West Coast kid like, literally,You know, you had to
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:18] Travel so you wanted to
Pierre: [00:18:19] Travel a bit domestically and like, I'm very like, I was very active with like, I'm still like one of my fraternity brothers, like my fraternity. I would travel a lot for that, right? But like in terms of like,You know, I'm just I was a son. I was like a sunshine West Coast kid, you know, very immersed in L.A. culture. And just like I would have been content just kind of being there. Had I not come across these resources or people in my life, that kind of show me something different. So once I saw something different, I'm like, Well, she's, you know, like, there are people on on the East Coast that are just doing well right in terms of like kind of like how I wanted to do it, like especially like finance, which is bigger and like,I think business is just bigger on the east coast and that's we can kind of debate that back and forth. L.a. is obvious. L.a. is.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:03] So yeah, I'm not going to argue with you. Yeah.
Pierre: [00:19:06] I don't want to talk negatively about L.A. now.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:09] That's true finances.It's a there's a bigger market out out east.
Pierre: [00:19:13] Yeah, I think it's like in L.A. is driven by Hollywood and entertainment, right? So if your aspirations are Hollywood entertainment like come over, people are coming over in droves, but like anything outside of that, it's like L.A. is not big in oil and gas, right? So it's like, all right, like, you want to be oil and gas major, you move down to Texas, right? But it's like those are like, that's like the realities of the world where it's like, I'm like, I'm like, I want to be a suit of any sort. And it's like, Yeah, I should probably kind of look at, you know, at least spending a couple of years out east because I can always come back to L.A., right? So I end up applying to schools out on the East Coast.And you know, if you think about
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:45] Which school you applied to.
Pierre: [00:19:48] Yeah, man, I have.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:49] You were thinking consulting, right, so were you looking just like what places?
Pierre: [00:19:54] I think, yeah, I think I think it's important, like when you do these chats and like when I, you know, have the privilege of like talking to people all the time, they always kind of wanted to ask them like my insights of my experience.And I think it's incumbent.It's it's my responsibility to kind of set the stage and make sure that I'm talking like straight math and give them like straight backs in the sense of like, I hate when people like are locking in the stories in situations that can't be replicated. Right. It's like, I want to make sure, like everything I'm telling you or that's being told is something that you can literally kind of like. Follow the same formula and you can really do it now, and it'll it'll come full circle when I talk about my experience when I was a banker at Goldman. But nonetheless, yeah, so what I was thinking about when I was in high school, I was a mediocre student, right? But my job was a year ahead like I didn't. I kind of clicks now, right? But yeah, you're right.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:37] You're probably because you're a year
Pierre: [00:20:39] Older on the street. I didn't really have much guidance in the house. Like I was like, Yeah, but I thought it was okay. Like there was nobody to report to. But nonetheless, like I had like yellow tubes, right? And like, I got in and when I got in at school was like a program that was like, it's for people.So it was like educational opportunity program.Like, We're giving you a chance, like you got to take these classes like to like to get up to speed and like, that's the commitment you have to make. I did it, and when I went to college, that's when I like. That was my first time seeing academic success. Like, literally like I just like, it's something that's kind of click right? And it was like, Well, I can do this. Yeah, well, you did real well. Yeah. So like, yeah, man. So like I quote unquote geeked out, you know, like I had like a three. I like a three eight when I graduated or three seven three, whatever the case may be double major. I was like, and anthropology club, you know, like like the highest GPA in our region.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:29] What do you think clicked when you got there? Was it just like, man, like, I want, you know, I want to get that job. I want to do well and inland. No, it was nothing like that.
Pierre: [00:21:37] It was like, why?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:38] Why do you
Pierre: [00:21:38] Know, no job like undergrad? It was just more so like. Me, apply them like me, like literally taking the time to study like legitimately like so like my, you know, people say, Oh, I didn't really study for my sats. Like, I literally didn't study like, I mean, like, literally, right?So like that doesn't mean like,I'm encouraging other people to do that, right? Like my life is my life. There were doors are open up for me and like, I just always. What I always said was like, I got lucky. I was smart. I was a smart kid.But like, I just got left right.Like, sometimes I was in the right place at the right time.Many instances I was like, not in the wrong place, at the wrong time, right, where there are people that were smarter than me that just happened. Kind of make the wrong decisions, right? And it's like there's a little bit of good about that. But nonetheless, I think I remember asdistinctly, actually. So to take a step back even further before I went to Long beach, I actually went to San Diego State. First to San Diego State was a school I got accepted to. It was like highly coveted among all the classes, and it was like it was impacted. I mean, like, it's hard to get into was like thirty thousand students and I was actually homesick. So I mean,Like I was only there. I went there for summer school. I went there for the fall semester and I went there for like what's called a jail term, like the winter session, and I was already on my way back. Long Beach, I just because it was such a new environment like the high school that I went to for forty two hundred kids at the high school, literally in a urban area next to like public housing, right? And it was just like and it was a very different demographic and environment versus San Diego State, which San Diego I want to live in San Diego now. My firm is headquartered there like I want to get a boat and kind of chill, but it goes a different mindset. So like, what is the San Diego State? I was just like, I was coming back to Long Beach every weekend, like, that's what I knew. But the reason why I bring it up is that I remember explicitly, I was like,I was like, I think I was talking to one of my classmates, and she said, Hey, are you a football player here? I'm like, I'm not a freak of a bubble. Like, I was tiny. Then I was like, I wasn't even six feet then, right? I'm like, like, no, like, I'm not here because I'm a football player. Like, like, I kind of deserve to be here, although I didn't, but I kind of did it right. And it's like, and you know, that's almost 20 years later. Like that still resonated with me the day I was like, like, she thinks I'm here just because I'm a ballplayer. So like, I literally excelled in that summer like that was that summer program going into it.I don't like
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:40] Her saying that to you. I think I think I think I think I'm here. Yeah, I can be here
Pierre: [00:23:46] In my producing grades, right? It's like that like a to two classes. I think ones like economic, like a A and a B plus and then like, I excelled when I was there for the fall semester, excelling in the winter session. So when I came back to Long Beach, I was already just like on it right? And like, I like, I can do this.And yeah, just
Navigating college very quickly. I think looking back to answer your question, I was talking to my friends about this a couple of days ago. Is that? It would have benefited me tremendously.Maybe to take a year off, not a year off to like go study abroad, you know, take a gap year, whatever the case may be right or maybe even like, you know, to be quite candid about it. Transfer it to a more competitive school because the reality is that I was like killing it from a Gpa perspective. But like, you know, maybe I should have thought about going to like transfers like a UCLA right or to like an like going out
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:29] East or something like that. Yeah.
Pierre: [00:24:30] Exactly. Yeah, exactly right. But life is all about exposure,
and that's why I wasn't exposed to that. And like, you know, the guys in my circle didn't have the exposure themselves to say, Hey, you're doing so well, you should probably kind of like, think about doing something different. Like, Now I'm that guy for a lot of my, my little, my little boy was like, I'm like, I'm that guy like, Hey, you're doing so well.He's thinking about applying this college thing, about getting an internship when you're In college as opposed to just getting a job like, yeah, like. And he'd like to work at the bookstore or whatever the case would be, but like when you get an internship opportunity to get a career Post-graduation. I didn't have that. I don't know what your experience was when you graduated from college. Nonetheless, I say that because I just didn't have the exposure. I didn't really have it. I was
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:12] I was an assistant yoga instructor, yoga
manager at a studio for my junior year summer.
Pierre: [00:25:17] Well, I would actually that now
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:19] I was working.
Pierre: [00:25:22] I don't stress enough now. It's like, I think like I need. I got the skills.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:26] I mean, I wasn't doing the actual yoga. I can't even touch my toes.But like, I like helping run the shop or whatever.
Pierre: [00:25:32] Yeah. But I just I wish I could be like some of my friends, like interning at like like friends of friends, like, like interning at corporations, right?So that once in a well and then once they graduated, you know, they had a job. It's like, that's a very east coast, Lenovo. And we talk about that. We go back before we literally were in this debate.My friends, like in New York, there were kids and just like no about finance, they know about these careers and they see
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:54] It. Your freshman year, man.
Pierre: [00:25:56] Exactly right. And it's just like they know it and they know it about what to say at college. They're like they're already teed up. They got like, they're they're they already have modeling skills. They can show the DCF model or like the idea that they have.So it's it's very different.It's a long story short to answer your question. And I know we didn't get distracted by was kind of give you some context, like when I was thinking about which school to go to. I just wanted the MBA, like I just had to kind of like, I just like I wouldn't. I would have got an MBA from like any of the Cal State schools or any of the U.S. Is that what you
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:22] Ended up at a great school like when you get into other schools and like, Yeah,
Pierre: [00:26:26] I did. Yeah, no, I did. And so like to the point is like, I think we're in really helped me because it shaped me that, hey, you have very similar you have a similar profile to the other kids that are in this program.We've had a They've had a track record like setting that, setting black people going to the program. I've got a great business school programs as well, right? So if I didn't have that exposure, I'd been fully contained. There's nothing wrong with an MBA from one of those schools I described like that would have been it for Me, right?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:51] And it doesn't open up as many doors be real, right? It doesn't. Yeah, it does it.
Pierre: [00:26:55] And so it does it. But it's like in order to know about it, you have to have doors open for you and have it. So it's like, it's like a vicious cycle, man. You have to have like, Oh, it's you know,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:03] You had to. It's getting worse because the recruiting even younger now out of college. Exactly. So like I think other kids freshman year, I'm like, How are the freshmen supposed to know? Like, who don't who aren't fed it from, like, you know, an early age in high school?So do two
Pierre: [00:27:18] Things. One is that I think I think you know what you're doing. I think this is great because it kind of like breaks down the walls. And like in terms of like just having more understanding.Yeah. Like exposure, opening up doors and like, it's readily available. And the conversation I always have is that, you know, my little ones there, their mom is from L.a. She's an a ttorney, right? Ucla with Georgetown Law School. Their dad is like went to this school with the this school with the banker. And like the conversations that they're privy to, it puts them light years ahead of the classmates, right? Like at the dinner table we're talking about, you know, dad does. He's raising capital like they know these guys. Like, I didn't know that growing up, right? It's like, that's exposure. So when we're talking about like the schools that they want to go to, like my daughter will say, she's at, she's in public school now,But her public school, it's she's in the French program and it's like the content is 95 percent French, right? Have you asked go to the bathroom? It's like French, right? Yeah. So she's like, I want to go to I want to go to UCLA now because her mom was because they have a French program and she's eight, but like to think about that. It's like, like, I wasn't like, it's just very different. So exposure plays a big difference. So that going back to your question. So when I was deciding between the schools that I got into,You know, obviously i had good insights from like the Rearden folks, there were other programs I was involved in. There are other people that I kind of like found myself interacting with that were in the business school circle, getting their opinions.And what I will say about business school is that. People will tell you that the best people will say the best business school is the school that they went to period, right? Like it's like it's like it's like literally like every school is great, like every school is great, but like people like, you know, you drink the Kool-Aid once you're there especially and you're like, This is awesome. And this is like the best school ever. Like, I would have gone anywhere else. I know you would probably go somewhere else. You know what it's like?You decide to go to like
to answer that Darden is the best school ever, right where I where I went. But nonetheless, there are a bunch of great schools out there. I gave a really strong list to Cornell. I love I love Johnson. They have a great culture. I was kind of chasing the idea of like an ivy League degree. It was in New York,But it was just like it was.It was a very remote, although UVA is very remote, too in Charlottesville.Yeah, whether or not it's bad and it's just like, Yeah, I just I think I
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:29] Think, no. And they're both great. You couldn't go wrong with either, either.
Pierre: [00:29:32] Yeah. At the time, you know, I was like, you know, I was dating or I'm not engaged. Like, you know, at the time, my girlfriend or fiance at the time was like she was she had already graduated or she had already graduated from Georgetown Law. So was like it made more sense to go from Charlottesville to D.C. as opposed to go to
like Ithaca to D.C. right on my free nights. But no, man, you know, darn what I appreciated most about. So Charles Darden, what I appreciated most about was like the sense of community small classes. Three hundred people coming
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:01] To you're actually flying on the plane, going East Coast and like, remember that like, were you nervous? Or you're like, Oh my god,
Pierre: [00:30:07] Yeah, I was. I was pretty geeky, man. I was. I was excited. It was, you know, once I got accepted, once I got my own materials and so forth, like there was, there was an education component to it in terms of me just kind of telling my friends in L.A. the significance of it and like, it's a competitive school like, you know, beyond rankings and just like because in their eyes, that's just what we're exposed to is like, why not just go to get an MBA at XYZ University right down the street from us, right? It's like you can be like to your point, it opens up different doors, and it's a very delicate conversation, right?Because like, you don't want to be a jerk by any means. I just like it opens up different doors by going there so like and everybody was like, Oh,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:41] You're too good for the school?
Pierre: [00:30:43] Yeah, and everybody was super appreciative of it. I mean, they were super supportive and it's like, I went there and it's like, yeah, flew into Charlottesville in D.C. and, you know, kind of got set on to each other, Charlottesville, like I'm getting my bike, getting my apartment set up. And you know, it's just like, you're on campus. I don't know if you've ever been at UVA campus, but
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:02] Yeah, it's beautiful.
Pierre: [00:31:03] Yeah, beautiful campus. A very has a very distinct culture to it, which is like not L.A. culture at all. It's like I'm going to pull out now. It's like very like Polo Boat Shoes and it's like, it's cool, you know?Yeah, blue blazer, gold buttons. And that was a little bit of a culture shock, right? Plus, like, you know, it was like it was like a quote, unquote like a true university where it's like my time at Long Beach was more like it was like a commuter experience. I wasn't living on campus, right? So like, I wasn't fully immersed in the university. I was still back in my neighborhood to when I wasn't on campus, right? Like in Charlottesville was like, everything is like. The town is centered around the university, too, which makes it even more like prevalent, right? So, you know, I knew some people going in like you kind of your networking groups or whatnot, and you get a chance to meet your classmates virtually.And it was a great experience, man.And like, you know, the learning team, I guess, in terms of making the choice. I really appreciated the case study method versus the lecture method.So taking a step
back case study method, it's like, Hey, have you read a case and like, these are like realistic like life situations and you're learning like
vicariously through the case itself,Right? As opposed to saying, Hey, here's this textbook re problem. A big problem is one through 30, which is I mean, I grew up learning that way, right? And like, so, you know, Harvard is case method DA. In this case method, Darden kind of prides itself. I think it may be still the case, and it's always like this. Inside, jokes like Darden used to be extremely rigorous, so Darden used to have classes on Saturdays, like literally, right? Yeah. So like literally on Saturdays. And then like the scaled down where it's like now, we're just only going to have class Monday through Friday. And it's like, you know, like it's like we will pride ourselves on, we still do this. I know that this is like one tradition that they still hold by reading 100 hundred cases by October, right? So pushing through 100 case studies, right, like school starts in August, I guess. Whereas like most schools, you don't get through 200 cases a year. But like, it's like you had this 100 case parties, a big event. We pumped two hundred. But they like they pride themselves in like the schools kind of taking a step back because they pride themselves on working really hard and like, like you earning it
right. But then the reverse of that is like, you know, working so hard and it's hard to get a job because I can't I can't do the recruiting. You can't do the recruiting.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:17] Where could it? Yeah. So tell me about that. So you get on campus immediately. Is it like, OK, I'm going consult McKinsey babysitters to do these coffee chats like, cause what's happened?
Pierre: [00:33:26] Great question about that part. So like all my essays were about consulting. Yeah. Back at that time, Goldman had a program that was for people
that didn't have finance backgrounds. First generation it was called a week and once. That was a we can watch and we can watch it as a business school thing.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:43] I wasn't the CEO or anything like that.
Pierre: [00:33:45] No, it wasn't that it was like it was a
goldman Sachs camp. They had a camp. Ok.What they do is like Goldman Sachs camps a day,And they would they would have presenter speak and talk about each division of the firm. You know, sales and trading, investment banking,Risk management technology, right? And so they'll go. And it's a room of people that are all getting ready to go to business school within a couple of weeks. They are supposed to not be familiar with finance, right? Like giving them a shot to get get familiar with it.So we'll also a short.At the time,There was a partner who ended up talking about investment management in the way that he described it was like. And this is the way I describe it to this day. You got to be good at, you know, good or appreciate three kind of aspects of the job. One is that you have to be a people person. So if you have to feel comfortable,
Excuse me being around you and I gravitate towards you and like, you know, just being able to manage relationships to, you need to be extremely commercial,Right? So thinking about like, there's somebody that's selling a business that wants celebrities like, how do you get in front of them, right? Like, there's that commercial kind of entrepreneurial element to it. So is that you have to be market savvy. And I just have an appreciation for capital markets. I didn't have the third one. I was one the business school for it. Like I had the relationship piece. I was doing executive coaching. I was doing some stuff in undergrad on the entrepreneur side, like bit production and so forth. So I felt like I can kind of like shake and bake with the rest of them, like cold solutions.And we're really doing ourselves like a flyer right to come to this event as opposed to like social media kind of broadcast. But nonetheless,I had two of the three I was going to business school going to get the third one. I just took a liking to it. It was like that role as an investment manager was like, Hey, you're your client facing your ad
and you've got to be sophisticated about finance. But you're not just like in this bubble or an ice cube all day, right? So when I came back to campus, when I came my first day on campus, that's when I knew I was actually going to invest in management. I knew that it was not like my essays were consulting, but like I was already in it. So I was like, Now I'm going invest in management. Now I got to, like, learn about investment. So like, I was like using your site like like sites like yours and just like really having an understanding of like. What's out there like, what does it look like, I think because I didn't know, because I didn't know anybody in that bill, right?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:47] Besides, yeah, that's the management at a investment management bulge bracket like that. Tell me like what? What specific is this? It's a broad term, right? It must be management like. Great. Yeah.specifically, what you what you found through that research and kind of what you figured out, OK, this is what my day to day is actually going to look.
Pierre: [00:36:05] So, so, so so two things. So even before that, I think it was like I
had a consulting engagement in New York, one of my best friends. To this day,I really got to know what I was going out there. And he runs a private equity firm in Florida now, and he was there. He was an analyst at J.P. Morgan, gave crushed crush and we were hanging out there in New York like I had. I was doing my project and like, I'm just out there socially on the weekends.You partied with us until like 3:00 a.m. literally go to sleep at three hours and then go back to the desk. And but he's a smart dude, carried himself kind of ways like a banker, and he was like, they were talking like, what an idea. At some time we were just sitting up talking. He's like, You would be a really good banker. I'm like, Dude, I don't even know what that means. Is like,Yeah, like, get it. Like, you understand finance.Like, like, yeah, like people just kind of like what people look like. Appreciate knowing you're like, you're really like cerebral about things you have, like consulting kind of mindset. You'll be really good. So like, I had an idea of investment banking even going into like the Goldman Sachs camp. I just know you work really hard, you get crushed and there's a black car that takes you home and like, you go, you get the
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:00] Car at midnight or two a.m. or, you know,
Pierre: [00:37:02] Yeah, you get free lunch. And it's like, Oh, this seems pretty cool, man. It's like, I'm like, I'm a greedy dude. Like, I work hard, like with anybody else. So at that aspect with a finance like investment banking. But then, like investment management, it was just very broad. I didn't know like sales and trading, like they kind of throw that at you to like, Oh, well, maybe I should be doing sales and training, or maybe I should be like a traditional industrials banker. Like, maybe like, not like the internet, you know, maybe it should be immediate tech investment, or maybe it should be. So I ultimately, like ultimately ended up working in probably wealth management, right? It's like, Oh,You know what? It allows you to
Work with all those among all those across those different industries and those different capacities. But I'm managing relationships. I'm actively trading as well, right? I'm facilitating capital flow for business owners and for those that are that are, you know, financial sponsors are like the shops and the VC shops.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:47] Like when you're when you're applying to this job, do you know that that's what you're going to be put in like? Are your clients are going to be, Oh, no, no, you don't know.
Pierre: [00:37:53] No, it's a great question. Thank you for level setting with me. I just knew that I was going to be a private wealth advisor and the goal was to bring capital in to manage it right.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:02] But you knew you were going to be like you were going to be on the phone talking to clients almost every day.
Pierre: [00:38:06] Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So like that. And so what ends up happening is like, like the school didn't even start yet or just started that week. So I knew that going in and then, you Know, the recruiting this is what the recruiting process is like. So you're doing your work like take a step back in business school. This is my this is my kind of my comment on it.There are three main goals, right?One is to get great grades, right. Two is a great job and three is a great to have great relationships, right? You cannot be effective in all three, maybe some areas. There are some unicorns in the world that exist. I know one or two that exist, but like something has to give, especially at a school like Darden, like you're just like overwhelmed by the work, right? So for me, I'm like, man, like. He had great grades. You know, I graduated three a week after I turned 20, literally a week after I turned 20, right? And this is like major. Like I already had accolades like I'm going to study hard enough, like I'm not going to get one of like the prestigious awards that my classmates got right. For me, it was like, I'm going to go there, I'm going to get a great job, right? I'm going to work at the best firm possible. So that means that whenever they have briefings and so forth, like I was fully present, the follow up requirements were like it was cumbersome as well. And the last part is I developing great relationships. I think you can do two of the three really well. Yeah, sounds like the job is the first. Plenty of strong relationships. I wish I could have done a better job of that. Even looking back, especially with a lot of my, my classmates that were international students, right? Because like, they're just like, they're kind of in their own silo too, right? And it's like, there's just so much to learn from them, like they're eager to be mixed in and like, I couldn't have done a better job and learned a lot from them. But nonetheless, I definitely created some great relationships, and the third was like grades I passed. I graduated, got a degree on the wall, you know, it's like for me, it was like in the job.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:52] I was the same way a warden. I was focusing on almost a hundred percent on like Wall Street Oasis while I was at school and you would go to class. I'd go to class and like, it was cool when I was learning and listening, but it wasn't like I was killing myself outside of to prep for the exams or anything like that. It was like I was just
Pierre: [00:40:08] Wondering what I could do it enough, right? So it's like, Yeah, so like, you need to be on the phone with somebody because you know, you're trying to talk to a New York, New York advisor and he or she only has so much time like, you're going to make yourself available, you're going to hop out of your learning team, you're going to hop out of class and you're going to do. I don't know if that's like, that's what life is like now, you know, schools kind of change or they try to accommodate the students. I don't know what that's like now. Like, like I said, like people, they don't go to school five days a week anymore. So I don't know what that looks like. But nonetheless, when I was my time,Like, you know, the job came first. So my approach actually securing a role. So I looked at like Goldman, I looked at JP. It was like fully committed to those. I looked at Credit Suisse as well when
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:40:48] Back then, but all like you knew this was
Pierre: [00:40:51] A JP. I got a lot of tracks from JP real estate. Investment banking recruiter was like very friendly with me. I forgot I know his name, I don't know his name, but he had a French name too.And maybe he thought I was French.My family's from like, I'm from L.A., but I'm from Louisiana. I don't speak French, my daughter will speak French, I don't speak French. But nonetheless, he took a liking to me is like, You should really be a banker, investment banker, like. And it felt great because like the thing about like,Like business school is like such like a mind, like a mind plane.It's just like if somebody's giving you a little bit of love and like, you should do this and you kind of go, Well, who gives you the most love? And I had to really like, catch myself like, Yeah, man, I can go that route. But the reality is like my classmates that I go on that route are light years ahead of me and their familiarity with banking because a lot of people ends up happening is that you'll have a lot of kids in the class that are were bankers prior to and they're trying to upscale in terms of the types of banks that they're working. So maybe they were too small.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:41:41] You almost didn't go real estate investment banking because you felt like there was no way
Pierre: [00:41:47] You get of the first look at the full time offer. They would give me a summer.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:41:51] Yeah, but then you might that you might flame out during the summer or whatever. Dude, I was
Pierre: [00:41:55] Literally doing excel like this. Yeah, I know, right?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:41:58] Yeah. Yeah, I mean, yeah, and I hear you and like, so there was a little bit of that like you knew kind of where you were at relative to your peers.There was a little bit of like, I'm not even going to go there, although I'll say with the associates, they're a little bit more.
Pierre: [00:42:12] Um, the analysts, the analysts are like, I think I think I don't know if this is what my analysts are the smartest you've ever worked with? Oh yeah. When I was at Goldman, I took my job and done my job extremely like, we're a bit better at it than I am, right? It's like, I think there's a little bit of like patience and like a little bit of a grace.That's a lot of the associates. I don't know if that's for sure,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:32] Exactly like especially technically for people who aren't former bankers. So like, I feel like people listening that are thinking, Oh man, I'm so far behind, I'm on the modeling and all this stuff.Yes, it is. It is a weak point for you. If you're a really good leader, like you necessarily mean that you won't be a great banker, especially at the C.Yeah, no. Well, that's the thing, right? So like, so I was like, I was I
Pierre: [00:42:53] Was still like, I've always when I was younger, I was always being mature. So like I, I was able to take a step back and say, Look, they're going to hire from this skill set, right? This is one component is what you got to do day to day. But like, I knew that and this, maybe this is what attracted me to the recruiter. Like, I knew I can add the most value. If I was like in that VC seemed like I'm driving business right? And like, I'm like, literally like orchestrating deals. But like in order to get there, you got to do the, you know, you've got at least, at least at least align yourself with an analyst that can
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:19] Help you to throw away your mouse a little bit like, yeah, exactly.
Pierre: [00:43:22] Exactly right. So mind you, some might like to put more things in context, right? And probably very similar to what's going on in the world now. That was 2007 2008. Oh my. Right? It's like, yeah, it's like something like I was a summer associate in 08. So like I would, I would have had to be like. Opportunities were even more thin, right,Because like so now like it's hyper competitive to get an offer, it's like I think I made the best decision to turn going traditional private wealth because as opposed to like the way, the way you can look at it, it's like the best in making proper. You don't you're not really client focused, in my opinion. And you know,You can kind of gut check me on this and understand as well is like, can I really client fix feel like you're a Vp, right? That's me.Like, you really. I mean, you're going.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:02] You'll go on the meetings and some
Pierre: [00:44:03] Meetings where you're not saying, you're not, you know, you're not saying much, right?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:07] Yeah, you're not right unless
Pierre: [00:44:08] You're less ass, right? Like, it depends, right? But nothing is absolute. These are kind of like relative statements, right? But then what? They probably well. You literally own the relationship. They want whatever relationship you bring in.Right?
And I'll talk to you about my first couple of clients like literally day one, like, that's your relationship. And like you talk to like the way to think about it is that when I came out of business school and I was an investment adviser in New York, it's like my classmates are like, Oh, this is the CEO of our company x y z.And I think kind of kowtow to them, right? And for me, it's like, give me their email, let me find their email address. I'm going to code email right now, right? Like it was like, I didn't. It was like it was my mind. It's like it's so distorted in there because like, everybody is accessible. You think everybody is there except like everybody.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:50] You weren't intimidated. You're not intimidated at all. And so like, that was a huge advantage for you for P.W.
Pierre: [00:44:56] Because all you have to be like, you got to be comfortable, just like reaching out. Yeah. And mind you, with that said, you know, the business is done. It's purely a relationship business. So I was able to do it.You know, it's like it's hard to
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:45:10] Be there for that goal. Tell me what's going on there.
Pierre: [00:45:15] Yeah, it's like I had a great summer in business school came back.I got the offer. They wanted me to go to Philadelphia.I'm a huge Eagles fan, but at
That time I was supposed to. I wanted to be in DC because I said, You know, my agent at the time was in DC. I want to be in DC practice. There was a new office, but they weren't established enough. They didn't have enough resources there. So they wanted you to be in Philly and kind of live there for a year.So the DC office was built out.I love I love birds, but like, I couldn't do it. I couldn't do Philly. I couldn't ask, you know, you know, I grew up at the time. It was like she was. She was licensed to practice in DC by being born in California. So she had the the bar like, yeah, so like, I didn't want to do it.So, you know, the partner In New York, when the program was like, Hey, you know, you should think about working like you can work in New
Pierre: [00:45:58] York and can work back in L.A., I knew I didn't want to do one in L.A. I didn't have any relationships that were going to benefit me in L.A. I wanted to be in New York, wanted to be on to say that I work on Wall Street or at least East Coast kind of going back to that point, right? So he gave me opportunity to come to New York, and I never I never lived in New York, didn't have any relationships, didn't go to school. Any schools in New York, right? Yeah, it didn't work in any firms there. And the only thing I had, the only thing they gave me great training for sure, like what they end up giving you was a desk and a business card. And I tell you to go rock out.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:46:28] And so there's no way tell me what the tell me about the pay jump to.
Pierre: [00:46:33] Yeah, oh, you're not the ball man. So like back then it was like, I was like, I think what I what? I love consulting. I think it was like I was doing like what time I left. I started like doing fifty five. I, I hit 60. But nonetheless, Mind like, mind you. To put things in perspective, though, right? Like at that time Even when I first got My first job at thirty thousand, like my parents didn't make more than like collectively, the household was probably like four, right? I really like my mom. Like she was like, maybe twenty eight, but it's like I was already up when I graduated right there. Like they could still be like, I'm like, not out of business class, like I'm up even More than like anyway.So when I came out of Business school, what was our contrac Back then? It was. Maybe it was like one hundred days, like 50 and 50, like I saw 50 and then check on my dude, this is like, this is incredible, right? It's like, I'm never like a scientist with you, whatever it was like, it was some number. Maybe I after-tax was 30. Whatever the case may be like, I was like, This is nuts, right? Like, I'm never like my just more than like my household. Like, This is crazy. So yeah, it's like the math was like, I think it was like 150 all land. This is back in 09 that was like standard across.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:47:35] I think you had a job in 09.Coming out of business school Is pretty good.
Pierre: [00:47:38] You so. So you got to you got to be mindful. Like I saw like I was a swimmer. So she had a great summer. And you typically when you're a summer associate, you get your offer like indications like two weeks after. Right? Like, you just know, like they're like, Hey. Or like even like the day you, you kind of shake hands. I look forward to seeing you this fall or next Fall next year, right in the fall. After you graduate. Right? You know, you're getting an offer. Everybody was silent and nobody could say anything. And like, you know, the air recruiters were changing because some of them were losing their jobs. You know, it's just a very crazy place in the fall of 08, right? So the stock price go down to 60 bucks. I think it was like one before that, right? It's like the world was literally falling apart. Here I am looking for an offer, Mike. I need to probably start looking at backup firms because they haven't conveyed to me. If I get an offer, they're trying to keep us at bay like, yeah, don't do it. Yeah, like,Stick with us.And like the other firms that I didn't take an offer from, they're reaching out and they're like, they're engaging me a bit like, Hey, you should think about working with us, you're doing something with us, but we'd love to have you. Yeah. So where they got the offer came back and, you know, the math worked out well. I was very pleased by having to offer, you know, and it's like one of my friends was saying like, yeah, like they just don't give jobs away in a recession, you know, like it's like, there's not like, Hey, because you're a neighborhood kid, let's give you a job. Like, No, you got to like, literally got to earn it because everybody's losing everybody. How did you
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:48:48] Do that over the summer? How do you think you got that return offer in such a horrible year, the worst possible year to graduate?Yeah, I was
The worst summer. I mean, because like, I'm surprised they didn't rescind a lot of offers, right?
Pierre: [00:48:59] So yeah, so so I even to this day, I mean, I think I've never worked harder in my life than I did when I when I was a summer associate, because what ends up happening is that you can't really do too much, especially with an investment like you're like, you're not licensed, so you can't trade, right? So like you're at the desk, you're like, help them build a model like building decks or we're not. And like, there's a lot of training throughout the day and then at night in the morning, like you're reading up on the market because you're getting grilled all the time, like you're having like these open meetings where like, like Timmy wasn't getting the training right, like you're like on the spot and like, you got to be comfortable. Like, I got that because a dark case method like we kind of got that part, right?But yeah,You're just exhausted. Like, you always have to be on, like you're always selling yourself. You can't really be comfortable and you're like, It's not like by the time I got home, I was just, I was done like, I Just, you know, I graded it out. I was sharp. I made tons of great relationships.Even through the recruiting process. I had some great relationships at those firms, and I pride myself on that. To this day, I did a tremendous job in terms of following up and did this concept called and I want to get back to. I wanted this practice, but there's this constant call Triangulation that was taught to me. I was already doing it. It's like, Hey, you know, you introduce Pat, you introduce me to one of your friends that's in the bay and you said, Hey,You should really talk to this person. We'll call them because we talk to rob. I reach out to Rob.Have a great conversation. We're talking about whatever business topic, what I will do from there. I'll ask Rob, like, Hey, Rob, or two to three other people that I could chat with that you think will be a good fit, right?Rob introduced me to two, the two or three of the people. I come back to you and say, Hey, Pat had a great conversation with Rob. We talk about X, Y and Z.He also introduced me to two to three other people, right? I reach out to the two to three other people. Have a great conversation with them. Go back to Rob and say, Hey, Rob, talk to the two, the three other people. We had a great conversation. These are things we talked about. Come back to you. Like, Hey, Matt had those conversations. The two or three other people, things are going well. This is not progressing right. And so like a lot of time when those two to three people talk to Rob, there's already that connection. Like, Oh yeah, Peter told me the conversation was great. By the time that Rob chats with you, you know that I chatted with Rob. You know, I with the other three people and they're like, It keeps my name top of mind, right? I'm not asking for time from you, right? It's like, Hey,I'm just keeping him out of it. Yeah, no. And I hope you're, well, happy holidays.Whatever this is what I'm doing, I'll keep you posted and let you know, like how the internships are working out. So anyways, by the time I have this one, I should mention by the time I actually did my interview for Goldman, my official. So you, you do your preliminaries that you're. I can say an hour meeting or whatever, do you have your on campus, excuse me, on campus interviews like you're sitting in a room and you're like, they're long winded interviews. I have my on campus interviews. It was like me kind of like this. Like, like this chopping it up with guys already knew, right? Because like, I was already in cadence with them and I put so much effort on the front end like I wasn't really focused on school as much as I should have. They already knew me. I'm talking about, like, not necessarily their family, but like, yeah, their family. Like, What are you doing? Like how, how x, y and Z going? And I'm building off every story to like. I've always done a great job of that.So like, I knew
The business because I was like leveraging their story. So then by the time I interviewed was like, it was more of a conversation.Yeah, you
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:51:55] Were talking about, Oh, well, Rob told me this, and I know you guys do that. And so you're able to kind of pull from all those conversations rather than it being like they're grilling you on the markets, necessarily.
Pierre: [00:52:04] And as opposed to me coming in and say, tell me about like, tell me about your job, right? I want to learn about it. It's like, No, you got to put forth the effort. So that means
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:52:11] When you were getting that, you did that. So when you said that on campus interviews, are you talking about when you first got on a campus, you were like networking right away with all these people?
Pierre: [00:52:19] Yeah, yeah. So you reach out to people like, Hey, I'm interested. So I literally made a note to myself. Just wanted to talk about some triangulation is one kind of like nugget worth like keeping in mind. The other words, this concept of having like safe stories or safe conversations and what that means is that when you approach, whether you're on campus or whatever, you're looking for a job. So this is my process. I didn't know much about finance, right? It didn't make sense for me to talk directly with an MD.Our group leader. Right. It just does it like it's great. It sounds cool. Like, Oh, I chatted with like, you're talking to your class because everybody's like hypercompetitive. Get a job. I talked to this M.D. like, I'm good.Like I would have messed up, right? So for me, it was like, I want to have a safe conversation. The first thing I did was I talked to my classmates same year as me that worked in Investment management before going into business school. Tell me about the experience. Let me ask all the quote unquote dumb questions now and kind of like, get out.Yeah, get a cadence going, right?Then I scaled up.I talked to the second years the people that have already discovered or maybe they worked in the book prior to had those conversations, right?Then talking to the people that recently graduated from Darden. And these are Darden people, right? Like, they have some affinity to me. They're going to listen to me, right? Are they're going to show me a little bit love, a little bit of grace, right?And they kind of worked my way up within the Darden Pipeline thing. And once I kind of worked my way up the dance and I started branching out and you could talk to some other group, I mean, other schools, right? But they already had this cadence to like this, like the skill set, this knowledge base, their structure, and I have the stories that I can leverage and I'm triangulating at the same time.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:53:39] When you a story you can leverage, tell the listeners what you mean by that.
Pierre: [00:53:43] It's just like you have a more fine tuned understanding of the business, right? The nuances like in terms of it's the one, the question like, how are you going to go about building your business?And it's not it's not Like you have to be really thoughtful about it. So like you have to say, like, I can't say that,Hey, be in New York, I want to cover. Although I worked in oil and gas, I want to cover it on gas bankers like there's done a big population of oil and gas wealth in New York City,Right? It's like the story has to align with the market that you're having.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:54:07] So when did you when did you actually know to like, say, when they would ask you these questions? When did you have a good answer to that?
Pierre: [00:54:13] They would allude that you have to have a business plan. But then so I start, I was I was concurrently creating my quote unquote business plan as I was going right, knowing that I was going to have to have one at some point.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:54:23] It's crazy what you said around day when they bring you in full time, they just give you a phone and a yeah, exactly. It's like you have to do your thing. Tell the listeners, what does that mean? Like, who are you calling? How do they get? Are they giving you numbers? What, what they'll give you?Yeah, they don't give you anything.
Pierre: [00:54:40] There's no role. There's no there's there's no list of numbers to call it literally is you
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:54:45] Just get the business card and the good name on it.
Pierre: [00:54:47] Yeah, you look into the paper,The deals that
have been done, you're looking for the top 50 real estate developers, top 50 hedge fund managers, top hundred you're calling on. Every other firm is calling on them. Your colleague who's right next to you is calling on them as well, and you're just trying to insert yourself in the relationship. So it's like for me, like I started thinking through what's my background and what market makes the most sense? I'm like, Well, I cover consulting. Maybe like corporate executives. You know, there's like there's some stock value that needs to be managed and so forth. They can bring that over. You know, I did a little bit of media tech consult when I was like, I covered that industry, so maybe I'll talk to the media as present in New York, so maybe I can do a little bit of that. There's like a strong intermediary network terms of getting introduced, but you literally so you have to be mindful of the audience like the market that you're in.So like energy banking wouldn't make sense, right? Or any other kind of like unique or nuance industry. It doesn't make sense. It has to be like prevalent, so it has to be a viable business. So like,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:55:51] If nothing is a big enough market, wherever you're at to to actually generate the revenue that you need to support your?
Pierre: [00:55:57] Yeah. So you just got to be you got to be thoughtful, you got to understand the space that you're playing
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:56:01] And you're coming from no background, no connections. I mean, yeah, you had some connections within the firm and some a little bit across Wall Street. How did you come in there and how did you like what was this business plan? Give me a little taste of it.
Pierre: [00:56:12] Yeah. So for me, it was like it was media corporate executives leveraging intermediaries like attorneys. So I knew a little bit.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:56:18] You just trying to get him to bring their money over to Goldman?
Pierre: [00:56:21] Yeah, so the goal was literally to bring their bring their money over or to bring their interest in raising capital like ipo and whatever the case, to make sure that they do it through Goldman, right? So like, once they once they cashed out and took risk off the table, then I would be there to manage the money as well, right? So my approach there was. I end up covering a bunch of smaller firms calling like a bunch of early revenue, like early like companies that were probably doing like 10 $30 million
of revenue. They weren't viable clients, right? Like, go to an IPO, you need a couple more zeros behind you. Yeah, right. They didn't have much liquidity needs to be managed, but I would treat them like that. They were a three hundred dollar client. And I would do all the headaches I had. I had time right and I would treat them like I was investing in their business, their success and what ended up happening. Why, why and how it carries over to what I'm doing now is that I created somebody like so many relationships with middle market bankers because they weren't big enough for Goldman. But I was giving those guys deal flow, right? Because like, I'm like, OK, like, Oh, we can't do it. But like, you could transact your private equity, you could transact for them. So I created a strong network in that space. And then like those like those guys had their balance and girls had their own balance sheets that needed to be managed as well. So I was doing it for them. But yeah, I was calling anybody and everybody. And it was like literally banging my head against the wall. I would not recommend that approach to the population. It can be done.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:57:39] What do you recommend? What do you recommend? I mean, is it was it unfair to expect success from a kid that had no background in finance except for the Mba and just giving you a phone and a business card? Or is that? Yeah, no.
Pierre: : [00:57:54] So I was talking to one of my good friends. He was he was
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:57:57] Because you were there for 10 years, man. I mean, so like, tell me about the progression. Like the first couple of years were brutal.Yeah, it was painful.
Pierre: : [00:58:04] Yeah, I would say, you know, all eight of the 10 were painful. It was painful because that business is based on having relationship right and the harsh realities of the world. And this is about like, what can you replicate? People like to do business with people that are like them that went to the same school like, oh, West Coast guys are like, Hey, you're part of Boston, right? It's like, if you're not of that world or that environment, it's not. It's not. There's a difference between what's possible and what's probable, right? Everything is possible, right? What's probable is a bit more challenging and to put the cards on the table and my friend would appreciate if we had this conversation last night. I think in that space, private wealth, high net worth. It's hard for a kid who grew up with minimal means. Extremely poor to be successful in that business because at the end of the day when we were talking to these clients, like they didn't necessarily grow up like they're not. Some have like these are like, you know, these are absolutes with the majority of them, right? And like their interest won't necessarily align with how you. I didn't know anything about the question, right when I was a kid. I know about a question right now, right? I think I don't know. I don't know anything about Roy. Yeah. Golf. Yeah, I don't know anything about rowing crew as a kid like now. Like, Yeah, it's the competitiveness. The cat watching the squash,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:59:19] Squash crew, equestrian. Yeah, you're like, he's going to play squash.
Pierre: : [00:59:24] Yeah. But behind, you know, he was a he was actually. It was crazy because like, there's a little bit of like the ethnicity racial demographic to it. But he was a person of color. He was he was a rock star squash, right? But he grew up in the East Coast with all the boarding schools and like, he's like, he's at the club, you know, like, it's like, that's a very different environment than how totally different. Totally different. Yeah, it's like, it's not. It's not like there's probable possible. So like the probability is a possibility. So like it's possible to be like but the probability of not having those meetings and like not having those shared experiences make it challenging because a day people want to give business the people that are like them that are like that, they see them at the club or that, Hey, what did you spend your weekend, right? I was on the boat. I was out east like that. Like, I get it, I.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:00:07] It makes sense. It makes sense. They want to able to connect with their advisor or whatever. So tell me about like, so your your progression like it sounds like the first couple of years probably were brutal, like bringing in those.
Pierre: : [01:00:17] It was all cold calling and like Coke. If you look at you have somebody like a successful advisor, like how did they get their book of business? I was not going to beat the Coke. All right. It's like it's not, you know, 95 percent is like ninety eight percent like the people that they already knew. Give me, introduce my family friend, an old colleague, old classmate and whatnot, right? Yeah. But that's the only lever I had was to bang my head against the wall. And so I the reason why I'm adamant about like, tell the stories that can be replicated because I remember sitting in the room, I'm like two to three years in. I brought in some business, not a I probably brought it a little bit of business. Like everybody is like chomping at the bit, right? One of these guys that was firm, he was getting tired, like, like everybody was a fan because he was bringing a business and I'm like, I'm in the meeting. He's like all the new associates. I'm like, Look, and they were like, you know, bragging about this guy. So they want to encourage you to keep doing it. I get it right. They wouldn't encourage you to keep trying like business. And I was like, Oh, crushed because working plenty of weekends like trying to get my list together to cold call or whatnot. Yeah, they were like, Yeah, person x y z. Tell us about the deal you want. That's great grass high. Five. And like, you know what? Like, let's dig a little bit deeper, right? How did you get the win right? And I wasn't being a jerk about it. But like how? Because I want to be able to replicate it like I'm banging my head against the wall.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:01:25] And what did he what did he or she said?
Pierre: : [01:01:27] Well, you've got to remember like, so this is like this is like 09 20, 10 people hated Wall Street. Yeah, hated banks then, right? You're right. I'm calling like and I go mad at anybody. It was like people hated. All bakers think they hated Wall Street rather than saying about it. He was like, Oh, well, I got it from, you know, it was like my uncle that wired in 15 million and I was like, I don't freakin have an uncle. I have 50 million dollars, right? And it's like. And I said that I was like, It's like I told the woman that was on the program. I think it's important to tell stories that can be replicated, right? Because like if a guy is out there banging, making more calls, or maybe he's call the right person. I didn't make the call. That's the one thing I can replicate but I can't like the familial affinity connection. I just can't write like, just doesn't fit.] Yeah, it doesn't benefit
me in that in that space, right? So I think having a fine understanding of that and once again, it's not like it doesn't mean that it's so do you.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:02:17] Do you regret kind of going right out of school instead of the baking?
Pierre: [01:02:21] No, I loved it. I mean, it was like, I loved it to the extent. I mean, I loved I love the ability to like my first client. One of my first big clients was a founder of a publicly traded company, right? Great Guy X Mackenzie super server. Like super smart. He was actually very patient with me because like he was like he was like, he was like, he knew everything, right? And, you know, we could call got him in or whatnot. And he was the founder of Public Trading Company had like four thousand Five thousand employees. He will call the desk and he would say, Is Pierre, they're Right in mind. I was like, I was partnered up with people that were like 20, 30 years, my senior. And that was my guy. And I had this 20 million dollars right. He would call me for market advice. I report to him I was like a part of myself on me, like white glove service, like high touch, right? And we just had a great relationship and it was like it was something cool about the fact, like, This is my guy. I'm still 20 mid-twenties or, you Know, eight 20, whatever the case is like, this Is my guy and he's talking to me. I'm just the neighbourhood kid from Warby, right? And it's like, like, I think today I'm offering value now. Mind you, we didn't have, and he was. What was cool about him is that he was he was actually from another country. He's international. And it's like he didn't. He didn't have. He was anchored in to like on the wealth of U.S. wealth experience, so he didn't grow up playing. Cruz is like, there's
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:03:32] No preconceived notions. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Pierre: : [01:03:34] He just kind of made it. He worked really hard, created this business and like, so maybe he appreciated a little bit of that grit within me, right? And that's why he gave me business. But the reason why I bring it up is that it will interface
with these people. What is my class and say graduated are still like? They're still not talking to me legitimately, right? Like so I'm talking to their CEOs and like literally trying to manage their assets. So it didn't happen as fast. I think, if anything, I would have changed. I wish I was like related to more wealthy people, right? Or are you just like a period?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:04:03] But if I could change anything and be related, more wealthy people? Yeah, that's a very good point for GWM. I could see how they'd be helpful.
Pierre: : [01:04:09] Yeah, yeah. No, for sure, man. It's like, it's like, I get it like, you know, you don't want to. You don't want nobody wants to. I don't want to anchor it on that part of life. But like, that's the reality of it, right? And it's like, once again, you can be successful, like having and and meeting. The concept of having means is all relative, right? It's like, why was it extremely wealthy? I didn't have a butler, but yeah, but maybe like if your dad was a CEO of XYZ Company and his friends or CEOs of those companies, they're going to give you a look. They should write like my life in this capacity right now for my kids to have those same kind of looks like that's everything I'm doing is for their benefit, right? Yeah. So that they can have those relationships and those experiences. So long story short, it was the ability to like. So I don't regret like relationships that I established the clients that I covered, all the middle market bankers that I gave business to. So think about this, right? I was young 20 or mid 20s young guy, but I was giving other people adults business. I was like, Here, here's a business that Goldman can't cover and we can't transact on. I'm going to give it to you. You can do the deal on it. So they love me. I have tons of friends. You know, when I was twenty seven, twenty eight they were like 50. They were my friends we go, we would dream and go smoke a cigar like they loved me because I was giving them business right? And it was just like, and they were like, you know, they would they would try to introduce me to business as well. But so I was able to bring those relationships to bear in my current role. But nonetheless, it was a great ride, man. I learned a lot know helped them create what's like their sports Entertainment group now that exists at Goldman. I did it literally like Bouchard's like Nobody like the firm. The firm met me. They met me along the way in many respects. They don't give you business and they were supportive, and they definitely were more patient with me, given that they knew how. Just I didn't have that background, right? Yeah. But they knew like I was out there making calls and sending emails and like creating relationships so it can be done. It's just exhausting. I mean, I
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:05:55] Mean, how many, how many calls you think you were doing a week? On average, 20,30 calls, at least,
Pierre: : [01:06:03] Oh more than that. Yeah, you were like thirty in a day. Yeah, you do. Like, I had an opinion, like I told your girls, Yeah, no, it's good. But. So just being like, I don't want to. I don't want to like, you know, find myself in the wrong thing. It's like the last four years, like, you've established such a Book of business that now You're getting inflows, right? So you may have the wealth, but now you have a client as introducing you to more clients, right? So like that helps start feeling like you shouldn't be cold, like you don't have something like you shouldn't be cold calling like past five years, but it's something to be said with the other people that were doing it still right because like they still wanted to, like, identify new business that's out there. Yeah, right?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:06:40] I mean, that's the thing. That's what they say with or like any sort of asset management role, right? Eventually, it becomes Very lucrative because it's just you're building those bricks, right? It takes a long time to get one. But as you build it, you usually keep the clients for a long time, right?
Pierre: : [01:06:52] You do. You do. They stick with you. It's very sticky. It's not. It's not one. All transactions like clients with you for year. You get integrated in their lives and
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:07:00] You know, they get integrated. So tell me why? Why leave? Kind of like, was it just like the grind was just too much?
Pierre: : [01:07:06] I was. I was burned out, man. I wasn't. And when I was there, I wasn't my full Self there as Well. It was hard to bring my full self to work, given that my whole self to work at work. I think corporations are a little bit more open, given everything that's going on in the world right in terms like being more embracing. But at that time, you know, at the end of day, people were like, How are you spending like, this is a very New York question. Essentially, we have kids like, you know, what are what are you and the kids doing for the summer? Like, how are you spending your summer? And it's like something in New York. That's. What else on your vacation, which is cool? That's like that with my kids. Like, what if you don't have the means to do that right? And it's like, it's just so it's a very different world. So like, I wasn't
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:07:45] Like, we're hanging out in our apartment,
Pierre: : [01:07:47] Literally. Yeah. What do you mean you're going to be you're going to be in the city hanging out?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:07:52] Yeah. But even as an analyst, there was that pressure man. I was as an analyst and IAB, I was like, Well, they're like, You're going to go to the Hamptons. I'm like, what? Like, No, I can't more like, like, my dad cut me off after college, you know, so it's like,
Pierre: : [01:08:05] Dude, like, I'm like, I pay enough to live in the city, which is another issue. Like, you know, I'm not living in the city right across the street from the office again. I'm going to enjoy this city Like, it's just like, I'm not. We're not going out East, like we're not doing that. So like, it got it became exhausting to kind of like to have that shock and awe factor. And I kind of manage the Eagles are the people that I'm chatting with because it was like, that just wasn't the world that they were like, they literally like, You're not going out east are like, you live down here in Battery Park, your kids and your kids are going to school down here. I'm like, Yeah, it's like, there's nothing but bankers, attorneys and nannies down here. Like, it's like it's a great area to be in. You know, it's like, like, no, like, I pay so much rent to Keep them down here. But long story short, I mean, like it was, I think it was like, I want to get back to LA in the of just of ways. So I had to work for a small regional Bank of Bank California. And, you know, they brought me over say, like, Hey, we want you to bring that New York pedigree out here. I really want You to like to grow our business right in terms of extending capital city balance sheet to financial services professionals and small businesses out here. And, you know, didn't know much about the firm new. I wanted to be back in L.A.. Both sides of my kids, the grandparents are in L.A. as well. So there's like that car, like being in New York. We love our our own nanny. She still to this day, like there's not that support system, right? So it was just like I said, it became very old. So it was it was a life business decision, but ended up doing that for a while, a bank. And, you know, they they weren't extending capital to the extent that I had hoped for. So which makes it hard because you're doing this, they're like the only way you
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:09:36] Can do Dev. And then they're saying, No, there's no product.
Pierre: : [01:09:39] Yeah, there's no product really, right? So it was challenging. I thought I thought it was a smaller bank that they would be. A bit more flexible, right, because of course, like the golden handcuffs, like everything Like it's like, Do this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like it's like the government doesn't want to touch words that like, I think we can do tons of deals and we can really get deals done so that that that ended quickly. Then I ended up doing like some prouder work for a bunch of people. It's a bunch of private equity firms helping them raise capital and doing business, like identifying acquisition target for them and structuring and helping them identify position targets. And then I ultimately came across the role that I'm in now of how our digital it's like it's crazy agency that's been around for eight years, based in San Diego. So like, I'm back in San Diego, you know that S&P was taken aback. It doesn't say any state alone and full service digital marketing 210 people. We are private equity backed ourselves. Right? But what's unique about it is we do like pay search, Pr, Anything you can think of within the realm of social media, right? Our digital marketing is great. But what's unique is that we have this machine A.I. that's diligence. Ted Canova. And what it does is it literally latches on to a company's analytics like Google Analytics, Google Ad, Shopify, Amazon.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:10:53] Everything on their digital. Everything brings it together brings it together.
Pierre: : [01:10:58] It analyzes all machine eyes and ran for seven years. And what it does, it will assign a score to that company, saying, Hey, you score 180 out of 220. We can show you how to get to 200 of 220, right? That's great. Digital market optimization, that's cool. The big kicker for like a bunch of my friends is going call states like the big Joker, which is like, well, open space like is that it allows you to forecast revenue growth with 90 percent accuracy over the same time period. So the group that I run, I head up our private equity venture capital division. So all we do is that we insert our diligence.
Tech is called Nova within the journey of P or VC diligence process. So they're looking at operations, balance sheet, logistics headcount. We're purely coming in looking at digital marketing and say, Hey, you're thinking about buying this company, you're yellow while you're in, you're thinking about buying this company. This is what the investment will be required from a digital marketing perspective for it to grow. But more importantly, this is the revenue uptick that you're going to get. So we were able to calculate that last number with 90 percent accuracy. So it's beneficial to that extent and then on the other end, it's like these are companies that are already within your portfolio.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:12:01] But this just for digital companies or does this work for a lot of them through?
Pierre: : [01:12:07] Exactly. So, so B2B is top of funnel, right? So B2B is like, how do we get eyeballs, ears and feet to the business? And then like we can get to the bottom, it's all about conversion. We track it down. So we do B2B, e-commerce, everything. Yeah, everything right? The site, the science is impeccable. So like the job itself is to make sure. So my day to day what I was getting at is that all I do is talk to growth investors, BCP biggest firms in the street, right? And I help them incorporate our diligence tech as a part of their process. And now the conversation is different and it's like, it's not like, Hey, give me money. So it's a manager. Give me an opportunity manager. The Burning Man. It's like I can show you how to make money. I can literally show you how to go from 10 million dollars on your co revenue to twenty million dollars in the six month window back buy back. My back is 90 percent accurate. Like literally, we can show you that right? So the conversations are a bit more readily received, I guess, because like, I'm now coming to guys and helping to make money and it's cool, man, because it’s a mixture of a finance or finance for those in New York finance, tech, finance, tech and digital marketing, right? Like, I always wanted to get into tech. All my friends are like working at the Googles of the world, their T-shirt culture right, and I get free lunch T-shirt. It's fun, right? And you get paid well to work there. But then it allowed me to still be within finance and like to really like to leverage those relationships that I've already created when I was a banker at Goldman. So it's a great man. We're adding a lot of value. We're helping a lot of small portfolio companies like Seed Stage. I'm really more like serious companies grow on the VC side. We're helping investors be smarter in terms of the investment decisions that they make it through to the companies that they buy, right? This has been a great seed. It's been a great young firm. As I mentioned, we're private equity backed. We think that there is like there's some tremendous opportunity for us to transact in the future because of us. We're perfect fit like a tech enabled consulting firm, so I'll maybe be coming back full circle to like the consulting world, right?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:13:57] How did you how did you think about jumping to like taking that that firm was like you had left the Bank of California and you're like, Hey, I just need to get, you know, get something.
Pierre: : [01:14:07] Yeah, well, I still I was I was working in private. I was doing doing what I was doing deals for. Yeah, that was good. I was doing deals. I mean, I was I was in W-2, right? But I was I was good. But no, like I saw the role and it was literally was a new group to the firm has been around for eight years. The technology's been around for seven years. The division wasn't established. They were doing. They were like working with some P and VC firms like loosely. But our private equity sponsor was like, Hey, this is like phenomenal tech in our idea. Like, you should roll it out to the streets. They were explicitly hiring for somebody to drive to create this business, P&L responsibility and so forth. And so I was like, This is perfect, right? So I was debating between that and like thinking.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:14:46] So, yeah, it sounds like I'm a tailor made for you because you had a lot of those relationships too.
Pierre: [01:14:51] Yeah, no. Yeah, definitely bring all them to bear and like, it's like, it's like it's a it's a it's a customer base that I know, right? But I was thinking about doing that and like going back to like private wealth management like I was. I was kind of over that right. And it seems like it was like they got tenure years. I did 10 years of service, you know, respectfully to the servicemen and women in the country like I did 10 years, you know, on the street in New York City proper. And I got tired of like trying to create these terms. It just I want to be I was I'm a little bit older at that time. They were pulling myself Out of erm, and to really just like, enjoy where I was working. Like, I had great other great experiences when I was in New York. But at the same time, it just wasn't, you know, it just it was. I probably have more grace now because of that. Not as many as me. No doubt. Well, you've got to cut it down, but quarantine is great. But no, it's just like it's a perfect seat. People that I work for mature and dirty. I'm probably the. Talk to him in terms of the older guys there. Right? But, you know, the person that the president reports is like two years older than me, the CEO was like five years younger than me. Great culture. It's cool, man. It's all fun. It's like brilliant people, people that were as brilliant as my colleagues at Goldman. But they're just like, brilliant about digital marketing, right? So it's a new language, and what I'm doing is this is the coolest. The cool part to actually what I'm doing is like, I'm literally bridging the gap between finance and digital marketing, because what happens then for the finance folks, is that what you think of marketing as an expense? Right, right. Whereas in reality, and I'm like totally drinking the Kool-Aid, like I'm like, baptise in the sauce, like it really is a revenue driver. It really it really is a revenue driver. It's like now, like, so my cell cycle, my life is that process is a little bit slower because like the PBC, folks don't get it necessarily immediately because they've been doing deals and they'll continue to do deals without this tech that we have, right? Yeah. But now it's like me kind of like telling, like, let me show you what it does, right? And let me show you how we can actually forecast. Let me show you when we did it, like the growth potential that you have, like the Operacoes. And for those that get it, we all bought, they love it. So it's been a great ride. You know, it's one of the first like, you know, if you think about my career, I can kind of walk through the full spectrum of it. It literally is the best place I can ever be. Like, just in terms of like the people that I work with, the software, the
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:17:08] Tech team talking about like lifestyle, that's the difference between lifestyle. Obviously, sounds like you're a lot more motivated, rejuvenated you feel good. Tell me about like lifestyle wise.
Pierre: : [01:17:16] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, lifestyle is it's hard to because like we're talking about within a koven environment. So like, it's just really, really weird right here. Like, I think everybody is working harder now remotely than you would be if you were in the office because like, work never stops, right? It's like, it's like, Oh, it's
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:17:32] Like, you're talking. Yeah, I've been talking to associates and banking. They're just getting completely murdered.
Pierre: [01:17:37] It's like going out to dinner. They're not going out, you're not going out. You know, you're not doing a client dinner, right? Like, you're like, you're on your couch. Or maybe you move your dinner table to your couch and like, you're around, right? Like, there's not much you can do so. So, yeah, you're working hard. I would say that in all fairness, though. What I gather of it is that the digital marketing folks work
As hard, not they're not working like hard, like baking analysts, but they're definitely up until like ten o'clock, 11 O'clock at night. Like you're just like, you’re seeing things through because winds up happening to in this world. Like, we're doing so many calls and like that at some point, like, you don't get to do your work Until like the evening, right? And I said, What? So I cover? I cover the firm Nationally, right? So what's challenging about my scene in particular, is that I, like most of the private equity firms, are out east, right? And all the visible. What I mean? Yeah, right. And it's like literally doing calls at six am for my East Coast guys. And like, I'm doing calls here at six pm from my West Coast people, right? And then you have to actually do the work then, like life is about follow up. Right. So then like, when do you follow up and triangulate like you're doing that in the evenings, right? And then you're having calls with people that are aspiring to go to business school when we're big and they want to kind of tap in and check with you. I've been doing a lot of that this week where like, there's not a lot of time, but the difference is that the job is fun. We work with a bunch cool. The poor that I'm covering are like, really cool, a bunch of cool Tech, but you're cool Like e-commerce brands like there's Like the like the Exciting element to That. I don't have to worry about putting on a suit and tie every day or, you know, like making
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:19:04] A comeback that I've been away from for a long time. Yeah, like
Pierre: [01:19:08] That element element of making sure it's like the right tie, right? Like they like the like. It's like, you know, my element is out, like, you just come up and show up and you go to work and like that part. And the economics are great. I'm still there. I don't want to go too much detail, but like, it's just like I'm doing. I will be doing just as well as I Was doing when I was in New York. Just in Terms of like, if we continue to do all the things that we're tracking, we're we're forecasted to Do And the conversations are just more rewarding. So I'll tell you
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:19:37] This, it's a little bit of a pay cut on the cash front, but in terms of options and other stuff, it's potentially
Pierre: : [01:19:43] What was hard about and this is what was hard about banking, especially in the see that I was in. So in investment manager probably won't take over. You're not. You're not based on bonus. So your full commission, that's another part of your business card may say like, hey, you're basically when you first start, but then you flip this trigger and you call it self-sustaining and then you bring on enough business to outpace your base and bonus, and now you're fully getting paid on the money that you manage, right?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:20:02] So did you ever get down below that base and bonus that go down all year?
Pierre: : [01:20:06] No. So what's the yeah, what's what's our self sustaining? So you were
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:20:09] Getting paid probably pretty well. By the end you had that base big base client.
Pierre: : [01:20:12] Yeah, but the thing is that, yeah, I you know, I had yeah, I was I was doing well. I was Doing that.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:20:18] Not only was I don't want my sharing around with like two hundred
Pierre: [01:20:21] K three point one, that was, yeah, I was I was the way I was. I was generally speaking, I was doing more. I was doing. I could have been. The 12th man or 11th man on the roster for the Knicks. It's like that kind of like, yeah, like, yeah, but like a lot of it, you know, it's like, you know, it's not like when you think about the NBA, you can't take like LeBron and like these contract. Think about his 11 12 minutes, and this is like, this is back in those times, right? So it's like, it's like the pay scale is very different now for sports as well from 11 12 men, but nonetheless Doing extremely Well. But like the hard part was that You were paying stock to them, Right? So it was like, you're making this number, you're making a dollar, right? But it's like, no, it's really like 70 cents. You can see the 30 cents are there, but it's like, it's like something like that 30 like that that like. So the student loans that I have aren't taking this like 30 cents in stock.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:21:16] But what is that four year vest to get the Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly right. So, yeah, so like, you're wait. It's like, I can't pay my student loans. I can't buy a house with that. You stayed there for a while, at least. A lot of those vests did initial.
Pierre: [01:21:29] Yeah, exactly right. So then the other part is like, then you're like, you’re living in New York. You're like living in I live that I literally lived across the street from the office. You have to work the math like, literally, it's like Golden was two hundred ninety west. But, you know, you kind of work the math. I'm like So there's there's it's expensive In being in the seat and kind of like maintaining the lifestyle to be there. And it's like nothing extravagant. It's like, these are just cost, right? Yeah. So like, did you, you're doing well, but like, you don't really feel like you're not banging on about anything or do anything differently. I would work like the Dallas office or the Miami office because like, there's no state income tax, it's a little bit cheaper. I mean, it's
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:22:08] Like it's like a big trend for that now. I don't know if you've seen it around the news. Yeah.
Pierre: [01:22:13] Oh yeah. The thing about making the trip to Miami, but like then it's like, Yeah, you make that. If you were to move there, like what? I've been able to build my business the same way, like at the end of the day, there have been people that have been doing my job that look like me in New York City since the early 90s. So like, there's not not that on shock factor. There is still there was still a lot of it in New York. Like it was a little bit easier, right? Because like people just get Finance in New York, whereas in L.A., there's like a lot of education that takes place in terms of the industry of finance. So yeah, no, I was I was I was doing well. I was in New York. Excuse me, I'm doing well. And now that picks up is very different based on balance, but. Run a paddle, you know? We'll be hiring soon enough in terms of going out of business. But it's small, I think I think what's interesting, especially given the demographic that you're talking, we're talking to, is that. For me, I think everybody wants, you know, as reckless as they were going to maximize their growth, their earnings potential. Right. I get it like I was.
I grew up with nothing and I hate when people say that, like they kind of grew up with a lot like, literally, I grew up like, I didn't have much, right? And so like, I wanted to, like, maximize it and they're different, like maximizing it’s relative to right, but I want to make as much money as possible. Then when you do it, and that's when you realize and people tell you this like money Isn't everything I used to get pissed Off when people used to say that, but they were wealthy. They're like, oh. Money isn't everything. Like, how did I do? You're welcome. Let me experience it first, and then I'll tell you, I'll tell you that money isn't everything. So people that are Listening money isn't everything. But, you know, I understand that you got to experience it for yourself. So now I'm at the point in my career, my life was like, there are other things that bring me happiness outside
Of getting paid rightAnd so like what you'll see is like, there are tons of people that are still in banking to this day. And they hate it. They hate it. Like they just like they just like this is like, they're like, they're miserable every day, right? Because like, the money is there. But maybe you can't spend it the same way. Maybe because it doesn't hit the same, right?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:23:59] Yeah. Are your relationships with your family or friends?
Pierre: [01:24:01] Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I see my kids. I'm able to pick them up from school like my kids are going to get to the age where they start playing. When the western world normalizes, they'll start playing ball like any kind of ball or any kind of sport. I can be a coach. I mean, like I can, just like I can, I can. I can be there. Just like there's like a rewarding element to that, you know, In my life right now, like, supersedes, you know, the dollar, right? So and so now I'm doing it, and I still get paid a well-enough dollar right. Like I have that flexibility and I'm working with this like, really cool, normal people, right? Like every aspect of life whereas, you know, I was in this like small kind of silo world where he's like, just, yeah, it just wasn't real.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:24:42] Well, I mean, on man, people usually don't last for 10 years. I can tell you that.
Pierre: [01:24:46] Yeah, no, I. I get reminded. My friends, remind me, I mean, once you were there, you know, on the street and its like, Yeah, I guess it was right. And it's like, I never knew anything about it, nothing about it at all. Like, I've had a bank account like Chase back in the day when I was a kid. Like, I just. That's it. And it's like, all right. And it was funny, I forgot what your pursuit of happiness came out with Will Smith like. I was like, that’s like my freaking life, right? It's like, just like cold calling, like he's like, you know, I forgot where you worked in the bay, but it's like the Chris Gardner story, actually. He's like, he's like, you know, cold calling. Like he came from nothing like, it's yes, it was just a grind. I mean, tons of great relationships out there. I think everybody deserves a nomination well before COVID. I don't know what it's like now, but I think everybody deserves an opportunity live in York for a little bit. They like to feel it and they get the energy of the city. I think that's A place where like the brightest, You know, people and this is like me Romanticizing it. I get it. But like the bright light. Let me, let me. Let me finish. The right is the brightest in any given area. You go there and they move there.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:25:44] That's like, Oh, sorry, I was going to ask you, I was going to ask you to like, We've kind of come to where you are at now. Is there anything just looking back, not what you'd regret or anything you'd change, but like any kind of work, final words of wisdom before we wrap up, like in terms of.
Pierre: [01:25:58] Yeah, I think, you know, working with it, I think I think everybody deserves opportunity live in New York, especially with the violence.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:26:04] I think that was there for six years. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, see the smell. I think it's like
Pierre: [01:26:09] Outside of finance, like New York, it's very diverse. Every walk of life is there, every religion is there, every language is there. And you just say the thing is like New York versus L.A. is like L.A. is bubble culture. Everybody's in the car to kind of live in their respective areas, and you may go from one area to the other in your car. In New York, you're on the train. You're literally might have got a client. I had a millionaire. I was like worth like six hundred million people take the train all the time. I know a billionaire guys will take the train, right? You're there, you got the banker, you got the turn, you got the dancer, you got the person newly Immigrated, you got the homeless person like, he's like, you know, it's like everybody. You just you're not talking. You see each other right? And you just kind of see. So I think there's something exciting about that and just Makes you sharp. I remember when I was in New York and were working all these crazy hours of the day, but I still find time like I work out a lot as much as I should be right now. So but like quarantine, like, you know, people like, they're working 60 hours a week, but they go there training for the marathon, right? And they're volunteering. They're volunteering 15 hours a week or whatever. No, I don't know. Sounds like a non-profit, right? Or maybe they have their own business. It's like, yeah, it's like, literally, and this is the all-stars. It's the best and the Brightest are out there. So you could spend some time there. I think that's Kind of like last nugget. I'll leave and others just thinking about like, I think the follow up piece, the triangulation that I chatted about. I think that's critical. I think the safe conversations is critical. What I what I would also say this is very helpful for the people that are the audience is that we can end on this note is that what they have to remind themselves is that they're pursuing it. They're looking at a job or looking at a firm, and they're trying to get face time with these executives that are there. There are thousands, hundreds of other people just like them, those students that are reaching out. Right. It sounds crazy like that are just like you, right? It's like if you find somebody that doesn't have time because literally they're trying to do their job managing your household and allocate time To students like they just don't have Time. So what they can do in order to be Successful in terms of Navigating the recruiting process, and I didn't mention this is that I was very intentional and thoughtful about all the conversations that I Have. So as Opposed to like, Hey, can we spend an hour to 30 minutes crazy stuff like this, you know, chatting. It's like, Hey, can we spend 15 to 20 minutes talking about these four things, you know, very relevant points, very like customs, like the region to the region that they're in, and it's building on prior conversation. Can we talk about these four things in 15 minutes, right? You get them on. You talk about it. You kind of connect the dots of who else. You know, other countries like you should demonstrate the work that you're doing. I'm taking the time to chat with this person who told me that this is a unique what's unique about the Boston
Office Democrat Versus the dollar, which sounds like, OK, this person kind of gets it right. And so then once you get to your questions, it's like, all right, 15 minutes is up and they like you. They're like, No, this is going to continue to talk, right? But then it's like,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:28:52] Because you actually aren't just clueless. Just asking. Yeah let me give you one more time. Yeah, let me let me give you more time, right? And then and if they're busy and they don't say, you know what? I'm busy, no, like, maybe we could follow us all the time. But like at the end of the day, you're being thoughtful, you have your notes and like when you follow up and then like after that, you have the means to say thanks for the time. You don't say you don't request. Thanks for the time. I'll be posting along my journey, right and keep them posted. I don't want to check on with you, like, Hey, how's it going? You, you're sending that note like, Hey, I met with these other People like, Oh, we should Maybe catch up again and you're fine because you're being respectful to Tom, but you have to be mindful the fact, like all your classmates. So my my responsibility was I had like the L.A. pipeline at the UVA pipeline. I had the Reardon Fellows pipeline. I had my fraternity brothers pipeline had, you know, Diverse hires, minority hires. So I have that pipeline, right? And like everybody was in and I just had like everybody like, you know, look me up on LinkedIn. It's like everybody. It's like they're all calling me, Can I get 30 minutes? I'm like, No, dude, I don't even have 30 minutes to myself right now, right? But if you say, Hey, this is what I've done, I want to talk to you about for 15 minutes about these given topics. It's like Rachael's like, that's that part. And the other part of what I used to started doing when I was at Goldman, everybody would hit me up for time is that I would actually encourage group calls because today it's like doing your classmate. You guys are all asking about the same thing, right? Like, how did you get there? What is the life like? It's like, let's all find 30 minutes where we can collectively talk. So send me your questions in advance, right? And I'll give you the information you need. And so like, you don't have to sell me like, you're getting information. And it just helps me out, and it allows me to like to make those kinds of comments that like to make time for this conversation. So just be mindful of your audience, understand like they have job responsibilities. They're not giving you the highest because they want to like, just like there are hundreds of other people like you that are reaching out that are trying to act like everybody. 100 people ask for 30 minutes. You can kind of do the math right. It's like it's just not going to work. So just be mindful your audience. The good part about this
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:30:46] Is your advice will now hit several thousand people in one. Exactly.
Pierre: [01:30:50] So I tell people like I tell people, I talked to my guys like, you should just call it, it's like recording literally. Like, I point to like a document. You can hear you can
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:30:57] Point to this party, but just listen to this.
Pierre: [01:31:00] Yeah, legitimately. It's like, I do this. Like, like, you know, Reardon has been good. Like, I think I talked to they’re like, they've been able to get like what we can point to at that point. Let me point to this and like because people, you've got to be and this is like from a business perspective, I'm always mindful of my audience, right? And like right now this week, it's been really weird because like things are slow people or some people aren't, but it's like, I think it's like pretty audacious on my end. It's like to reach out to somebody like, Hey, give me new business right now. It's like, it's like, and it’s like New Year's the week or the week before the holidays. It's like, for the record, this
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:31:32] Is December 31st, 2020 for anyone listening or recording.
Pierre: [01:31:35] this is to be fair to Pat. He's been nice. He's been like trying to get in front of me for a couple of months. I just like pushing it back. I've been busy, but like, this is the best week for me because things are slow, right? In terms of like all my clients and like the VCP guys or girls like, they're not on the desk necessarily. So it doesn't make sense for me to go out and like to reach out for new business right now because one you don't want to miss. You only get one shot, quote unquote. You don't want to miss the shot, right? So you want to make sure it's an so I honestly to tell talent like I'm mindful of like the people that I'm talking to like, would they receive this outreach? Well, right now that's that also goes back and actually to clarify is like, You ask them all the calls I was saying I was like, I made a quick pivot to doing emails because in emails in New York City, everybody's head down, looking at their phone, texting, you don't get a signal sometimes like texting or like getting an email right and like, you can kind of control an email. Imagine this there are people that have been calling me right now during this podcast, and it's very disruptive, right? I'm here. I am talking to Pad like I sure we should have been chatting months ago. I can't take the call, right? And in the same way where I was calling on people trying to get there at capital. It's like, you know, I'm trying everything else is trying to get their capital. There's not much there's not too much Unique about what we were doing at Goldman. I mean, it's a great brand, but like we have this like strategy, solutions are pretty much similar across the street, right? Yeah. It's like you just got to be mindful the audience may. So it made more sense for me to send somebody an Email knowing that they can respond to it when they want to. Sometimes they respond late at night because it doesn't work for the day and all against us. 11:00 a.m. I mean, 11:00 p.m. And when they responded, I would be, I would still be up and I would respond back to as well and the other pieces that I would end up making the call. But now I can reference the email that I made. Hey, Patrick, is people calling him x y z? Following up on my email that I feel like I'm a big fan. Just like, yeah, just being mindful of your audience and like, give me yourself a bit of giving yourself a bit of grace, giving them a bit of grace as Well, and just being like, It's so easy to be kind of consumed on the me, me, me. Like, Why is it somebody responding saying, Why are they being helpful? You got to understand that people are just like dealing with a lot, like working on other stuff so you can make people.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:33:37] Yeah, you get you get a hit rate of five percent. You're doing, you're doing well for cold. Yeah, but you got you got to make sure to make it
Pierre: [01:33:43] Easy for them, right? Like, even when I was talking one of my colleagues two hours ago, a recap email to one of my clients, I'm like, you want to make it so that they don't have to think about how to respond, give it. Give them an action, either yes or no. Well, actually, this is what I do is like, tell them what we're going to do And allow them to say that we're not going to do it if it doesn't fit right like this is what we think the budget is going to be. It's like they don't want that to be the budget and they'll come and they'll tell you otherwise. You said, OK, you give me a budget. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You ask them to give you a budget like they're not going to really focus on the email, they're going to focus on their day to day job. So then hopefully what I what I shared today could be impactful to somebody. Be mindful of Can I leave one quick? Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, go. There's a concept. Huge. It's this concept of running your own race, right? And it's like kind of like your own. You're only competing with yourself, running your own race means. And I learned this when I was literally in New York City. I just run up and down the West Side Highway and the bike path or whatever is so in private. Well, it's like, yeah, like it's easy to get distracted about other people bringing in business, but you don't like you don't know if that story can be replicated, right? So you've got to stick with your plan, how many calls you're Going to make your
Approach and your business plan execute and get. You're your race. And the reason why and it really does have a racing function because I remember being on the West Side Highway that was like I was in New York City marathon runner, you know, so for hours, like I was like, you know, I was I was running right as big as I am to right. So but nonetheless, I remember running on the West Side Highway and. You'll be running and somebody will literally pass you up and make a quick right. Yeah, she's like hardly, but like, how am I running this? Like how they pass me up, right? But like what you don't realize is that that person could have just been starting out with fresh legs. Right? It's like they're just running it and they maybe they'll kind of like, you know, slow down then or they can be finishing their run. They want to finish it with the sprint. So when they turn the corner, you don't you don't know where they're starting at. You don't know where they're ending right there. What's more important for you is to maintain your pace. You said you Want to start out with this pace like run your own Race and like, don't get caught Up with what everybody else is doing because you don't know the circumstances In which those kind of quote Unquote success have occurred. Brian, you don't know if it can necessarily replicate it, so make sure you have a very thorough plan and you just execute on your plan. You be mindful of competing with yourself. So hopefully that was a good one to end on. I appreciate the time, and it's definitely a good chat.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:35:56] I love that. I love ending on that because I think it's so, so true. It relates to a lot of things, not just with the work plan, which is life in general and not looking always to your side and being content with what you have in. Grateful for what you have.
Pierre: [01:36:07] It's crazy, especially in the social media world, man. It's like there's something out there. Yeah, I guess like, it's easy kind of you kind of like literally got to be like discipline and like, run your own race, and it would definitely work.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:36:17] there’s a lot of people showing the best part of their lives. They're not showing the the parts
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:36:21] of their stress, the sleepless Nights, the kids screaming, My kids, you know, screaming like, yeah, it's this is not easy. I got crazy. I can't even shit. I don't have time to shave. I'm like, I'm like, you know? You know, if you are like, Oh, you know, People like to glamorize stuff, but it's, you know,
Pierre: [01:36:37] I romanticize a lot of stuff, but I also have a good habit. You made me miss New York. You made me. Yeah, no, for sure. Yeah, I I'm a very I'm very candid about the realities of the job, the place that I work. You know, it's just like, yeah, like people do business with people that that they're familiar with, that they like and you know, you can find yourself being not. So I was very now I am and I was am very knowledgeable about tons of stuff. I have not experienced it, but I am very knowledgeable of it, right? And because I'm just an intellectually curious kind of guy and I knew that, you know, selfish enough that it would benefit me to get to know about these things. But yeah, I mean, a great chat today. Sorry, that took a little bit longer than anticipated, but you know, it definitely was. It was. It was. I received a lot of benefit from it. Yeah, I received a lot of benefit from it. So for those that are out there that are thinking about that are professionals that myself that have a little bit more experience, a little bit of experience. I think about doing a podcast. It's a great it's a great experience. I would recommend it kind of therapeutic in ways. Yeah, it makes me feel bad because I am getting old. I have been working at these places. I start to start going years out like I did in 2002, like high school in ninety nine, like, oh man, it's like you're out there. But nevertheless, No, no. Thank you for the time. And if there's anything else I can do to be helpful, thank you. Thank you for everything you've done for my network as well.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:37:49] No thank you. 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 dot com. And till next time.
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