WSO Podcast | E171: VC Investor out of GM's FLDP Program and Duke
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In this episode, Julia shares her non-traditional path. From landing a sales & trading internship at Morgan Stanley and realizing it wasn't a good fit to landing multiple offers at a wide variety of firms, listen to why she chose to join General Motors' FLDP program and why she stayed for 4 years. Understand why she chose to leave when she did and how she prepared for the transition to venture capital investor.
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WSO Podcast (Episode 171) 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.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:22] Let's get to it. In this episode, Julia shares her non-traditional path from landing a sales and training internship at Morgan Stanley and realizing it wasn't a good fit. 10 Landing multiple offers at a wide variety of firms. Listen to why she chose to join General Motors FDP program and why she stayed for four years. I understand why she chose to leave when she did and how she prepared for the transition to venture capital investor enjoy. Thanks, Julie, for joining the Wall Street Voices podcast. Really appreciate you coming on.
Julia:[00:01:00] Thank you for having me.
Patrick (CEO of WSO):[00:01:01] So it'd be great if you could just give the listeners a short summary of your bio.
Julia:[00:01:05] Yeah, absolutely. So I studied Economics at Duke, then as an internship after my junior summer spent some time working in the fixed income capital markets at Morgan Stanley, full time offer decided to accept a position at General Motors in their rotational development program. And now I currently work as a VC investor at panoramic ventures in Atlanta, Georgia.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:29] Very cool, perfect. So let's go all the way back to undergrad. So why do?
Julia: [00:01:33] It's the way I do think it's actually a really funny story, because
I spent my entire childhood not wanting to go to Duke, telling everyone I was never going to even apply to Duke because my dad went there and I didn't want to follow in his footsteps. But then I toured the campus, instantly fell in love, got sort of mad at my dad for taking me there because the second I set foot on campus, I knew I had to go there. And so, you know, applied luckily got in, you know, it was a long time ago. I definitely don't think I'd get in now if I were to apply, but was fortunate enough to get in and decided to move up to North Carolina for four years.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:09] And did you kind of from the get go think, OK, finance is my calling and that's why I'm Going to go to the Morgan
Julia: [00:02:16] Stanley internship or what was what was your thought process in terms of like career wise? Or is your family like medicine, finance, engineering? What are they? What do they do? Yeah, so it's funny. Everyone in my family was Sam, except for me. Both my parents are doctors. My brother is a chemical engineer.I pass out just thinking about blood testing, the word blood Written. I pass out. So I definitely knew that was not the past for me. It's funny. I joke with my parents all the time that I went into college wanting to be a history major, and they told me that they would no longer support me financially in college if I were a history Major. So I had to look at what other options were out there and went in thinking I wanted to study psych thinking. Maybe I wanted to go into consulting, and that psych was a good route because you can really understand people and interactions. And then my first semester on Campus, I took just a general Econ 101 Class and absolutely loved it. The professor was great. I thought the information was a really interesting combination of combining of incorporating the Quantitative aspect of interpersonal behaviors and cause and effect, and so actually decided to switch to economics and then minor in Psychology. And from there really had a difficult Time figuring out what I wanted to do. I joined a business oriented women and found a mentor who sort of talked me through the different business options after graduation, looking at consulting, looking at banking, looking at corporate Finance, all of the different routes that one could go down. And it was actually when I went and studied abroad in London With two of the professors From Duke and learned about the capital markets and realized that my personality fit perfectly with very high energy. It was all about interacting with people. It just it seemed like something that was really interesting to me. And I met the team at Morgan Stanley, instantly fell in love with everyone I met, and it sort of felt like a match made in heaven where I couldn't go anyplace but there. And so that's sort of how I decided to intern there. I actually didn't interview any place else for my internship. It was the only place that I was looking and the only job that I was looking at.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:22] So talking about. Yeah. Can we talk about that on campus recruiting process? So it sounds like you had a little bit of exposure and you're thinking, OK, this sales and training or this finance thing is interesting. Is there a specific reason you went sales and trading and not like front office investment banking? Or was it just that's what you recruited for or something about the market's appeal to you?
Julia: [00:04:43] Yes. So I had taken I was involved in the investment club On campus, which is really how you learn About the investment banking industry. Just sort of a, you know, a side note here. Something that's really interesting about Duke is that they don't have any pre Professionals like undergraduate degrees. So you don't study finance, you don't study accounting, you don't study Business. The closest thing is economics or public policy. And so all of the information about what you want to do in your career comes from the extracurricular. So I enjoy. I joined the investment club and from there I sort of realized that investment banking wasn't necessarily what I was interested in.It felt I was more interested I really short term projects that my professor actually said. If you prefer pop quizzes to study and all semester for an exam, then you're more sales and trading versus banking at that very much felt like me. I'd rather come in, take a pop quiz and get on with my day, then spend a weekend studying for an exam. And so for me, I sort of knew that I was interested in the capital markets I really enjoyed following economic news. I liked what was going on. I thought it was so interesting seeing how the CPI coming out or, you know, the jobs report coming out affected how your day was going to go versus in banking. Things like that aren't really affecting what you're doing day to day. And so for me, that was something that was really exciting. So I sort of knew that I was interested in sales and trading. I spent most of my time networking with people and sales trading, and I think that in the finance industry, a lot of it really does come down to, you know, networking, you know, having people who can advocate for you. I think that's something that's so important is that in almost any career.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:12] Let's talk about that. Like for you specifically, like, was it sophomore year you said you kind of took a while to figure out what you wanted? Was it when did you start actually doing that networking with, I assume, Duke alum insensitivity? Was it mostly was it sophomore year sophomore kind of. Or did you? Was it like already junior year before you started doing that?
Julia: [00:06:29] Yeah. So it was. It was sophomore year. I actually. I got the
Internship before the start of my junior year, so I spent the majority of my sophomore year doing the networking meeting with people, you
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:40] Know, to do it so early, like you said, Oh, you didn't know for a long time, my sophomore year, a lot. Some people are in the unenviable position of coming into junior year and you're like, Oh, I want to do banking and it's like up too late. Sorry. So how did you know? Like, just even so, I guess the econ class helped. Then you were talking to enough people where they're like, Hey, sales and training might be for you. So you came into sophomore year knowing. Yeah. So it was well,
Julia: [00:07:04] It was the summer after my sophomore year when I
Did that study abroad, and it was, I guess, the second summer term. So it was probably like July after my sophomore Year when I really was sold on it. And I know the timeline is a little wonky. I, you know, I spent the majority of my sophomore year sort of networking with everyone. The people that I was most drawn to were the people in sales and trading. And I think the tipping point was really that that summer abroad program is, is, you know, I was I had a broad network of people in consulting, banking, sales and trading start-ups, things like that. And that really that that was the tipping point that summer. I said, you know what? The second I set foot back In the United States, I am going to be emailing all of the connections that I Had made in sales and trading and really make sure that I was having those conversations with them over the summer and during the fall semester. I actually was studying abroad. So I did have
About six weeks when most people already start their semester, but London just starts late. And so I used those six weeks when most people would be in school to be doing my interviewing.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:09] Got it! Ok, so and then you ended up landing the so you were doing the interviewing while you were in London already?
Julia: [00:08:14] No, it was like a week before I went to London, so I was sitting at home with my parents and everyone else was, you know, having fun in college. I was waiting to fly across the ocean.
Patrick (CEO of WSO)[00:08:25] That's cool. So you're able to do an interview, then land the internship. So you already knew you were kind of set up for post, I guess, post junior year, right?
Julia: [00:08:35] Or it was so nice having, you know, two whole semesters,
If not having regrets about anything.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:40] Yeah, that's really nice. So, OK, so tell me a little bit about how you went into that internship, what your expectations were and what the kind of reality was on the day to day both hours, just the type of desks you kind of were able to get exposure to and what that was like? Yeah, definitely. So, you know, the first Week for internships in the grading have to be training. You have to learn about the different products that you're going to be working with and understand a lot of the regulations and things like that Because it is sort of you're working on shorter term
Projects in fixed income. There were three rotations during the 10 week internship. And so the first week was all training from there. A lot of it again is just networking, figuring
Out what desks you want to sit on because it's sort of like medical school matching where you pick your top five and the desks pick their top five. So it's a lot of networking and
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:09:28] They force you to do that coming right in, right out of training. Yeah. Yes. How do you even know just this based on I mean, you already kind of talked with people who were there just to even get the internship. So you kind of had a sense, but are there certain desks? Obviously, there are certain desks at certain firms that have better reputations than others and whatnot, like in terms of. How well they do and what it is that is that stuff you would try to get out of your like the people you were speaking with or were you kind of more? I don't know because it can be kind of embarrassing me like, hey, what's the best desk, right? How did you how do you get around that?
Julia: [00:09:59] And that you're completely right. That's one hundred percent the thing.
It's just talking to people, you know, finding out about stuff. We're really lucky in that the first week when you're training training ends at like five every single day and then you go to a social event where you're meeting with the people on the desk, so you get a feel for it. I'm someone who's very drawn to people's personalities. And so all of products and fixed income are interesting in their own ways. But for me, I, I was really drawn to the municipal securities desk just because of the people who were on the desk. It was a
Really fun group, a little bit rambunctious. And so I was like, Wow, my personality really fits this. I'll learn about Muniz afterwards. So I went for the people and then the product got it.
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:10:42] Ok? So you started, you got through training, you guys, and you ended up matching with Muniz. And so you basically started that and tell me a little bit about just the learning curve. Do you feel like I mean. You were there for how long, right for it's only for the summer, right, but actually it says you, you hear at least you're on your LinkedIn, says you're there for a year. So can you tell me about that? It was it. Is that just you did two internships or how did that work?
Julia: [00:11:04] Oh, that might be an error
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:11:06] On my own. I was looking at, I'm like, is this summer analyst So OK, so let's just assume that's an error.
So you're there for
Julia: [00:11:12] A long summer? Yeah, it was
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:11:15] Like two or three months. So yeah, but tell me about that time. Why did it feel like a long summer and just the learning curve and then just the expectations and what it was in reality?
Julia: [00:11:24] Yeah, you know, I think talking about the learning curve, that's one of the hardest things that you can't really learn until you're actually there. You can spend all the time you want and, you know, in classrooms learning about the different products and learning about yield curves and learning about interest rates. But when you're actually sitting on the desk, there's so many nuances that are just so hard to pick up on.
And a lot of the time is just shadowing and sitting there and watching people do what they do, figuring out from the sales side how do they get Different customers? Because in fixed income, it's a very illiquid market. So how do you match up buyers and sellers? How do you find the right product for certain people? And then on the trading side, so much of it is making sure that the bank is in the position where they're not haemorrhaging a ton of money, but that they're also Taking enough risk with their with the portfolio and what they're holding. So that way, they're able to be able to make these markets and also make money on creating the markets. And so there's just so much to learn. And I think that that was one of the hardest things coming into an internship is that you have no you have no idea how difficult it's going to be to get up to speed on everything I spent every weekend, you know, going into the office and reading more and working more and trying to just get up to speed and be able to put together.
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:12:44] What were your hours?
Julia: [00:12:46] So I'm trying to think I would usually get there around
Six or six thirty in the morning. Wow. Yeah, that's the difference between fixed income and equities is that we don't have markets that open and close. And so I was probably leaving the office around 10:00 at night. Maybe the hours were not great, but, you know,
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:13:09] 16 hour days
Julia: [00:13:11] With that, you know, you get really close with the interns because they're all there working those hours. So you really get to know people when you're on your fifteenth hour of the Day,
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:13:20] You feel like you had to do. I mean, a lot of it's shadowing, like you said, but were you actually given stuff that was important at all or like you had to be there? But it was it. Was it more self-imposed? I guess is the question? Or was it? Was it just an expectation? Or did you feel like, Hey, I have to get this offer? Like what was what was driving you to kind of work those hours? Because a lot of people, I think maybe would have just done 12 hours a day or 14. Like, what were you? Why were you doing 16? Is that right? Yeah, right?
Julia: [00:13:45] Yeah. Honestly, it's such a blur. I try to blackout that basically. Yeah, those sleepless nights, you know, part of it was just given the economic environment it was, it was the summer of Brexit. So in the fixed income market, a lot of stuff was going on, you know, just trying to prepare for what was going to happen to currencies and things like that and treasuries and things like that. Part of it was that you spend, you know, from seven a.m. Until six p.m. shadowing. And so the assignments that you have to get done, you have to get done, Not those hours you have to come in early and leave late to actually get the physical deliverables done. And you know, some of it was just the rest of your intern class. Is there those hours? So you sort of feel like you're not doing enough if you're going home before some of the other interns? So there's a variety of factors that play into it.
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:14:37] It's always like almost everyone doing the same or was there like a few that were like checking out early and some that were just like their all night?
Julia: [00:14:45] It definitely depended
On the desk. You know, I would say the people who were more so on like the treasuries and currency desks, were there a lot longer than the people who were on high yield or investment grade, for example.
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:14:58] Why? Why is that? You know, just the desk.
Julia: [00:15:01] These are just a lot more active. The people who are trading currencies are All around the world.
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:15:06] So never sleeps. Never sleeps.
Julia: [00:15:09] Exactly. So, you know, those just had a lot more transactions. And I think that those also were just conceptually
Julia: [00:15:16] More difficult to understand. And so there was a lot more reading and just Self studying that went into it versus it's pretty easy to understand, you know, a high yield bond or an investment grade bond. It operates Similarly to a stock, so you can sort of conceptualize it a little bit better. So it definitely depended. I don't think that anything was ever spoken or verbalized about people like leaving early and no one ever talks about anyone behind their back. You very much just felt like, you know, all right, it's 10 weeks. Let's put in as much time as I can. Let's try to put in one extra minute versus someone else. And, you know, I think it's terrible to say, but I think the fact that after you if you stay after a certain hour, you get free dinner, that's definitely a nice, you know, incentivize there.
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:16:02] That's only like eight o'clock, I think, right? Or something like that.
Julia: [00:16:05] Yeah, it is. But then you have to wait for the food to come. And yeah, that's true.
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:16:09] Then you all get in the conference room and talk. And then Exactly,
Julia: [00:16:13] You know, it's not just sitting in the Excel spreadsheets all day.
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:16:16] Yeah. Ok, so you're going through these 10 weeks. At what point are you know, you're still you're gunning for the offer you really wanted, obviously. And so is there a certain point kind of halfway through or three quarters of the way through where you're saying this is just not sustainable? I actually don't know if I'll take the offer. You ended up not going to Morgan Stanley, right? That's right. So tell me, like was it that summer that kind of made that decision for you? Like, you were thinking, hey, even if I get the offer, I'm going to look for something else.
Julia: [00:16:48] Yeah, it really was that summer after my time on the news desk, I sort of realized, Alright, I don't know that this lifestyle is sustainable for me. You know, I'm spending all of this money to be living in an apartment in New York with five other ladies who I absolutely loved living with them. But I knew that I could live in another city for a lot less money and also knew that I was spending all this money to be living in this apartment. And I was never there, which sort of felt like a waste to me. And so I sort of had doubts, and then I did my Second role, which was not necessarily a role that I wanted to be in. It was it was a purely sales role. And so while all the other desks had a sales and trading component to it, this one was. I don't want to say easy, because it was mortgage backed securities, which is not easy in any sense of the word, but because there was no trading component to it, it really didn't get into the weeds and I felt like, OK, well, you know, this is really interesting, and I thought of myself more as a salesperson than a trader. But, you know, I don't know that this is the best for me. And then for my third discount, it's like, OK, I want to do something completely different. And I got reassigned to asset backed securities and I was like, All right. Stop securities are fascinating, and you can be in it for 50 years and never learn everything there is to know, but I was sort of frustrated by the fact that I was sort of I was put almost on the exact same desk, two rotations in a row. And so I reached out to a mentor of mine at Morgan Stanley, who was also a Duke alum. And I said, Hey, like, you know, this is where this is, where I'm at. I'm not totally in love with what I'm doing. I don't know
That if I were to receive an offer, If I would accept it, you know, do you have any other opportunities that you think would interest me? Here are the things that I liked out of my job. Here are two things that I didn't like Out of my job here at Morgan Stanley. What were those? The things I did, the things I didn't like because I think it helps.
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:18:36] Like, there's so many people listening
Like that just don't know, right? Like, it's hard even for me who never done a sales and training internship. Like just it's hard to really get a feel without knowing like, OK, what are what's what is the day to day like? You said, you're shadowing, you're watching people kind of do some of it, but like just getting a feel of like, OK, you talked about a project that give you an example, like, can you give us an example of what you'd be doing?
Julia: [00:18:57] Yeah, so the project that I had for
The Muniz desk is probably the easiest to talk about because mortgage backed securities are a little bit more complex, but essentially what we had to do is we had to find three different municipal bonds that all fit different criteria. They gave us the criteria, so one had to be like one first state, one had to be a private something like that, and we had to come up with a reason why Morgan Stanley should invest in those. So we had to do analysis on where we thought the market was going in terms of rates. We had to do analysis on what we thought the credit risk would be on, you know, if they were going to call the bond. So, you know, pay it off early because there's obviously inherent risk of that too. And so we had to do all of that analysis and then present that and they ask us questions on it. So that's an example of one of the projects that we had to do. You know, I think it's a really good point and a lot of people go into internships. They don't love the experience, but they take it anyway because, you know, a job is
Better than not. But, you know, I think it's completely valid that if you get an offer, you absolutely do not have to take it. And an internship is just that. It's an
Opportunity to find out, do you want to be doing this for the next year or five years or 10 years? And so the things that I like, you know, I like the people I was working with. I thought that they were really smart, really motivated. I didn't like how it felt like there was no mentorship element because, you know, full transparency at that time. This was a number of years ago. Morgan Stanley had gone through a restructuring, and they just didn't have the staff and capacity to be able to sit down with us and teach us things on one of the desks I was in. They really didn't have time for us to be sitting with them. And so, you know, that was something that I felt was lacking in the program. I really didn't like the hours that that was not great. But, you know, I like how I was continuously learning. I think the biggest thing for me is I sort of sat back and questioned, what am I
contributing? What am I creating when I thought about working? What I what excited me versus being in school is that there's something that you are changing out there, that you're building something that you're creating versus school, where you're just submitting things and getting letter grades back. And I felt like in sales and trading, I could sort of see like, OK, we were enabling people to purchase homes or we were enabling railroads to be built. But it was really hard for me to actually wrap my head around a physical thing that I was contributing. And I think that's so far removed. Yeah, you're pretty far from it.
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:21:22] Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's fair. Ok, so you're kind of wrapping up this internship and they bring you to the office and say, Congratulations. We're going to extend you an offer. What was your response kind of then? Like, no way I'm taking this or did you just did you say great, thank you so much. Let me just think about it. What was your response then?
Julia: [00:21:46] So actually, I had spoken to enough managing directors in the
Fixed income group that I had conveyed to them that I wouldn't accept an offer
If it was extended. And so the final day when they were getting offers. It was more of an open dialogue where they were like, You know, you've expressed that you wouldn't accept it. And I was like, Yeah. So there was no ask, How
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:22:05] Did you have? How were you so bold as to like this
Julia: [ [00:22:07] Job is like, what a lot of people
Want, right? And it's
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:22:10] Super competitive. How were you able to tell Morgan Stanley now I'm actually not going to accept it if you give me an offer at what is it? Twenty years old?
Julia: [00:22:16] Twenty one, you back? Yeah, I guess I have a
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:22:19] Lot of confidence, a lot of confidence that that that young age tell me about, like where you think that comes from?
Julia: [00:22:26] My biggest selling point has always been my honesty and my bluntness. You know, I think that I tell people all the time, you're either going to love the fact that I'm on it or you're going to hate it, there's not really an in-between. And for me, I don't think there's any benefit to working in a job pretending that you like it. You know, potentially taking a spot from someone who would have accepted the offer. I didn't see any benefit in doing that, and I was really lucky that I Had a number of colleagues who were senior at the company. You know, I'm so lucky that Duke is a school that sort of feeds Morgan Stanley and that I had people who I could talk to and say, you know, I don't really want to accept this offer. How do I go about socializing that the people who are in charge of the Program and, you know, making sure that I was using a lot of language as opposed to language and just making it more so like this was a great learning experience for me. I gained a lot from this. I don't see this as my future career path. And you know, I've always been someone who will speak my
Mind if I like something, if I don't like something, you know, I think you always
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:23:26] Know where you just rare. It's just rare. But you know, I think it's it's great to have that foresight to know that it's not for you, but just tell me a little bit about just how you given some thought about. Ok, now I'm going back to school, I don't have I'm not going to have an offer and like I was basically coming into your senior year, right?
Julia: [00:23:42] It was so I actually I had a number of interviews lined up like the last week that I was there
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:23:48] To talk to me about that. How you got those lined up, was it all just Again alums like so you knew what like halfway through, you're like, No way am I doing this?
Julia: [00:23:55] And then only about halfway through.
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:23:57] And so then did you immediately start just talking to people. It sounds like you did.
Julia: [00:24:00] Yeah. So I was really lucky in that someone who I consider my mentor at Morgan Stanley had a colleague from when he went to school at Duke, who worked at General Motors. So I had, you know, started those conversations. Then with GM didn't really. I didn't really give it much thought. I was sort of like, oh, I don't really want to live in Detroit. I don't like cars or whatever. And then, you know, from there again was just. I'm trying to think, I think, you know, I have a cousin who works at a company in New York that I was talking to. Just, yeah, reaching out to the people who I had spoken to my sophomore year when I was doing all of that networking and just reaching back out and saying, like, Hey, I Got this amazing experience. You know, it helps me figure out that this is not what I want to do. Is there any chance that I could talk to you about what you do and pass along my resume, things like that? So much of it really was just coming from my network.
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:24:53] Tell me about how you like the different types of roles. So like you ended up going really kind of like in a financial analyst strategy biz dev role, I think, right out of school. Mm hmm. To General Motors. But what other careers did you explore With kind of these mentors or these that you thought was interesting or that you considered?
Julia: [00:25:12] Oh my gosh, so everything funny?
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:25:15] Did you look at DC back then? So I didn't I
Julia: [00:25:20] I had a feeling that venture capital was something that I might be interested in in the future, but this is back before startups were as cool and explosive as they are now, people. People didn't really talk about startups. I had a few friends who went to startups, and for me, I sort of like, well, why would you do that? Like, that's so that's so uncertain. Whereas now it's, you know, people would kill to work at some of these startups. So, you know, I had a friend who works at coinbase right out of school and I was like, what the heck is that?
Julia: [00:25:44] Like, why? Why would you go to this company that no one's ever heard of? And now, you know, I'm eating those words. But, you know, I explored
Everything because there were elements of sales and trading that I knew I liked and there were elements I knew I didn't like, but I didn't go with that translated to in terms
Julia: [00:26:00] Of a job. So I really was interviewing for sales roles. Even I was interviewing for asset management, interviewing for real estate Development and real estate management, looking at corporate finance. You know, I was looking at a lot of stuff in tech And I was I spent every weekend my fall semester on an airplane, you know, traveling and basically missing my senior Year experience, just doing these super days. So, yeah, just meeting with people trying to figure out what I wanted. I actually interviewed with a couple of investment banks. I thought, Well, if I didn't like sales and trading, maybe I like bank.
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:26:36] Yeah, that's that was going to be my question. Do you consider investment banking? But if you didn't like the hours, it's not any better there, if not worse. Yeah, because I was
Julia: [00:26:44] Looking at boutique banks where it is worse because the teams are a lot smaller. So there's there's fewer people to spread the workload across.
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:26:51] Yeah, tell me a little bit about just so you said you were kind of doing a ton of interviews your senior year, approximately how many places do you think you like actually formally applied and then how many like. Final rounds are offers to end up getting before you finally found General Motors and decided this is it.
I probably applied to 50 companies like just, you know,
Julia: [00:27:13] Filled out a full application, probably got first round interviews this 40 of them did super days with. Is this through Duke mostly, or was it just like directly or both? So in the beginning of the process, it was mostly connections, and then as the school year started, it then became mostly through Duke. They have an incredible career center. A lot of companies are on campus. It is a target school for a lot of companies.
And so, yeah, it probably did 20 super days. My senior year. I mean, I remember one where I was in three different cities within 48 hours doing three different super days. It was like I didn't sleep. I don't think at all during those 48 hours. But let's talk about that.
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:27:57] Like why? I guess you're kind of searching. You're almost like Using these interviews. Correct me if I'm wrong as like a research, a way to like try to figure out because you ended up getting a lot of offers. I assume out of that if you're that many fewer days.
Julia: [00:28:09] Yeah, I had a number of a number of offers in a variety of different fields, all
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:28:15] Of them exploding that you had to like, let go.
Julia: [00:28:18] Well, not I guess, not like oh, but General Motors. The reason part of the reason I accepted it because it was exploding. I was waiting on two other. They were smart, they
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:28:25] Were smart, they closed it and they closed the deal.
They were like, You're like, Wait, you've been to how many other interviews? Ok? Your offer expires tomorrow.
Julia: [00:28:32] It was, I mean, it was brutal. I remember I was on the phone with one of the other companies. I was like, I need an I need to know yes or no within the next 10 minutes because I have to call GM and they're like, we can let you know tomorrow.
I was like, Dang it, not soon enough. But tell me about that other company that you were
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:28:47] Considering strongly considering if you were saying that,
Julia: [00:28:50] Yeah, it was. It was actually an asset management company
In, I think it was in Rye, New York. So, you know, for me, I still like New York at the end. Like even to say, yeah, rent stinks, but I love the city. And so, you know, I really like the company. It was really small. There was a lot of opportunity to advance really quickly.
There was a great opportunity to really have interpersonal relationships with the companies that they were investing in and working with and the people, the assets that they were in, the money that they were managing. They had a really close knit relationship with those people, and I thought that it would be a great opportunity
to grow my network and learn about a variety of different assets outside of just fixed income. And so, yeah, I told them the morning that the GM offer was due and they said that they needed twenty four hours. I was like, Dang it. And right after I called GM and I told them that I was accepting because in that situation. You know, GM, I love the job, I just didn't love the city I just didn't want to move to Detroit. And so someone said if there was any other city, would you take it? And I said, Yeah, it's a great opportunity. And so that was enough for me. I took it. I moved to Detroit, and the rest is history.
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:30:05] How is it right here? I mean, you were there for a good three, almost four years?
Julia: [00:30:09] Yeah, it's so funny. When I when I first moved there, I was terrified.
I didn't know a single person. I had never lived in the Midwest. I'd been to Chicago twice in my entire life. That's probably the closest thing I'd considered to the Midwest. And you don't want it ended up being an amazing three years. I was just there this past week and you know, it felt like home. Like, I missed all of my friends. I missed the city. It's a nice city because it did kind of remind me of Durham where it's up and coming. It's not in New York, it's not a Chicago, it's not a Boston, but there's entertainment and there's things to do. And I mean, you know, last week it was the summer, so the weather was perfect. I definitely have a different opinion in February, but it was awesome getting to do my own thing and meet new people and experience something that so many of my
peers who went to the major cities didn't Get to. You know, I got to sort of discover who I was as an adult outside of college, which I think was a great growing experience,
For sure. For sure. So tell
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:31:08] Me a little bit about just the position itself when you started and Kind of the different roles because you held a lot of roles there in your, you know, three and a half plus years there. So tell me a little bit about kind of. The roles you did have, what were the functions and kind of why you ended up kind of moving so many times across the three years, like because you seem to do it's about a year on each one
Julia: [00:31:32] Or yeah, so it was a rotational program. So at the end of The year,
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:31:37] Everyone fell deep. Kind of thing financial. Develop a leadership program, OK? So yes, that makes a lot of sense. How did you get to choose kind of which ones you're going through?
Julia: [00:31:47] Another funny story. So when I went in, I, you know, I told them that I wanted to work in the Treasury group because I did have experience with capital markets. That's really what I was, you know, I was interested in like mergers and acquisitions and really more of the macro perspective. And I got a phone call saying that I was going to be in the OnStar group and that felt sort of the exact opposite of what I wanted. I haven't come from Florida. I didn't really know which companies GM owned.
I didn't really know what OnStar was. It didn't sound super interesting to me, but I was on the new business development team, which I think really was the catalyst for me being interested in venture capital. Because what my job was building out business
cases for new revenue sources for GM to pursue using the metrics that the vehicles had. So GM is amazing that that they have the most number of connected vehicles Where you can access it from your phone, from the call centers, the cars off to databases and everything like that. And so there's really a lot of opportunity there to create businesses that utilize that technology. So I was responsible for building out
All the business cases, being in all of the huddle meetings and talking to a variety of companies that we wanted to partnership everything from a fuel delivery company to Amazon. We did a partnership with Amazon, and it was it was awesome getting to think about the potential of what this company could be very much felt like. I was working at a startup within this large organization, and so that's sort of when I was like, All right,
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:33:17] How big was that team like that you were working with? It was on star was. I like the I don't even knowIt. All you can is it's basically a small team for that specifi sub business kind of thing within GM.
Julia: [00:33:29] Yeah. So OnStar has its Own P&L within general Motors, so it all feeds up to GM. But like we maintained our own P&L. So very, you know, very separate saved on their own floors. The finance team was 40 people, but my specific team was four people. So there was a manager and three analysts, And no one's jobs overlapped at all. So if one person was gone, it was basically another person couldn't cover it for them because everything everyone did was so specialized in this group. And so that was really cool. You know, the two people, the two analysts on my team, I didn't really know what they were doing day to day and they didn't know what I was doing day to day. But we always were in meetings. We always were running all over the place, meeting with people from all across the country and all across the world. I had calls with New Zealand and Qatar and Brazil, and it was it was so cool feeling like I was. I was doing so many different things. I was wearing so many different hats. It was. It was awesome.
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:34:25] That's cool. Yeah, because it's a strategy in there, a little bit looking at new business. So it should. I think of it as a little more on the FP and a strategy budgeting side or more on like the new business investment side for GM,
Julia: [00:34:37] The new business investment side more. I was doing a little bit of financial planning and analysis, so I did just get the baseline, what a journal entry
Is and what
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:34:48] Does make any acquisitions while you were there.
Julia:[00:34:51] So we weren't acquiring things. We were partnering with companies
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:34:55] That are partnerships and stuff like that. Ok?
Julia: [00:34:58] Exactly. So a lot of revenue share opportunities, but the biggest one that most people know is Amazon, but works with a company called well, ours is called fuel on demand. We looked at purple, which is a fuel company, and number of insurance companies. For some reason, we were working with Hulu. I'm not really sure what we were doing there, but we partnered with Hulu in some capacity. So it was really cool getting to do all those partnership nice and then tell me how
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:35:31] Things progressed. So what else did you do there while you were there? And then tell me About the realization that venture capital was calling?
Julia: [00:35:39] Yeah. So, you know, after that, I spent a year in audit, which was definitely not what I picked. So it was interesting. The day I found out I got audit, I was I was a little disappointed. But then it Ended up being a great experience. The people were great. I learned a lot. It felt a little bit V.C. In that I spent a month hard core learning about supply chain. And then the next month I had a hard core learn about manufacturing and the next month I had to hard core learn about product development.
So for me, I loved that. You know, I love how every month I was learning something completely different. I had to come up to speed really, really fast about an industry
And become sort of a subject matter expert on something that I had no idea about the week before because you were
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:36:19] Internally auditing separate areas of the business side or whatever. Was it like a tax auditing or
What was it just like financial auditing?
Julia: [00:36:26] It was actually operational auditing. So we were looking at financial statements. We were looking at processes and how to make them more efficient, how to
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:36:34] Operate. That's actually a pretty good audit. I always think of like the big four and like, you know, tax auditing or something like that or, you know, this is operate almost like operational audit, OK?
Julia: [00:36:44] It's more like consulting, which is cool. Like. Came in and we put together a presentation in the end and say, you know, these are the areas where
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:36:51] Why did you now want? Why did you not want audit than knowing what you did for that year? What was your perspective going in?
Julia:[00:36:56] Because no one knew that's what it was. I, you know, change the name. They really should. They should change it to internal consulting. No one knew
What it was. They didn't do a good job advertising themselves. And so I sort of became the poster child for audit where I went around telling people, guys, this is cool. Like, I got to go to Brazil for a month. I got to go to Nashville for a month. I got to go to Philly. You know, I got to travel all around the world and learn a bunch of stuff really fast and then put together these presentations that the C-suite was looking at and asking me about. So they definitely didn't advertise themselves well, but I helped up that
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:37:32] Goal. And then what else?
Julia: [00:37:34] Um, and then after that, the sales and marketing group worked on incentive, so the easiest way to describe that is when you see an advertisement that says zero percent Apr for seventy two months. I was the one who figured out how
Much that would cost GM. That's and that's when the pandemic hit. So that that was a really weird time working from home sort of having there was a very meeting based
Group and all of a sudden we were forced onto Zoom for everything. So, so that was crazy. And that's sort of when I realized, all right, time to start looking elsewhere.
And, you know, I Always in the back of my mind was like, you know, venture capital is so interesting. And this stuff that I like reading about is startup. I spent more Time reading about Nikola than I did about ford in the auto industry. Rip, Nikola. But you know, that stuff was so much more interesting to me than, you know, blue chip stocks like when I was looking at applying for jobs, I didn't really care about looking at Apple. I cared a lot more about looking at quantum computing startup called righetti. Like, to me, that was much more.
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:38:41] It's interesting you ended up at Gm with that perspective, but yeah, going GM VC is not the most traditional. That's very odd. I know it's a very stable, large business to, oh, let's just go be a venture investor. And then also like, how did you even so when you was something like one day you're like, Hey, I know
want to do VC. Or was it something that you just started talking to people when you realize, hey, might be a time to? Make my next step and then be kind of just came onto the map.
Julia: [00:39:09] Yeah, so 2020 was very similar to my senior year in college, where I was applying to every LinkedIn job post I saw and just doing the interview process
And using it as a chance to learn. And the tipping point for me was when I got my first rejection from a VC firm and I was devastated versus the other rejection. So I was like, OK, move on to the next one. The VC one hurt. And that's how I knew this is what I really want to do because I knew in a heartbeat. Had I gotten that offer, I would have taken a pay cut and I would have moved like in a heartbeat. I would have accepted it. And so from there, I sort of stopped applying to companies that I knew I never would work at, focused only on startups and venture capital and was just applying to startups. Applying the venture capital got a few offers from a number of startups, actually, and the more that I talked to them, I realized, you know, I don't want to just focus on one industry like, I don't want to go into a business and just focus on quantum computing or just focus on direct to consumer goods or just financial services. I want to be able to
Have a call with a primary care startup and then immediately move into a user testing startup and have that conversation. And so then I just focus on venture capital from there and interviewed with a number of firms. I think what's so awesome about the VC industry is that, you know, these companies where I don't work at them now, I still talk to the people I interviewed with because we see such a tight knit network and there's so much deal flow that goes from company to company that, you know, all these people that I got to meet during this year of interviewing, I'm Still in contact with which I think is cool, and I don't think that you get that necessarily from applying to any other industry.
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:40:48] Did you feel like, I guess, tell me a little bit about that interview where you got or you didn't get the offer? Tell me about why you think that was the case. And then let's talk a little bit about the whole interview process of VC, which can be a little bit esoteric in and of itself. A little bit vague, and it's kind of even hard to know where you would join. Having worked for four years at a school, put no investing experience prior, so tell me a little bit about that.
Julia: [00:41:13] Yeah. So, you know, I was definitely just blind submitting my resume to these B.c. firms and finally, one emailed me back and said, Hey, we'd love to do a first round. And I was so ecstatic I couldn't believe it. And so, you know, I made it past the first round. It was very behavioural, just like I really clicked with the first and second round again, behavioral really, really clicked with the person. And then the third round was putting together an investment memo, and this is something I'd never done before. I googled what is an investment memo? And I found a company that I was really, really interested in, and it turns out that it was an international company. The feedback, you know, I as soon as I got the rejection, I reached out and I said, Hey, like, can I get some feedback? You know, this is what I want to do. How do I get better for my next interview? And she said, Well, first I was, you know, I was very disparaging
Or, you know, I was sort of kicking myself. I said, I know that I don't have a great background. You know, I come from a big company. She's like, No, you have a super interesting background. So looking at our portfolio companies, the one you pick doesn't fit at all. You know, we don't invest internationally, we don't invest in agriculture startups. You know, it was a seed stage company and we only invest in Series B. And so it was just, you know, I
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:42:25] Didn't do my research. You just missed. Yeah.
Julia: [00:42:29] You know, I'll be the first to admit when I when I failed and I failed, you know, I didn't. I pretty much missed the mark on every one of their investment theses. And so from there I learned, OK, the next time I get asked to do this, do research under the types of companies that the firm invests in. And if I can't get it from the website during the interview process, ask them, you know, be say, Hey, like, what do you look for in a company? And so from there, you know, I was able to find doing a little bit more and then a lot of it, you know, with B.S., you have to think about, well, what stage do you want to invest in? Because growth stage is a completely different ball game than early stage, because early stage you don't have revenue Sectors to be looking at and growth stage, it's a lot more like private equity, where you're doing financial modelling and analysis to figure out if it's a good investment. So that was something and then figuring out what area I wanted to live in. You know, I sort of knew I didn't want to live out west. My personality is very East Coast,] So I sort of stopped applying to San Francisco companies, which is crazy because that is 80 percent of the D.C. Industry. So pretty much, you know, did a huge haircut there. And, you know, figuring out what do I want to invest in, I realized that, you know, be to be an enterprise software is so interesting because, you know, it's a huge Growth opportunity and you don't have to have one hundred customers. You can be a multimillion dollar company with 10 customers if you're working in enterprise software. And for me, I was like, Wow, there's a lot of growth potential there. And so I started looking more so into companies that were enterprise versus consumer. And so just narrowing down from there more and more. And then it's the same thing, like when you're applying to schools and you get this list of companies that you're interested in and you email them and harass them and message everyone there. And, you know, find them on LinkedIn and say, Hi, will you set up a call with me and things like that? And so much of it is networking and talking to people, and a lot of it is a cultural fit because so much of venture capital is collaborating
And you spend so much time working with each other. You know, you're never siloed
Like you are in some other finance roles and so panoramic. I really enjoyed everyone I talked to. They seemed like a really great team.
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:44:40] That's great. Yeah, nuts. So tell me about that. That interview, did you actually where you're forced to do another kind of case or pitch for that one or no?
Julia: [00:44:48] Yep. So I did do another pitch. And how would you advise
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:44:51] People who are kind of prepping for these pitches besides doing the research of what types of investments, what types of you know, what's the typical thesis they're making and kind of both niche stage and all that anything else in terms of how to write, how to make sure it's really well put together?
Julia: [00:45:06] Yeah. You know, I think the thing that that I sort of learned is that you have to think about the product, the market and the team, and at the end of the day, those are the three things that you're judging any company on at any stage. And so you know, you want to make sure. Is this a big enough? So let's start with products like, you know, is this a product that people need if people don't have this product, you know, will it really affect their day to day lives? Is there a lot of people making this product out? There is no one making this product out there because there's a happy medium. If no one's doing it, it's probably not needed. And if everyone's doing it, how are you going to win? And then market is the market 10 people? If so, you're probably not going to make a lot of money. It's the market, literally everyone on the Planet, then you probably could make a lot of money. And then the team, you know, are these people who are fresh out of college, studied, you know, studied biology, and they're trying to build a fintech company, you know, things like that, you know, have these people work together before? And so those are the biggest three things to think about in any sort of investment. So I would encourage anyone who's doing any sort of pitch or investment memo focus on product marketing scheme.
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:46:15] Yeah, do that and then purchase the Wall Street versus venture capital course. And you don't have to do that, but it
Julia: [00:46:21] Would be helpful to have a
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:46:24] Little plug in there. But so this is great. So tell me a little bit about just, you know, it's one thing to kind of get the job. And then once you start there, is it kind of what you expected or how many companies are you evaluating on a weekly basis, would you say? Are you traveling still, because it sounds like you really enjoy the travel? Do you get to do any of that or is it more about just building kind of a network with other VCs and whatnot? I'd love to just hear about like, what's it like on the job? Because you've only you're still relatively new for you.
Julia: [00:46:53] Yeah, you know, I think it's sort of funny when you do your first job, your second job, I guess your first job, there's this huge learning curve and like very slow process and you start your second job, you definitely hit the ground running. They're like, Oh, you've worked before, you're like, you'll pick it up. So my first week on the job, they assigned me to the series business and it was a massive investment. And I remember one of the analysts came up to me and he's like, this is a really big deal. This is Almost like a tenth of the funds, so you need to take it really seriously. And I was like, Oh my gosh, okay. So, you know, it's a lot of just, you know, having to learn things on your own. I read Brad Feld Venture book, which I love, can't recommend it enough. I listen to a ton of podcasts. When I was making the move up here and just, you know, trying to learn as much as I can and then, you know, I think something that I didn't necessarily expect is how much time we spend really evaluating these companies. You know, for me, I always sort of thought it was more like Shark Tank where you hear the idea and you're like, Yeah, it's a good idea, but I don't really like it. I won't invest. But in the real VC world, you're really looking into, you know, a company's financials. How long has it been successful? Like, what are their projections? How close are they to meeting their projections for this year and for next year? And what is the competition look like? How are they differentiating themselves? What's the moat? How or how do they make it so that no one else can mimic what they're doing and then having to present those ideas in a convincing way, but also an objective way? That way you're
providing the good, the bad and the ugly. So that way, you know, when you go into the investment five Years from now, it's not like, Oh my gosh, where was this red flag? How come no one brought it up to us?
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:48:40] You know, for sure, and I guess in terms of just any advice you'd give to people specifically looking to break in like you did out of a I guess you'd call it non-traditional background or actually before we even go there? What was the hardest part of that transition? But just learning all the lingo? Or was it more like the modelling? What was the hardest part for you? So that's interesting. If you were thrown into a series of large investment right away, like that first project, was it it was like, Oh, this is a big deal, where did you feel like? Was it the diligence stuff that you hadn't done before or like just the whole process of making the investment? That was tough. It sort of figuring out like, what? Don't you know, what questions are you going to need to answer? Because when you work in corporate finance, you sort of have deliverables that you know exist when you're in venture capital, like, yes, you have power points that you need
Julia: [00:49:25] To put together, but then you're going to get asked a million questions. You need to be prepared for those millions of questions. So you know, it's what documents do I need to be reading, you know, with public companies, should I be looking at, you know, what comparable should I Be doing, what sort of analysis I need to be doing? It's the hardest part for me was figuring out, where do I even start with this and what questions do I need to have answered? And you know why going into the investment committee meeting or something so that you don't get in like completely embarrassed? Yeah, yeah. I mean, and even, you
Know, meeting with the, you know, the team itself, you know, the company is I want to walk in there and not ask, so what do you do? Or, you know, so what's the difference between a CNA and an, you know, a nurse practitioner or something like, I need to go in there and know the difference between all of those? And so, yeah, it was just It was just crazy figuring out like, where do I even start learning? Mm hmm. That's cool. So I don't want to take you too much to hear more of your time. But anything else before we call it kind of any final words of wisdom for people looking at your path and thinking, hey, this is pretty interesting, I might want to do something similar. Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest takeaway is that, you know, really be honest with yourself, I think so many
People go in like we talked about earlier, so many people go into internships and they're like, well, ten other people would kill for this internship. So I'm just going to take it even if I'm miserable. But you know, I think the reason that I am, you know, happy where I am now is because I, you know, listen to myself and I said, I'm not happy. Let me fix that. Let me make myself happy. I think a lot of people work so hard for where they want to be in 30 years that they are like, I can be miserable for 30 years to 30 years and I will be happy. You know, we might not get those 30 years. Don't you want to be happy every step of the way? And I think that's sort of the path that I followed, and that's the advice that I would give to people and that things are going to work themselves out if I can go from a forty thousand person international giant automaker that's been around from the early nineteen hundreds to a 20 person venture capital firm like, you know, anyone can go from any job to any job. It's all about making sure that you know you're learning about yourself and learning about the companies that You're applying to and making sure that it's something that you really want to do, not something that you think that you want to do or the idea that you want to do and lying to yourself and telling yourself that you're happy when you're not. You know, there's a job. There's so many jobs out there, there's no reason to settle for one.
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:51:57] And I think these flip programs are vastly underrated on Wall Street Oasis specifically for the reason that you get such a nice, broad exposure. And like, almost like that light bulb went off for you and you're like, oh, that's interesting startup like kind of the new business stuff and that kind of now led to your new career.
Julia: [00:52:14] So, oh, absolutely. I mean, I think the more jobs you can do in the shorter period of time, the better, because then you can pick and choose the elements that you like and the elements that you don't like. And then from there, you can sort of build your ideal career and then go and find that job. So I highly recommend rotational development programs. I think they're amazing and you build your network so fast, like rotating through four different groups at GM. I know so many people at that company and then they all go off to the Amazon and Apple and Walmart and firms and banks, and now I have contacts all over the place. You know, I think that's another huge thing.
Patrick (CEO of WSO: [00:52:51] Yeah, it's a huge advantage, for sure. Well, Julia, thanks so much for taking the time and sharing your story with all of us. Really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks so much. 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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