WSO Podcast | E146: NYU Stern to BB Investment Bank to HF/PE/VC Hybrid Role
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In this episode, Andy shares his path from NYU Stern to the stressful summer analyst internship recruiting process. We learn how he ended up at UBS, what happened when his group, Power and Utilities got dissolved, his strategic decision to join the energy group, and how he leveraged his time in banking to land a very interesting corporate development & strategy role that allows him to dabble in the public and private markets as well as growth equity and venture.
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WSO Podcast (Episode 146) 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.
Andy: [00:00:22] Let's get to it.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:25] In this episode, Andy shares his path from NYU Stern to the stressful summer analyst's internship recruiting process. We learn how he ended up at UBS. What happened when his group power and Utilities got dissolved? His strategic decision to join the energy group. And how he leveraged his time in
Banking to land a very interesting corporate development and strategy role that allows him to dabble in the public and private markets, as well as growth, equity and venture. Enjoy.Andy, welcome to the Wall Street Oasis podcast. To be here. Thanks for having me. It'd be awesome if you could just give the listeners a short summary of your bio.
Andy: [00:01:06] Yeah, so my name is Andy. I graduated from nyu Stern in Twenty
Seventeen. I majored in finance and mathematics and coming out of college, went to UBS Investment Banking. I was in the Power Utilities Group for about a year and a half and then for about half a year in the New York energy team. And then after that transitioned to a corporate development and strategy role at standard industries and have been here so far for about a year and a half.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:35] And how should we think about standard industries like family office, doing PE, doing what type of investments?Yeah, the explanation sort
Andy:[00:01:43] Of changes depending on who I talk to every time. But I guess for the audience here, I feel like standard industries would be more of a family office. And so my role is called corporate development and strategy, but it's really a catch. All we work on sort of investing across the wide swath of things public markets, private markets and typical PE style, but also a lot of the work is just traditional Strategy and corporate development. So thinking about the portfolio companies and what we can add on to create synergies.Awesome. Ok, so let's start all the way back at NYU
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:20] Or even before, like when you went to NYU, were you thinking? I mean, you went to to stern.so you you basically knew I'm going finance. Like, so were you like in high school thinking ivy or like, when did you know you wanted to go that path?
Andy: [00:02:35] So surprisingly, I went into Stern with a pretty open mind. I had heard of Ivy a couple of times through high school, but I didn't really pay it much attention
Coming to Stern.It definitely is sort of thrust upon you that ivy and finance is the career path is the job to go for. But I sort of went in with a more open mind. I I sort of looked at marketing for a little bit, went to some actuarial science clubs and then took a good look at accounting as well. But I guess just the resources that Stern offers and the community was sort of very centered around finance. And so I sort of slowly sort of gravitated towards that as the years went on.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:23] And do you feel like you needed to know early, I mean, because you only graduated like four years ago, did you at that point was like the accelerated recruiting happening, was it? I know Stern is a huge feeder, right? So is it like super cutthroat, competitive? Tell me a little bit about like because everyone's always like, Oh, you know,Target schools have it easy. I mean, you're in New York, you have a huge advantage. But tell me about just what it's like actually, in terms of the competition, obviously, the competition is much better too, right?
Andy: [00:03:52] I'll phrase it this way.I think if you go to NYU Stern and you have just some sort of strong interest in investment banking or finance in general, you will find a job and you will find it good one.And so with that in mind,That was this is sort of just hindsight, 20 20. Speaking here, but I think back then it felt super cutthroat, competitive, I think. Um, when junior year rolled around, like we still had the luxury class of twenty seventeen, we still had the luxury of more or less regular recruiting. It was kind of junior year. Junior year or think early?Right?Yeah, junior fall, I think you kind of start thinking about it and then through the winter and then junior spring for that junior summer, that's when the oh, that's pretty late.Yeah.So it was it wasn't actually too accelerated when we recruited.There were definitely some events sophomore summer. I remember here and there, but nothing like it is today, which is literally sophomore. Software fall if you're looking at the knot the following summer for the next summer, but yeah, when we did it, it was I felt it felt not as accelerated, but it's still felt competitive. But now looking back, I think everybody who wanted to be in the industry sort of ended up finding their way there just because by virtue of being in New York City and going to NYU Stern.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:21] Yeah, it's a huge advantage, even if you're not at a target school in New York. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about, so what about your just your background? A little more. So are you from you're from Toronto? Because I see you?
Andy: [00:05:33] Yeah, I'm in Toronto, Canada.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:35] Yeah. So tell me a little bit about your family. Were they ever into finance or marketing or kind of why stern was it? You don't seem to be a whole. You don't give me your essay like you can tell us the truth of just a good place to help you land a job at a school is fine.I always, always the thought process, you know.
Andy: [00:05:52] So interestingly enough, my parents are very academic folk. My dad, they immigrated here from China May 20, 30 years ago, and they came here for school. My dad got his PhD in mathematics at University of Alberta,and my mom did her master's in computer science. And so they were very academic folk. They raised me to sort of be very academic. Hopefully their dream, I guess become a professor or get a get a high higher than a bachelor degree. And just. Very academic in that sense. My dad actually surprisingly enough transitioned out of academia into finance, so he did a lot of risk And risk management for a lot of the banks and financial firms in Toronto doing modeling, but not our kind of modeling, but actual Risk, risk
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:50] Risk, statistical modeling. And so,Yeah, so a lot of
Andy: [00:06:54] Deep and deep and code deep in all these different kind of math software.And that was kind of like my first little peek into the financial world. I remember just meeting up with him in high school for lunch or whatever, and I had to walk through these tunnels In Toronto that run underneath all the banks. And you just kind of see everybody buttoned up and suited up walking around. And I thought that was kind of cool, and I was like, These people Look so important.I wonder what they're up to. And that sort of, I guess, subconsciously kind of poked me towards business school. And that's kind of how I ended up at Stern, I guess.Sounds fair. Ok, so you're
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:32] You're kind of a go fast forward again to junior year. You're coming in, you're thinking at this point, you're kind of getting swept up in the whole idea of recruiting like you have a couple of friends doing it and then you're like, Oh, drop my resume. So what did you what did you do end up doing kind of your freshman and sophomore summers?
Andy: [00:07:49] Oh, freshman year. One of my dad's good friends, he worked at Manulife, and he was.And he he ran the risks department there,And so through him and I'd meet him, I met with him, spoken to him a few times and he had a head opening there and I applied, went through the process and ended up ended up going going through that process and ending up in life. And that was kind of like a quantitative analysts kind of position where I was doing a lot of coding to kind of automate a lot of processes that they were working on as an
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:28] Intern is pretty good. Or were you doing
Andy: [00:08:31] During your standpoint? Yeah. And it was a great experience because I was deep in code and kind of trying to figure out how code and finance and financial processes kind of connected. Were you coding in? Vba mostly. So it was a lot of just like excel driven kind of automation, that's awesome and that's great experience
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:52] For an entire freshman internship. Yeah.
Andy: [00:08:56] So I was deep in VPA for about three months and then That gave me kind of my like my first foray into what quantitative finance could look like. Obviously, you know, they. They don't do like Excel automation, but it was kind of like a good taste of that.Right, exactly.And. And so the following summer, I actually. The following summer sophomore summer, I was actually studying abroad the semester before so sophomore spring,And so it was kind of stressful looking around for a job from abroad. Where were you? I was in Prague, Czech Republic. Awesome. And so I remember I remember the spring, too. We went with a bunch of stern kids to and around that time, like getting close to the summer, like April, May. Everybody was like, Oh, I had an internship. And everybody was in the in our like dorm lounge in the middle of Prague, just like trying to look for jobs and interviewing.But I ended up finding a asset management role in asset management. They actually got bought by Aberdeen. But I think formally known as Arden, and they were a fund of funds, so they invested their money in other hedge funds and other fund managers, and so it was interesting just to get exposure then to the to the broad hedge fund and. Some institutional investor landscape, because that's, you know, they were judging their judging like fund performance and looking at different fund strategies and was kind of cool just to get a good landscape of.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:29] Yeah, it's kind of it's kind of a good internship to have. If you're curious about hedge funds because you do get that broader view, you're not doing like the trades. The fundamental analysis, obviously, like, yeah, which is which is also interesting, but you're you're kind of able to get a really macro view, right?
Andy: [00:10:44] Yeah. And it was pretty cool because some of the data you get to work with are, you know, the the performance like quarterly performance of all the funds that you know, they look at. And it's kind of cool to see, oh, like, these funds aren't doing so well. Oh, this one's doing really well. Yeah, and kind of kind of see that all that's so cool. What's so cool?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:01] What was the best fund? You know, not no names, but what was the best returns you saw if you remember back in? This would be back in what? Sixteen, seventeen?
Andy: [00:11:12] Yeah, sixteen. Yeah, I don't remember what the numbers were, but all
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:16] The returns of like 30 Percent or higher quant
Andy: [00:11:20] Funds are killing it. The funds were just killing the game. That's all I remember looking at. Those guys is just insane.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:27] So did data that didn't kind of attract you didn't think, Hey, I want to be a quant
Andy: [00:11:31] And go to work? Yeah, I mean, I thought about that and then, you know, I thought about and it was good that I had in my freshman summer internship. Yeah, and I feel
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:39] Like instead of just sitting in code all day and you're like, Yeah,Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
Andy: [00:11:44] I I did major and I did major in mathematics, and I always loved, you know, computer science and mathematics, physics, all that stuff. But I felt like part of me really enjoyed looking at things from more of an Eagles Eagles eye perspective. And so looking at things from a bigger picture and not being stuck in details the whole time. Yeah, that's kind of what I felt like freshman summer, where there's a point where I was so deep in code and I kind of. Everything becomes abstract. You kind of forget about what you're actually doing for this company and you're just like, I'm just trying to solve this puzzle the day.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:22] Mm hmm, interesting. So obviously you had a super high GPA because you graduated summa cum laude, but so your GPA was an issue. You probably got a ton of interviews.What what was the what was the conversion rate from?Resume drops to interviews, first round interviews at the banks for you. Was it like ten out of 10? Was it so frank?
Andy: [00:12:44] I'll be frank here. I always feel like the recruiting process is very different. School to school. It's really hard to tell a student from another school how to approach the recruiting strategy, especially if they're a bigger school where there's a dedicated recruiting team from the bank.If you're if you're out in a non target where there isn't a dedicated recruiting team for you, I think that story is a lot more generalized and you can follow a set strategy for NYU
specifically. There were NYU specific recruiting teams for every bank, and so
the strategy was a little different and. I I'd initially thought that,you know, GPA high GPA is really important. Some finance internships be super important. Oddly enough,My success with the initial stages of interviewing was was not that great. And it was a
huge eye opener because I realized that, you know, investment banking isn't a terribly technical.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:46] Yeah, I was going to say they may. They may have been a little bit. Hesitant about your seeing all the technical stuff thinking this guy is going to be like a robot or a computer nerd or whatever. Mathematics guy, like he's going to get so bored writing pitch decks, we don't want this guy right?That kind of a thought.
Andy: [00:14:05] Yeah, exactly. And and that I feel like that was sort of a thought and partly. Partly, my mental frame was not correct, either, because I came in thinking that, OK, technical skills, finance experience, I should be set. But I didn't really think about the interpersonal and the social component of it, which I didn't realize was that huge
and investment banks. And so the networking component and not just scheduling the chats and going to them and, you know, spending 20 30 minutes talking to some guy or girl and then checking it off your checklist. It's it's about going to these chats with the intention of creating a relationship and developing a relationship with that person and trying to get get to know them, get to know their experiences and essentially get them to like you as a person, but obviously not go in with that with that expectation. But just to go in thinking that, you know, I just want to meet a new person and to learn about what this bank is like.And now looking back,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:11] Yeah, what were you doing? You were just going in and checking it off the list.Exactly right.
Andy: [00:15:15] Because, you know, I just this really was the first kind of real job or internship that you would get, you know, it's kind of the internship that's converted to a full time offer. So they think about you as a full time employee. So this is kind of like a your first real job application.And it was a great learning experience because again, I didn't know how big the interpersonal and just not being. Weird and just being sociable and being likable.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:45] Do you feel like you're a little weird still is coming in your junior year a little awkward? Yeah, for sure. You don't come across it now, I mean, so whatever you've done, it's worked.
Andy: [00:15:53] I mean, years of years of just interacting with people in offices,I guess three or four years of being in an office.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:00] Why do you think that? I mean, so yeah, I agree with you hundred percent. I mean, I think a lot of people underestimate that behavior portion, especially the questions like,Come about a weakness.tell me about a time you struggle with the team talking about a time when you let a team, those kind of open ended questions where oftentimes you see the people who are more engineers, mathematical types approach the answers is very formulaic and you can almost see them just reciting their their story.But it's it's there's no there's no feeling right.They're not building a connection with the person across from them. So it's less of a conversation, more like this question.I answered this way. This question,I answer that way.And it's almost like a formula, and you can feel it almost in the in the conversation rather than it flowing more naturally.I don't know. That's is that. Is that accurate? Is that what you were doing?
Andy: [00:16:49] Yeah, for sure. I think there is, I think the the wealth of resources that are out there. And obviously, you know, the Wall Street Oasis has so many great guides and great Pointers that help candidates through this. I also feel like as a double edged sword, if you don't interpret it correctly and that They're their guides, they're not instructions, you know, they're are one.They're the first step for you to develop your own thoughts and your own kind of answers unique answers to each question of your question that might come to you. They're not instructions saying, you know, this is the framework to answer this question. You know, I hear the star ramework all the time, and people misinterpret that now to be like, OK, I have to walk through my answer S.T.A.R., just like, give that answer like that and it just it.It's really easy to tell. Obviously, from the candidate's perspective, you think you're doing it correctly, but from the interviewer's perspective, it's really easy to tell. They just followed some framework and cookie cutter answer. So.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:52] Yeah, no, it's interesting, it's interesting to how to balance that, because all these well, then well, then what do I do? And I think it's more about really as much reading about body language, facial expressions. I'm developing those skills where you have a high and high enough IQ to know whether what you're saying is resonating to say, say what you're saying with confidence and like a level of of genuine delivery that is hard to hard to do in an interview setting. But if you can do it, you really, really have a much better shot at making that connection and impressing someone. So that's what I always say. It's it's hard to teach. It really comes with reps, but you can teach it. I truly believe that because I know from my own experience you get better. Yeah, your delivery gets better. It's like an actor, right? It's like when you first try to deliver your lines. It's not going to come across very naturally. And then once you get used to it, I always say it's better not to memorize word for word, which you're going to say, but have kind of ideas you want to. Um, but anyway, since I was at your experience, you are you striking out like when you said you kind of were surprised at how you didn't do well, like what do you mean by that, like the number of interviews you
got or just your your first rounds?So I think when recruiting started. It started with sort of a lot of On-Campus events, I think a lot of the a lot of the banks sent their recruiting teams to Stern. And there are a lot of these lunch events where, you know, five or six of these guys and girls will go up on stage, give their experiences and then after the
Andy: [00:19:30] Presentations over a swarm of like one hundred kids, just. Descends upon them and then you have all these like little circles and these guys get overwhelmed and you try to get their business card, it was just a complete,Complete disaster to try to navigate. And so I realized slowly that. You know, you can't just blankly put in your resume anymore. I think especially coming out of NYU Stern, where I think the standard for students is is generally pretty high when you're viewing certain kids from from a an interviewer's perspective.But also, there are a lot of these relationships
that are developed between grades. You know, the president's fraternities, just good friends that they graduate, they're two years a year above you. They graduate. And so. There you're above you, they've done their internship already, and now they're senior and they know people that they can connect you with. And so it's a very kind of relationship web kind of driven process.And I slowly started to realize that when a couple of friends and people on you started getting interviews. But you know, the interviews haven't started yet. So it was just kind of like, what's going on? And so at that point, it started like,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:47] Oh, I don't know, the right people.
Andy: [00:20:49] Yeah, crap, I need to. I need to start networking. I need to start doing all these chats. I need to start like reaching out to people I know. And I was probably a little late to that game and then
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:02] Senior year at this point. Right, exactly. And the added
Andy: [00:21:05] Stress with the added so the stress of being late to the late to the game and also the the added social frictions that I had personally where I write, where I was kind of like a little more awkward as a kid at that time made it made it a difficult
kind of interviewing experience.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:27] Definitely. Yeah, and so.
You noticed there were some, like almost earlier interviews around before that official process that you're saying what's going on? You didn't. Were you part of a business frat?I was a part of an honor society. It was kind of it was kind of similar. More or less, yeah.Did they have a lot of love in banks? A lot of them. Yes. Yeah. That helps a little bit.Probably right that that helped me get into UBS.That was that was it.Yeah. Ok. So word to the wise get into these clubs because then you meet the people who are a year or two years ahead of you, a freshman sophomore year. And that's those connections are the ones that can help pull you up, right? Yeah. Or at least gets you the first round interview. Yeah, so. So tell me on the first round interview, did you did you only have
A handful then of first round interviews at the banks or tell me how those went?did you do you remember like rough numbers?like from first round to second round, Super Day or however I worked.
Andy: [00:22:32] So it was a very staggered, I remember so. It wasn't like all these banks started interviewing at the same time.It was years
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:42] Later, early.
Andy: [00:22:44] Ubs was kind of in the middle of the pack. Okay. And I was already sort of late to the process, but
Andy: [00:22:51] I had a few close friends who at UBS and they sort of helped me get that first round. And so I just bust it through the UBS round really quickly and then just took it because I was like, I am done with this process. This is just too stressful. But yeah,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:05] Okay. So you went through the process and had you done any other first round interviews at other banks before then? Um, do you remember?
Andy: [00:23:15] Not really. I had I had one kind of like pseudo. It wasn't really like a first. It was. It was kind of strange because it felt like an interview,But it was more. It was
Called. It was. It was supposed to be a coffee chat, but it kind of felt like an interview because they brought me into the office. Yeah, I sat in an office next to next to all the bankers and then one by one, like it was in three or four bankers came in just to talk to me for 20 minutes. They sounded like they all felt like interviews.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:43] Well, what was that? What was that bank? Do you remember Bank of America? Ok. Yeah. So you kind of had a pseudo interview not knowing it was an interview at Boa.You didn't make it past that because you probably didn't even realize it was A.. I was caught so off guard. Yeah.And and then basically. Well, that's that's kind of a good tip. If you if you think you're going for a coffee coffee chat in an office, be ready for an interview. Yeah, exactly.So then so you had some friends help you get the first round convert converted to a summer, right? And then tell me you of accepted right off the bat, so you stopped interviewing yourself the whole process because it was a nightmare.
Andy: [00:24:24] Yeah, basically. I mean, there were there were a few banks, I think, family and Credit Suisse that I had interested, interested in, and so I like paying a guy I knew there and a guy and you, Abimbola, and was like, Hey, look, I got an offer from UBS.Like, are you guys still running a process space open? You know, I. Obviously, you tell us, like, this is my first choice, you told Bam, Bam was my first choice. See what happens? But they had already closed their processes. So OK. I was just like, OK, fair enough.Yeah. Ok, so you
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:56] Get there in the summer and what is it like? Is it a blast because they're wining and dining you? Or are you working 100 hour weeks? What's the what was it like? So I know it's going on with a large bank because you have a large group, right? Yeah.Analysts tell me what it was like.
Andy: [00:25:11] So so my banking experience was very atypical. For one, my group was very small. It was maybe 15 to 20 people. Power Utilities was a pretty small group within within UBS. And.And for one,My summer experience was a lot more difficult, both from from a workload and hours wise perspective and just and just just generally just navigating a corporate environment. Then when it was joining full time,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:50] I think for how many hours were you doing in the summer? Do you think 80 90? I understand it over a hundred hours.
Andy: [00:25:58] It wasn't wasn't wasn't 80 or 100, I think it was 70 80. It was like nine to nine to 10 or 11 every night, the occasional midnight. So it wasn't like
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:08] No weekends or.
Andy: [00:26:13] Every other weekend during the summer, so, yeah, so I guess when 70, 70, 80. Yeah, it wasn't. It wasn't too bad,But you felt it
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:25] Was tough because of the corporate stuff and the politics and all that.
Andy: [00:26:29] Yeah, the politics.nd, you know, everybody's trying to trying to get this full time offer and every single mistake that's caught, just like send your head into a complete swirl.And so that
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:44] Tape, you remember your mistake, your first mistake.
Andy: [00:26:47] Oh yeah, I remember we were running this running the sale process that, you know,Didn't end up being being such a successful process and. We only got we only got I remember there's we only got one bit. And so our standard set of materials was like summary of bids, and I use this template that sets summary bids, but there's only one bid in there. And I remember one of the associates. Got pretty frustrated that I left off the plural on the cover. And, you know,Now looking back, I'm like, that was, you know, like I shouldn't. It was nothing to freak out over.But I remember back when I was an intern, I was like, Oh crap,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:32] I just lost my full time offer.
Andy: [00:27:34] Yeah, yeah, I was like, This is bad.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): : [00:27:36] Summary of bids. Here's a one bid.
Andy: [00:27:39] So it should have been summary of bids with
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:41] This supposed to go to the client. Um, did it go? Did it go to the client with saying summary bids and there was only one bid?
Andy: [00:27:47] No, no, no. They caught it. Okay. Yeah, they caught it before it went out to the client, but
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:52] Would bid on them.
Andy: [00:27:53] Yeah, I remember that vividly. I was just I was so stressed that day.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:58] No, so OK. There is that any other kind of like model. They didn't let you touch the model or you doing mostly pitch work or sorry, PowerPoint work.
Andy: [00:28:08] I did remember poking through a model, but I don't think there is any kind of modeling work that where my work was actually kind of relied upon. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:16] So then tell me a little bit about how the summer progressed when you found out you actually had the offer or the full time offer. Was it stressful leading right up to it was like, but there are mid-summer review being like, Hey, you're not cutting it or you're you're fine.
Andy: [00:28:30] Yeah, I think I think mid-summer review it was it was fine. I remember I got pretty positive feedback and then going into. Going into final reviews, it got super stressful because our team actually the the internal talent in our team was
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:49] Really, really good.You know,How many other entrants to other three others
Andy: [00:28:55] There are, there were six interns. Oh, it's a lot. Three four three were from NYU Stern, and they're both friends of mine, and they both knew they were super smart and super capable people. And. I remember they said there they were limited to maybe three, three or so offers. And so I was like,Ok, we're not going to
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:19] Take all three from Stern. You're thinking right now. They're not going to
Andy: [00:29:23] Take all three from stern. And there's also this other guy who is just an amazing, amazing guy,Like he was very likable,Very sociable and everybody in the group. Really enjoyed having him around, so I was just looking at it like, oh crap, like maybe, maybe I have incrementally better work than him, but like. I'm like, I'm obviously not as likable as this guy, like it's I'm getting really worried here.And so so it got to the point where like the summer internship goes from, like.It's sort of fun during the summer and a good experience to kind of getting close to the end of the summer, you know, people peel off to like meet every individual member of the team just to like, get to know people. And then you see people walking into the office to grab coffees and you see people and interns in people's offices and you're just like, Oh my God, like, this is starting to get. Very stressful, very political, and like, I need to do that,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:22] Do you start doing that?
Andy: [00:30:24] Yeah, I mean, I mean, our friend who had gone the three of us in the group, he recommended like,You know, you shouldn't beat everybody in the group and, you know, grab coffee with every single person at least once just so they know who you are. If you don't work with them, right?And so, yeah, we're just doing that all day long.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:44] It's so going into those kind of what are almost like informal interviews where you're not supposed to be interviewing,but you have to hang, hang around and have a coffee with somebody? Yeah. How are you approaching this? Because there is it can be that can be stressful in and of itself because you're thinking this person doesn't end up not liking me in this 15 minute conversation, they were supposed to have her for a half hour conversation, whatever then that could hurt my chances, my slim chances, because it sounded like you were in a pretty precarious spot with a sharp end turns around you. So tell me about that. How did you think? Yeah, I thought a bit better than, like, were you?Were you still very regimented?Like, I wouldn't ask this this this this before going in? Or did you let it flow?
Andy: [00:31:27] I think I loosened up over the summer. I started to.I think after that recruiting experience, I started to learn that, you know, not everything is formulaic, kind of just have to go with the flow and just, you know, don't go into any conversation with any expectation. You just go out and talk to people, get to know who they are. Started to kind of learn that.And so I think I had some decent success near the end of the summer,
Like getting to know people on a personal level and getting know their experiences and their thoughts about banking and the whole experience. And so I think that that helped me a bit, but I like to think that. And so in the end, the three of us, the three stern kids got the return offers no way. And so
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:10] I like ilike to think that maybe like just me loosening up helped with that a bit. But you were probably knows you're probably not going to get it until you kind of made that push at the end. I'm guessing. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Because I'm sure there was a lot of like, we can't take all three from Stern.we should really take this, that other guy.Maybe that was really likeable. Yeah.
Andy: [00:32:35] Yeah, and yet the diversity of cars were just not stacked in our favor with three Asians, two.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:40] So you had that too.
Andy: [00:32:42] You know, it was just like, nothing's going to work here.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:45] Yeah, so that's that's. Yeah, that's surprising. That's surprising that you made the cut,Especially with the other two friends that were sharp.Yeah. So congrats on that. So OK, so you got you get the offer. Tell me a little bit about like just the relief and then how you did, you just have a blast in your year and then party the entire time?
Andy: [00:33:06] Yeah, basically, you know, it was it was a great time, senior year. It was.Very relaxed, you didn't really have to worry about anything. And, you know, I just took a bunch of classes that I had a lot of interest in and, you know, travel a lot. So where'd you go? Yeah, the winter I went to Iceland and then spring break.Everybody are great. It's kind of like a stern pseudo tradition. We all go to Cancun senior year.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:37] Okay.yeah. and so tell me a little bit about
just your how things shifted when you went full time. It sounds like it almost got easier going full time. Oh yeah. I mean, you're with two friends to you were two friends.
Andy: [00:33:51] Right? So one of one of my friends actually lateral to another bank? Ok. And I learned after that she was concerned, same as me, that she wouldn't get the offer. And so she had she had been,She had been looking for a lateral opportunity to play in
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:09] Protecting herself or
Andy: [00:34:10] Whatever. Yeah, in case this didn't work out, why
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:12] Had you been doing that?
Andy: [00:34:14] Well, I have, but I wasn't getting. I wasn't getting any bites either, so I was just like, I need this. And so it just added onto that stress. But. So it was just the two of us. And when you say
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:26] You were looking for a ladder position, sorry to interrupt, were you doing like LinkedIn stuff like that's the type of stuff you're doing.
Andy: [00:34:31] So I was reaching out to the guys that I knew when I was recruiting Junior Year. They're just friends of mine. And so I was just poking around there bein
like, Hey, like, are there any do you think there'll be any full time positions open like, this is
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:45] Everywhere? This is Bam, all Credit Suisse, but also everywhere else, too.Yeah, yeah. Just just anybody.
Andy: [00:34:51] Anybody that I knew because I felt like that was an elite
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:54] Batiks that you looked at or anything like that, like a mole, this Evercore type role?
Andy: [00:35:00] Not really. I don't really know anybody. They don't want to be
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:03] There as heavily at Stern. Yeah.
Andy: [00:35:06] Yeah, because I always felt like at least at the time, that full time like a full time lateral from an internship was more was definitely more relationship driven like it was was never really about any formal processes. And so I was just focused on, you know, people,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:22] The people that in you. Ok, that's fair. So sorry. So you're kind of coming into full time. How is that? How is this different now you start that first month is there's training, obviously.
Andy: [00:35:32] Yeah, the first month there's training, you know, I was going in ready for probably an incrementally more difficult experience. And, you know, initially, initially it was that, but I think gradually I think power utilities start to experience some difficulties within UBS. I think UBS at the time was trying to shift their strategy away from, you know, balance sheets and lending and trying to become more of like that elite boutique model where we just do advisory and so pure advisory. Yep, right. And so if you know anything about power, that whole entire industry is about lending, it's all about
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:36:10] Your balance. Yeah.
Andy: [00:36:11] Like if your bank can't put a put up,Put up capital, like nobody's going to talk to you. And so the group kind of inherently conflicted with the entire bank's strategy. And so gradually, you know?Power start to need it to shift
their strategy as well. And so we and I so and so I think a lot of our business opportunities and deal opportunities were lost because of that balance sheet culling. And we started to focus on these other opportunities, other deals and obviously deal flow kind of waned a little bit.Yeah, slow down. And so the full time my full time experience was a lot less cumbersome. A lot of hours really live.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:36:56] Did you close live deals while you were there? Yeah. So I
Andy: [00:36:59] So I got I got I got super lucky because we were in. We were the
group was in a stage where like live deals were arbitrary. Yeah, few and far between. Yeah, yeah, we actually closed the operator technologies, which is sold from which was sold to Macquarie Infrastructure Partners, and it's a waste to energy plant. So it's kind of like a hybrid power industrials deal, which was actually super cool to cool. The work on site visits were kind of weird because the place was super smelly, but it was. It was. It was just a great deal to work on, and it was super interesting to learn about something I never heard about before.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:40] Well, and so as you're kind of coming up into year, you're finishing up year one and going up into year two, are you what are you thinking about because you're there for a couple of years? Are you? Or is everyone chattering about like private equity? What's the feeling of the analysts and what was the the, you know, was it writing on the wall? Was it obvious that there wasn't as much deal flow? I mean, you're not working 100 hour weeks, right?Yeah, yeah. No, I think near the.
Andy: [00:38:06] Just so my two years are kind of interesting. I think a year a year in, we were approached by the bank that, you know, power and utilities would cease to exist. And so you know that that obviously brought up a whole ton of stress as well. It was like, Oh crap, like,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:26] You're going to get cut completely.
Andy: [00:38:27] Yeah, like we're we're year out of college and we'll lose my job like, Oh my god. But then your guess was pretty good in that they they said,Like, nobody here is going to lose their job. Like, we're going to reassign people because there's a lot of bright talent in this team, a lot of smart people and we need you guys. And so they kind of split everybody up, split everybody up.And so we were technically power utilities infrastructure.We had a pretty strong infrastructure practice. And so.Um, infrastructure. It became infrastructure which moved to leverage finance,got it, and then and then where I went with, I think,Three other guys, we went to energy, which was based in Houston, but New York had kind of like a little satellite operation. Yeah. And so that's what happened to power utilities ultimately.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:23] Um, so you're you're kind of more energy, you're an energy, basically.Yeah. And I was
Andy: [00:39:29] Transitioning to energy. You know, it's it's similar in some ways to power, but in other ways it was a completely different industry. You just had to learn about oil exploration and midstream pipelines.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:41] All different modeling, right? Yeah, completely different. So tell me, what about solar power is more like the the actual utility,Like the power utility companies like the large companies, whereas energy is more like the actual drilling in the oil and the.
Andy: [00:39:55] Yeah, it's like it's like you can think of power as more downstream kind of like converting that oil into power. Got it. Ok. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:40:03] The tell me a little bit about just so your super stressed again, you're in. You're going to figure out, OK, I'm going to lose my job, I'm going to this other group. But you're now in a kind of a satellite office where the main headquarters? What was it like working? I mean,This here in New York. Did you start interviewing right away or had you been talking and networking to people? Right? It doesn't sound like you're networking very aggressively throughout this whole thing. I mean,Both in the latter where you were, you talking to like a couple of people?
Andy: [00:40:27] Oh yeah. So. So I think. So I had a couple of friends who were a year or two older, and they gave me a lot of good advice where they said. The year you join, so you join in like August, which was the fall you joined, you should start talking to headhunters and start developing that relationship because they send you stuff and. Do you think investment banking recruiting as early private equity recruiting is even earlier? Yeah. And so. They were telling me they were telling me in the fall, you got to meet these head hunters, they're your path into, you know, what comes after panicking if you if you choose to leave? And so I started meeting all these headhunters that fall and you know, you'd get email opportunities in your inbox like like every day and just start kind of any opportunities that are interesting to you. So what did interest do you? So I was I was initially super interested in private equity. Mainly because. I was really fascinated by just learning about more nitty gritty operations of the business, I think, I think the one benefit. And I want to say the one benefit, I think it ended up working out really well.the fact that deal flow wasn't really crazy wasn't really crazy was. I could have more depth
than breadth when it came to learning about companies and learning about the deals
I was on.And so I was super immersed in liberator and I worked on it. I got to. I got to really learn about how they run their plants. Each individual plan, I can remember what they look like and
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:15] What went in back of your hand.
Andy: [00:42:17] Yeah, yeah. What went in, what went out, how many people were staff there, what they were getting paid, what the management structure was like? You get really detailed in that aspect. And so I think if I were at another bank or another group where you're working on like three life deals at the same time, you wouldn't be able to get that breadth and you're just kind of cranking out deals and or you'd have
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:35] To for your interviews, you'd have to at least focus on a few and really drill down and study hard. Yeah, yeah, you had that naturally, like, you already just knew it. It's kind of it was similar to me because I was in restructuring and I had, you know,those stretch out, those engagements stretch out so long. But you know, what happens is because you're working on it for so long, you literally know like 40 different capital structure scenarios and like, you've run like the model a thousand times. So, you know, every single number like like I could rattle off everything.So it helps.It helps in the interviews, right?So tell me. So tell me what happened. Like, so you you're you're at UBS. You're in a tier coming from power in an energy. Did that hurt you? Or or only were they only giving you like energy or type funds or what?What was what was the kind of?I don't know the the conversion to more middle market. You know, you're coming from UBS in a group that's a little less traditional, you're not doing M&A, right? So tell me about that.
Andy: [00:43:34] Yeah, I was worried about that because I think initially, initially, I think the bank told us,you know, you can have your pick of the group pick up the groups. I think most of the groups were always welcome to more analysts. And I think one guy went to health care. One guy went to consumer and I was thinking about industrials because the UBS industrials practice is super strong. They do a lot of deals. But I also thought about, you know, if I'm if I'm going to be spending my time like recruiting and, you know, looking at the ideal next opportunity for me.And if you chose it, right?and my wish was and my wish was just to have more depth and sort of the deals that I do instead of just cranking out like
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:21] It's a really interesting approach. I don't know if I would. Looking back, I wouldn't know if I would recommend that because there is a little bit of like the reputation. Well, yeah, there's the pigeonholing with the energy. But there's also a reputation like industrials is known there because they do a lot of good deals and I think probably funds that recognize that a little bit more. Right. But you make a very good point on the other side of life, but the depth you had of the deals you did is so, so good that when you do get in that interview room, you just completely it's like, wipe the floor. Yes. Yeah. So tell me about that. Yeah, tell me about
Andy: [00:44:55] That, right? So my thought, my thought process was if I if I wanted to
join Big P and if I loved cranking out deals and I'd loved the deal process and just from
open to close.Completing transactions, I think I definitely would have gone to industrials because that's the best place to get that experience.But for me,I was super interested in like just nitty gritty stuff. I wanted to be involved in a model like to as detailed
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:45:26] Of a degree as possible, restitution and restructuring it like. Yeah, I work
Andy: [00:45:31] With the I work with a guy who used to come from restructuring too, and it seems like that would have been a great place to be to. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry.And yeah, and I knew that energy was sort of similar to power utilities, which is like a lot of the modelling is isn't done by, you know,The M&A team or the left end team. It's it's all done, it's all done in-house, like all the templates from all the all the product groups run through.went through the coverage group for energy and for power utilities, so I knew, OK,great, I would be able to actually do some detailed work. That's good. Understand stuff, really, to really detail degree. And because the opportunities are looking for were it was p initially because, you know, that was the kind of the only place you'd get this kind of operating exposure.But I think I think.Being an energy and I, you know, I saw standard industries pop up, I didn't really know what the role was, but, you know, going through that process, I started to learn more and more of that like, Wow, this is kind of exactly what I was looking for.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:46:35] And so tell me a little bit about how you even evaluate like a family office type role, a hybrid type role where there's maybe less structure and not that middle market funds have that much structure. I mean, oftentimes you're only hiring a few associates a year. So tell me a little bit about how you was this? Was this like a one off where they're hiring just one associate, one analyst?or is this something where there's a program where you felt like there was more structure there?So there's definitely
Andy: [00:47:03] Less structure, a standard industry, so it was kind of like an analyst is hired every two years, which is kind of like when when they when they need a guy every two years. And.I think initially it's such a nuanced role and kind of difficult to explain that in the early stages of the interview process. I just treated it as like it's just either practice or I just have to like. Go through the process and just see what happens. Yeah, but you know, slowly, slowly you go through the process and you start to learn more about the company, what the day to day is like.And I started to realize this is this is a lot. More of a investing role than a, for example, like a hedge fund or private equity role or a corporate strategy. It was kind of just an investing role in general,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:47:56] Which meeting which meaning you were doing private equity, you had the opportunity to do private equity type deals, but you are also doing public market stuff. Is that what you mean by investing in general?it was like a it was an umbrella investing role rather than you have to invest in this specific type of right.
Andy: [00:48:11] And it was kind of like my first foray into learning about
family offices. And basically what it is is you just have this giant pool of capital that's just. Completely flexible, you can do whatever you want with it. And so some of the discussions that I heard, people having were just super cool to listen to and evaluate because they look at opportunity like, OK, let's we can buy. Some shares can maybe buy a huge chunk of shares and, you know, maybe be able to talk to the management of this public company and, you know, help them help them grow. Help them make some decisions.Or it can take them private. Treat this like a p style deal and then we own it or can search in the private markets. Or if we don't like the public equity, maybe we can get into the debt, or if the company is too early stage and put in some VC capital. It was just like every single thing under the sun was on the table and it was just super cool to see. And that kind of aligned with more of what my interests were, which I realized in the end, you know, there's a lot of like private equity is a super cool and exciting role to be in. There is a little bit of inflexibility to the extent where.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:49:27] Like the types of deals and the types of types of deals. Yeah. Yeah. So tell me a little bit about that, though, like is there, isn't there still some in the family office there? So like they always say,Right, if you know one family office, you know, one. So obviously it depends. How did you get comfort that that was actually true? Because a lot of them may say that, and then you get there, they're like, no, we're only doing these types of deals right now, like the the family, whatever. However, the head honcho is at the family or the headed head of whatever they call it, the PM or whatever. They only want to do debt deals or only only mezze deals right now in this specific industry. So how did you how did you get comfort that there really was that open mandate before going? So because it's amazing, right? Interesting said, tell me, to
Andy: [00:50:13] Be honest, you can never really know until you actually join, but I took a leap of faith in that aspect. But I think
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:50:21] What kind of telling you on that? Were they selling you on it a little bit?
Andy: [00:50:23] Yeah, I think what sort of informed that was basically everybody in the team just telling me, you know, we get to work on a lot of different interesting things, like sometimes the ceos will send some ad hoc opportunities about something just completely unrelated like it could be, I don't know. Like.Can be a food company could be like a company that makes leather bags and it's like it's like a friend of a friend of theirs that sends an opportunity across and they just have to take a quick look at it.So that kind of started to get me interested.And then, you know, kind of look at the website, you look at what the standard industry's vision is, which is isn't. I always say it's a family office to explain to finance folk what exactly it is.But the fact of the matter is they're not trying to be a family office. We're trying to be more of just an industrial, a modern industrial company. So anything that's aligned with that vision of bringing industry to the modern age focused on, you know, construction is in the wheelhouse. And so naturally, when you look at modern, you look at a lot of like venture capital and growth equity kind of investments.And so they had a venture capital practice that they were growing. And so just seeing that and, you know, seeing
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:51:44] That this kind of professionals are under, if you can share that with Standard Bank, like you're kind of similar role to you or senior to you.
Andy: [00:51:53] Yeah. How many in the total,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:51:56] You know, in total in total. Standard here.
Andy: [00:52:00] A handful. It's like eight or nine,Eight or nine. Yeah, it's not tiny. Yeah. And so you
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:52:05] Guys are basically eight or nine or you're responsible for like evaluating every investment potential that comes through or coming up with your own ideas.
Andy: [00:52:14] Um, yeah, just mostly just validating stuff that comes through. But also, you know, when stuff When there are gaps between In between deals or projects, you know, start to be proactive and look for stuff.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:52:28] Very cool. Can we go back and talk a little bit about pay? I mean, I know for banking, it's pretty standard, I think. Yeah. A couple of years ago, what were you making like? Eighty five base or something like that or 90 base or.Eighty eighty five. Eighty five and then bonus first year. Was it good or you were just happy to have your job and it wasn't so good because your group did receive
Andy: [00:52:50] An increase so you would get a stub. I think I think it was like,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:52:54] I think if you do start in the summer
Andy: [00:52:56] And then, yeah, because it was an annual cycle, so you start the summer, you get a stub. I think it was like twenty five. And then and then I think.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:53:05] The next year,I think you get a bump to
forget it was like eighty
Andy: [00:53:11] Nine or something, you get a little bump to 89 or 90.
and then the first year the the bonus was actually I was I was surprised. It was like pretty decent. I think it was like seventy seventy five.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:53:24] And that's amazing. So too bad. Yeah.
Andy: [00:53:27] And then. Then the next
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:53:30] Year you go and you're getting like 160 almost, yeah. That's your first full year, I guess there.Yeah, yeah.
Andy: [00:53:37] And then and then you get a bump to, I think, ninety two. And and what what we're really bummed me out was I joined standard industries this summer before the third year, so I kind of lost half a year bonus, but
Patrick (CEO of WSO): : [00:53:51] Is what it is? And then was it a was
it a big pay jump going to standard in terms of or was it just more of a jump in terms of lifestyle? Although it doesn't sound like you're getting killed at you whenever you're comfortable sharing, you don't have to write a lot of details like you can be a ranger or whatever, but it was around the same around the, you know,
Andy: [00:54:12] It's pretty standard, like, yeah, private equity, what it would be. And I kind of like a bigger private equity fund, which is for really good.Yeah, which is which is for
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:54:24] Any of a fun ride up the middle market fund. They're paying you that like upper middle, upper middle.
Andy: [00:54:30] I'd say amazing, which is yeah, which is like a huge. Yeah. For any investment banking analyst going to like Upper Middle Market Mega Fund, kind of. Paycheck is like crazy.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:54:42] That's amazing, and it sounds like I'm guessing that you're not working the 80 hour weeks or 90 hour weeks. Yeah, seventy, yeah, for sure. I think,
Andy: [00:54:53] Yeah, I think so. So oddly enough, I I end up working more hours than I do when I when I was in energy, but the day starts a lot earlier because of the public market component.So, you know, you know, I'm banking, you roll in at like nine, 30, maybe ten if you're feeling like it. We start the day at like eight. And so. Um, I'm doing like eight to six, mostly on an average day, and so you compare to what I was doing in energy,It was it was about about
Andy: [00:55:27] The same, if not a little bit more.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:55:29] So how much of your year you basically pretty? Are you responsible for the public market component of like just you or you and one other person out of the eight or nine investing professionals? Or is it like, are you grouped like that in terms of public market focus versus how? How should I think about that? So not not to get specific about your company. I'm just trying to understand like what a role like this involves. Like, like, are you all of a sudden like for three months involved in like just trading or you like doing that day trading? But are you trading out of positions within like a month or a couple of weeks, like doing that type of stuff? Or are you more like,Hey, these I'm looking at like a three month view or, you know, two year view?
Andy: [00:56:12] So our team, the corporate development strategy team, is very vertical. And so I'm the only analyst and the most junior guy in my position at this moment. Ok. And so. Anything under the Sun that needs a little bit more horsepower in terms of analysis? I'll work on. And so to give you an example,Like there will be
Days where I'll flip from one public market position. We're working on one hour and then flip to some process when we're in right now for the next few hours, come back to that public markets thing. And then and then maybe like read a couple of messages on on some and help do some research work on some venture thing. Like it'll it'll be literally everything under the Sun. But I think the one unifying concept is that we're focused industry wise on construction materials and building products. And so that's if it wasn't that if you kind of like too crazy to keep track of.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:57:10] Yeah. And so tell me a little bit about just How this during covid has. It's a pretty small team, so I assume you guys are just doing video chats all day or most throughout the day, kind of connecting with one another or they're like Slack channel you're using or how did how do you stay in touch with the team?
Andy: [00:57:26] Yeah, we're not. We're on a Google suite, so it's a lot of Google meets. Yeah.Cool. Well, any other kind of
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:57:34] Words of wisdom? I mean, it sounds like you're in
an awesome seat, kind of.Are you thinking business school down the road or what's the what's the thought process eventually or even just stay on because it's it's fun to move on up.
Andy: [00:57:45] Yeah, I think for the time being, stay on, move on up is this goal is it's always in the back of the mind, but
I'm actually kind of interested to see where the whole education space is going like post-COVID, because I think that's a that's an interesting transition to look at
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:58:02] An all coming online to Wall Street oasis. They're getting their financial modeling, training everything a little pitch there at the end. Yeah, exactly.
Andy: : [00:58:12] It'd be super interesting to see. I mean, like all all these online education services are going to might see a lot more of this as a growth.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): : [00:58:20] Yeah, we're seeing it this year. I mean, it's been a been a big year for us. The record year for us in terms of traffic in and the. Sales that, of course, is new students, so. Yeah, it's exciting, it's kind of. It'll be interesting to see how things kind of transition once the vaccine,I think for a few months before we're going to be like. Partying and traveling and taking long deserved vacations. And then what kind of where things will settle will be interesting. Yeah. Any other words of wisdom to share with the listeners before we call it from your path or from just in general, from from your friends?That you've seen? Yeah, I think. I think, I guess,
Andy: [00:59:03] And it's always easier to say looking backwards, but I think
for anybody, no super getting super stressed out about banking, recruiting, getting super stressed out about, for example, p by side recruiting. I think in the end. If you have the motivation, if you have the work ethic and if you have, you know, the mentors to help guide you along the way, it all ends up working out, I think. Whether or not initially you think it did, whether or not initially you think you made a poor decision or whatever. I think we're the humans are incredibly adaptable and we learn to adapt to what we're given and. In the end, it all works out, and we all end up to some degree enjoying what we're doing.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:59:55] So yeah, it's a great great words of wisdom because I think a lot of people, they look in the moment there and they think so
shortsighted, like when they get that rejection or they are in a seat, that's really tough. They think this is why am I doing this? And they have the existential crises you see with it.And I get it. I was there breaking down.And you know, what am I going to get out of this? And like, how how am I going to get out? And a lot of it's it's hard to pick your head up and kind of see further out. When I got fired from my first private equity gig, I got fired within like three or four months and I was like, Oh, wow, out of the job for like three or four months.You know, you'd think that like, you're Oh my gosh, my career is just completely derailed and it almost was.I mean, it was it was a pretty bad situation, but I ended up leaning on my feet and another shop in New York, and then that started. So probably because of that whole experience. So now, look, you know, so it's like, yeah, in that sense, I think it's important to just try to keep the long term view and not feel like all is lost.And I think there needs to be more hope and people need to be patient with themselves because really, it's just it's all about grit and work ethic. You can really get to almost. And credit, I won't say anywhere, but an incredible level because cheesy
and not true, you can get to an incredible level of success measured by any kind of normal standard in this country,Just through hard work and determination. I really believe that especially if you work on not just the technical skills, especially if you work on getting more likable, especially if you work on the stuff that you may downplay and think is stupid. Hopefully, with maturity in age, you realize that relationships do matter a lot. So thank you for all that, all that wisdom.
Andy: [01:01:45] It's great. Thanks for having me, Pat.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:01:47] And thanks to you, my listeners at Wall Street Oasis. If you have any suggestions whatsoever, please don't hesitate to send them my way. Patrick at Wall Street Oasis.And till next time.
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