WSO Podcast | E69: Classical Musician to Hedge Funds and Venture Capital
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In this episode, member @BadAxe85 shares his path from classical musician, ju-jitsu fighter and scraping before eventually landing at a top hedge fund and recently a well-respected VC. Everyone thought he was crazy. Hear about his winding path and the steps he needed to take before he had his first big break as well as some of the secret sauce that helped him to repeatedly defy the odds.
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WSO Podcast (Episode 69) 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 talk to some of the community's most successful and inspirational members to gain valuable insight into different career paths and life in general. Let's get to it. In this episode, remember BadAxe85. He shares his path from classical musician jujitsu fighter and scraping by before eventually landing at a top hedge fund. And recently, a well-respected VC. Everyone thought he was crazy here about his winding path and the steps he needed to take before he had his first big break, as well as some of the secret sauce that helped him to repeatedly defy the odds. Enjoy. All right, Logan, thanks so much for joining the Wall Street Voices podcast.
BadAxe85: [00:01:04] Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Patrick. I appreciate what you've done for the community. So happy to get back in when I can comment.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:09] So if you could start just with a quick bio?
BadAxe85: [00:01:12] Yeah, so I probably have one of the least Wall Street tracked bios out there, I was raised on a farm in rural Wisconsin and a beautiful place. I moved overseas when I was 12. My parents wanted me to have more cultural horizons, so they sent me to live with my Uncle, who lived in Madrid. Spain was an expat. He's an awesome guy. So I began really my classical music discipline over there. I turn out to be a guitarist actually, instead of like a finance guy, which is totally, totally bonkers. And I look back on and think, Oh my gosh. But anyway, so I lived in Spain part of the year and then back home on the farm part of the year growing up. So I really had like kind of a bifurcated childhood. I went to undergrad young didn't go to a target school. I went to a nice liberal arts college called Lawrence in
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:56] How old were you when you went to undergrad? When you say you're young?
BadAxe85: [00:01:59] I was really young, so I had auditioned as a performance major and I was accepted on 16. So kind of rising when I was 15 or so, I played classical music my entire life. And it was just something that my family had values in. So I got admitted when I was 16 and started right after I turned 17. So I got there that summer and I was, I think, like the second youngest kid on campus.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:19] Was it like piano? What were you playing when I was
BadAxe85: [00:02:22] A classical guitarist
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:23] Guitarist? Oh, cool, interesting.
BadAxe85: [00:02:25] It's just straight track to hedge funds from there.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:29] Exactly. Yeah, right? So you're OK. So you're getting this little liberal arts college like myself. So you have, I assume there's no finance or accounting courses there.
BadAxe85: [00:02:38] No, no, I didn't until I did my MBA way later in life. I didn't take a single econ course or finance course or business, either. My dad, it was all composition and performance arts.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:47] Yeah. So tell me you're kind of slow when you graduate. Where you what was the first couple of things out of school? When did you kind of actually even know about finding you probably didn't even know what finance was in terms of like careers or anything like that? It was just this vague notion.
BadAxe85: [00:03:02] Yeah, it was kind of a vague notion as far as like true institutional finance. But I mean, I love business. But you know, essentially I was an entrepreneur then because I tried to be a concert artist, try to be a classical musician. I didn't want to be a teacher. I didn't want to go back and be a professor. I made that decision early. I want to be a performer and as a classical musician in the states, it's obviously it's brutal. I mean, know it's hand-to-mouth. You're broke as hell of your passion. And like I, I that's what I fell in love with when I was in Spain. When I was a little kid, I pursued that all the way into my twenties. So that's why you
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:32] Were still in Spain.
BadAxe85: [00:03:33] Yeah. Well, I was in Spain part of the year until I went to college, And then when I was in college, I did my study abroad in Milan, Italy.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:41] Espanol. See, I don't know how to get out of here. Yeah, yeah. Very cool. Yeah, my mom's Columbia. My grandmother was born in Barcelona, right north of Barcelona.
BadAxe85: [00:03:52] Oh, no, no. Yeah, I know the region. Yeah, yeah. So my aunt is from Navarra, so she's from like the North Central. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:58] Very cool. So you're trying to scrape by your your. Tell me what those years were like or how long are you?
BadAxe85: [00:04:06] I was pretty skinny then, which is great, but I had an athletic background too. So you still look pretty.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:14] You still look like you're in good shape, you're in good shape. You got the Patagonia vest, you're you look back. You look like your bank ified now. You know, you get the Patagonia vest.
BadAxe85: [00:04:22] It's like I took my Arc'teryx went off earlier. It's a little chilly. It's like zero degrees in Chicago. Yeah, but yeah, man. So you know, I had an athletic background too. So I was a grappler. I was always too small to play football and like hockey's the other big sport. And so I was kind of shrimpy. So my parents put me in wrestling, which turned out to be great because when I was in college at 17, I found Brazilian jiu-jitsu and that was my passion and I loved it. And so I had kind of a split. So I put myself, I put food on the table being a strength conditioning coach and personal trainer, but I was doing gigs on the side and trying to perform as much as I could and really trying to make it as a classical artist in the states.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:57] So how where were you living at this point? How how much do you think you were bringing in nearly doing the personal training in the classical pianist?
BadAxe85: [00:05:05] Like, probably like. 30 to 50 grand. Ok, so your table. Yeah, I mean, like once you get known as a name as a trainer and like you can weave, I wove the jujitsu piece into that to say, like, Hey, you know, I have won some tournaments. I had some success doing that as a grappler. And you know, that brings more old dudes that want to learn how to
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:24] So kids don't end up in a brawl with you because you're going to snap a snap my arm in the wrong direction or something. You're being a lock.
BadAxe85: [00:05:32] Yeah, I think, you know, one thing that gets you, if there's one thing I could take away from jiu-jitsu is that it is. It takes the hubris out of it because you get your ass beat so much for so many Years, like there's no ego Left, so you Build up from there. But yeah, that's cool, man.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:45] That's it. It sounds exciting. So you're doing that for how long? How long are you doing the personal training thing and when does the one? Is the decision to kind of go the finance route happen?
BadAxe85: [00:05:54] Yeah, early twenties. I mean, I left the mats and I left classical music and I walked away from jujitsu and I walk away from classical music because I want to pursue a career in business. And it was a huge risk. And you know, you reach
Out your network like where I grew up, I had zero network. I mean, there's nobody that went into finance from, like rural Wisconsin and you came in and it's a great place to be from. But it's a rural agrarian community and they're wonderful people, but it's not. There's no Pipeline. And so I really tried. I had to build my own network like brick by brick, which is one of the reasons why people reach out to me. And I actually pick up the Phone because like, nobody picked up the Phone when I was calling. So, yeah, so then I made that decision and I had to bootstrap. And so you have to make a decision. Are you going to go CFA? Are you going to go MBA? What are you going to do? How are you going to get in? Are you going to go through wealth management?
Usually that's easiest track as opposed to institutional. And so I set my sights on that. Most people laughed and said I was an idiot and they're like, Well, dude, you're a musician. And then less like jujitsu guy. What the hell? You have a shot? It's ridiculous. Like, it was laughable. So I guess I'm living proof that if you think that you're on the Fringe, like you can Still have a shot. So, so
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:03] Tell me about that thought process of like, so you're kind of making a decent living. You're not, you know, you're not making a lot of money, but you're surviving, you're getting clients, you're kind of spending all that time doing the training. Was it just a sense of like, I'm not satisfied or what attracted you to like, OK? Was it, Hey, I just want to take care of myself, be better off financially.
BadAxe85: [00:07:23] And yeah, I mean, as a global citizen, I mean, I was a global citizen by the time I was 12 years old because I was living in Europe at the time part and their part in the states. And so I understood a little bit about business, a little bit about capital flows. But it wasn't really until it clicked in my twenties where it really ignited my interest and it really advanced the idea of like, I want to be a business person, whether that's an entrepreneur, whether that's somebody who works on the street. And so, you know, you go through the process of like reading books because again, I didn't come from a school or community. I didn't have any friends. I was like, Oh, my buddy is a banker, you should hang out with him. And he's such a cool guy and he works for whatever. So it was I kind of had to find my way into that asset class that I really wanted to crack into, and that happened to be in research. So I ended up meeting a guy. I'll never forget him. He's one of my closest mentors, but I'll never forget. The conversation is through a super weak link contact.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:13] And how did you find him? How did you just show him anymore? From what? From where did you find?
BadAxe85: [00:08:18] It was a girl that went to college with my girlfriend at the time and and we it was so random because she said, Hey, listen, you know, I know this guy in Boston. I used to be his nanny. He's kind of a finance guy. I think he's really nice. Maybe he'll take your call. I don't know that it was like that
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:36] Out there that week. Yeah, that we could link totally.
BadAxe85: [00:08:40] And so I sent him an email and he sent me email back and he actually works at this massive hedge fund. He's a PM there and just an awesome guy. And he grew up in the rural Midwest with no network and he was a wrestler. Perfect. Yeah. And so and he said, call me at Market Close the next day. And so I thought he was going to ask me, pitch me a long pitch, be assured, you know, he's going to test my knowledge or whatever. He asked me any of that. He got on the phone and he said, you have an hour of my time. Tell me your life story. What do you want to do? I mean, it was it was crazy. And so I told him, you know, my whole hopes and dreams, my whole aspirations. And he's listed me the entire time and he said, Ok, great, you're only shots.
The CFA and I signed up that week and never look back. It took me three years.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:23] Yep. So you started the CFA, but in the meantime, so while you're trying to pass all that, what are you doing?
BadAxe85: [00:09:29] Are you able to land? Yeah, I work in and then.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:32] But you're doing the same type of stuff. You're doing the same training and the same, you're still.
BadAxe85: [00:09:35] Yeah, but then I was able to join an R&A, which is like was a small bike, one hundred and fifty million dollar fund. And they did multiple asset classes like high net worth individuals, individual portfolios. And so I got my feet wet
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:46] On the equity. Explain to the listeners what that means, like what were you doing day to day for them like an advisor?
BadAxe85: [00:09:52] So yeah, just basically a wealth manager, but not under an umbrella. And so it was his own shop. He ran his clients’ Money and they had equity portfolios for those. But we didn't sell any products. We weren't attached to any, any umbrella company. And so it was all. Individually crafting books, and so that got me exposed to equities, got me exposed a little bit of debt. And then when I Pass level three, I kept in touch with my same mentor and he gave me an internship at the end of year three and he said, Hey, if you pass level three, I'll give you three months And you can come and work on a book. It was a $2 billion and two billion dollar industrial portfolio, and so I jumped on that and after that I started. I got interviews based on that, and that's how I cracked into the street.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:37] so let's talk. Let's reverse a little bit because it's interesting that Ari a thing to hold you over was the pay really low. What type of you said you've got exposed to equity and debt there? But like, what were you doing day to day? Was it like mostly not like you're not making trades and stuff? Or are you? Are you
BadAxe85: [00:10:51] Being? No, no, no. You don't make any trades you're more of, like you're more of like a research analyst and you say, Hey, my client, they own too much of this. They're too highly concentrated families. So highly concentrated in this. They have 20 percent of their stock in the company that they work for forever. And so they buy a little bit. And then when I went to the hedge, so were
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:10] You making like fifty thousand there for base or
BadAxe85: [00:11:14] Yeah or out there? Yeah, annualize
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:16] It. Kind of replaced what you left behind. Yeah. So you were able to kind of at least get something that's related, which was good. And then your mentor kind of came through, yeah, and got you that that critical internship, right, that
BadAxe85: [00:11:29] The critical internship. That's right. And I think that one of the reasons is because I always stayed in touch with them and I always gave them updates and like, you know, I would encourage like the young people Out there, you know, follow Up, like following up as huge in this business and it is a mentorship business and all asset classes, in my view. So I think that's a super important piece is and not only him, like, I follow it up with a lot of my Mentors and still Do today. Just, you know, you hit them back up and say, Hey, I'm doing this, this is what I'm working on right here. Well, see you later connect in six months or a year.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:59] So the CFA kind of gave you enough legitimacy in his eyes, where he was comfortable taking that risk of bringing you in and saying, Hey, help me manage this book.
BadAxe85: [00:12:08] Yeah, I mean, he was a PM there, and he didn't really. He had one young guy working under him that was an analyst, and then I was just an intern. So, you know, institutionally, I didn't really know much. Besides what you have in your CFA training, right? Which is like super academic and then now you're in the long short side. And so you're looking at companies all the time and you have this huge information flow every day and that got my feet wet and
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:30] Then you're doing shorts, too. You're doing not just long. You're doing shorts.
BadAxe85: [00:12:34] Ok, cool. Exactly. And then after that, I mean, there was no it was. It came in with the assumption that there was no job at the end of it. They didn't. They didn't hire interns. They just usually just hired senior guys and PMS that fund worked. But they were big. There are 30 billion plus there were a huge fund. And so we use that to help leverage me into interviews on the sell side, and I Was picked up by a research Team doing semiconductors. So and like in that, I think it's important to note that, you know, I did some banking interviews as well and did some other interviews that the bulge and stuff like that. But pick your sector because like and I'm glad that I did because I got into tech and I would do it again one hundred percent, one hundred days out of one hundred. But when you are interviewing and you have a sector focus that you really Love, you know, don't take the brand Name, take the team and take the sector like you think that's going to grow. That's definitely something that that I Would keen on if I was a young person trying to break
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:31] In. So you were saying something about tech, what? You didn't take tech or you did, that was your second. Yeah. Semiconductor, right? And so you kind of you. Is it because it allows you to focus more on the interviews? Is because it's just something you're going to enjoy? Or why do you think?
BadAxe85: [00:13:45] Well, because I want to have my future in it. I mean, eventually, you know, at that time, I wanted to I wanted to be a buy side investor. That was why I was focused on. But it's a great skill set to build. If you're on the sell side and the research side. And like, I know a lot of bankers and some of them are my buddies and that's, you know, a respectable career. But I think I really like the cerebral part of being a researcher and being an author. And that part of it, I really enjoyed. I enjoyed the buy side and then I moved to the buy side after that as an investor, a global investor, global tech investor. And it's just it's a different dynamic. And so having worked on the sell side and the buy side now in DC, there's a lot of contrast that I'm happy to talk about.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:26] If you want to talk to me a little bit about the transition, so you get in, you end up getting to the sell side, doing the equity research day to day you're doing you're obviously doing deep dives into companies, you know, writing up a lot of memos, doing all that stuff that's that you love.
BadAxe85: [00:14:41] It sounds like it was interesting. Absolutely. Yeah, it was interesting. But you know, it's a grind, right? Like, you know, you're cranking out the earnings and like. And a lot of the buy side, guys, nobody gives a shit. If you know you write some earnings note and there's 60 other analysts that are writing that on that same company. And so it's kind of like a lot of wasted effort, but it does teach you a skill set. It teaches you how to make your voice concise. It teaches you how to be succinct and how to communicate a thesis and then defend it to because. You can be at a buy side shop that may be relatively small or relatively unknown or whatever, and there's a lot of anonymity that can go into that, whereas if you're if you author a piece, you have to defend it because people are going to call you up and question your assumptions.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:21] So tell me a little bit about like, so you're there for a few years. It sounds like three years.
BadAxe85: [00:15:25] Two years. I was I was in the south side for about a year and seven months.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:30] Yeah, yeah, I see that. Ok, so you're there? And is the goal always similar to sell side investment banking to get to like buy side private equity? Is it similar in equity research where a lot of people are eventually trying to become get get to the hedge fund space or asset management space?
BadAxe85: [00:15:45] Absolutely. I mean, I think it's a lot of them want to go buy side, but I mean, some of them, some of them, you see, go corporate too. I mean, I think the turnover in two or three years in equity research, I think is like 70 percent or something. It's don't call me on that, but it's pretty high. And I think everybody's kind of going in with the idea that if I don't make senior or if, like the path the senior isn't really very Visible, then I want To try to go be an investor somewhere. And I always wanted to be an investor because that part of the business fascinates me the most. So I got a shot on a global tech team to do that. And so I worked for one of the large mutual funds in Boston, and there was a hedge fund product internal to that. It was a global long shot tech fund,
And it was an amazing Opportunity because now you go to an asset base of one hundred seventy five billion dollars globally and you have so much inflow and research and visibility and you're talking to all the banks involved. And all these IPOs noticed this huge like learning process for me. So I love that part of it.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:43] That sounds really fun and sounds like it was a great career move for you to get to the buy side. So tell me about the interview process that was that sounds like it. That job there must have been hundreds, if not thousands, of equity research associates and whatnot applying to that position.
BadAxe85: [00:16:57] I mean, probably, and I Think that why did you get It? Maybe. I mean, I remember sitting down with the PM and like, I went through the interview process, you know, you want you, you talked to HR and talk to these people and you go through that qualitative stuff and all that. And then you sit down the I remember looking at PM in the eye and just saying, Hey, you Know, I want To be here like, this is my future. Whether it's here, whether it’s somewhere else like, I am going to do this in some capacity in the future, I'd love to work for you or card for you. I'm from the Midwest and this is I work really Hard to sit here and so like, win, lose or draw, like I'm going to walk out of here and stay in my mind. And so and I think he believed me on that. And so I think it was it was
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:42] A level of directness and so, yeah, I totally agree. It's funny that you said that because to one of my mentees and I mentor for other kids in this other program called Monkey to millions and I'm mentoring these kids, and I actually said to them on the last session was it kind of brought back what you just said. I would literally stayed at the end of the interviews, which is like, is there anything that's concerning to you about, you know, I really want to be here? Is there any concern or any questions I can answer about my candidacy here? Because this is really I really, definitely want I definitely want this, and I think I would work extremely hard for you and just that, just like that focus and that that ability to kind of hone in and say, like, I'm going to work really hard for you in a way that they believe, they know that you're serious about it and that you're it can really set you apart versus just OK. Yeah, thanks. Nice to meet you.
BadAxe85: [00:18:35] Thank you. Yeah, I totally agree. I think that's spot on. And there's so much, so much generic kind of formulaic answers. And it's not that interviews should be all qualitative by any means. I mean, you have to defend your stocks. You have to say, Hey, pitch me a long, pitch me a short and you say, OK, well, what cap range? Then you go through that process. That's all very good. We can talk about that strategically, but outside of that, it's, you know, do I want to work with this Guy like because we'd be? I covered part of the stocks I covered were in Asia. And so when you have one of the Chinese internet Giants, reports at four o'clock in the morning is the PM. Does he want to hang out with you at four o'clock in the morning when he should be home asleep like in his bed? Yeah. You have to be that person that has that type of Tenacity for one and then that type of personality. That's collaborative. And I think that's what got me into VC too is just I love being collaborative and we can obviously talk about the VC side later. But how did you get part of it?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:29] How did you feel like when you're being that direct and that almost a little aggressive? How do you do you kind of lean on your Midwest of? I worked hard to get here, and it was just true, but you kind of lean on that to prove a point.
BadAxe85: [00:19:44] How do you? I mean, I didn't have I didn't have the background I didn't have, like the gold plated Background of, you know, An Ivy League undergrad and not to knock it. So my best buddies from Boston are Harvard grads, et cetera. But I didn't. I had to tell my story from what it was, and I had to be organic. And I, you know, I Said, Hey, listen, I worked my ass off. To break into the to the wall into Cfa and like and then into Wall Street like, I was able to do that and I want momentum. I'm a big believer in momentum, by the way. And it's a risk, you know, you don't you can't sell it because they'll sniff that out in a heartbeat. But if you really mean it And you Have a sympathetic voice, And by the way, Like when I was interviewing for the sell side, some of the interviews are brutal. They're just like, Well, who are you? You know, you're some kid from the middle of nowhere and like, why should I hire you? And it was just like, they cut it off right there, whereas other people were like, Wait, you're a musician And you're a composer and you're trying to do this, you know, like bootstrapping and like, that's really interesting. Tell me more about it. What do you think? What are your thoughts with the jujitsu piece? I had interviews. I had guys actually did jujitsu from New York that would come in and ask me crazy questions About like manoeuvres And like chokes and joint locks and stuff like to try to feel out if I was like, you know, full of it or whatever. Yeah, yeah. And so you just never know. Like, you know, you have traders that are really interested in the jujitsu piece and you have like research analysts that are really like cerebral and they're like, What do you think about when you're composing music? Or, I mean, you just never know where it's going to go? Yeah. So, so Yeah. And I mean, it Worked, and I don't think it's a risk to be direct, but that's the Shot that's the only shot I've had.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:17] So it sounds it sounds like your interest played a huge role in your interviews.
BadAxe85: [00:21:22] I think so, because it's what I did. I mean, one thing you'll know about me is that I will chase and pursue what I feel most passionate about. And that's just and I knew I knew that when I was going into classical music like, you know, you're going to be broke, but you do what you love and like, you can be a world traveler. You need global person. And like, I knew that going Into the business World, it's brutal, it's Tough. It's competitive as hell. But it's what made Me happy and it's and still does today, and I'm glad I did it. I would do it again in a heartbeat, for sure.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:54] So you're you managed to kind of do something, say something. Maybe it's how direct you were. Tell me a little bit about your now your pitch is deciding what the long short did you how many did you have prepped ready going in? And specifically, how did you prepare for that? Were you using ideas from your time at the sell side shop to kind of prep? Prep your pitches
BadAxe85: [00:22:18] Totally so you lean on your coverage universe for sure, and they should expect that of what you cover, but you also want to have something that's outside of coverage that you actually feel passionate about because in the by side, obviously you're going to cover a lot more stocks. And so instead of covering 15 and covering really deeply, you cover one hundred. And so but you always have blind spots in the buy side, you're probably never going to know as much about one particular name, but you all better visibility to consensus opinion because you talk to all the analysts, et cetera. So I think, you know the biocides more about aggregation distillation. But as far as pitches go, I lean on my coverage primarily for long and for short, and then I moved outside of my coverage into software or something like that. That was maybe a smaller cap name that wasn't very well covered, that maybe I felt like there's a little bit better viewpoint on. Or maybe there is some type of an overhang on the name that wasn't really fundamental to the growth thesis. And so that's kind of how I presented it. It seemed to go over fairly well. I interviewed another a couple of places, but that seemed pretty good, like have multiple cap ranges To pitch in, I would say.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:17] And so were you going in with like, it sounds like too long then one short.
BadAxe85: [00:23:21] And for most, I would say more than one short, because if you have a really if you have a consensus short, that's like maybe like a passive shorter people don't really want to talk about it. You can say, Hey, you know, Microsoft's overvalued. Nobody cares about that, right? And say, Hey, listen, you know, this thesis is broken because X, Y and Z. But like tech, it's a little harder because a lot of those shorts are Necessarily like balance sheet Driven per say. You can't say, like, Hey, they told me they made this Many widgets, but they didn't. It's more of like, you know, it's a little bit different if you're if you're trying to short a software name. But, but yeah, I would say multiple shorts and a couple of longs is fine. Just different cap ranges.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:57] Ok. And then so as you're prepping for these, are you just running screens? You're using Bloomberg? What are you doing to kind of develop your thesis? And I mean, obviously, you're leaning on your university said that you're you're familiar with.
BadAxe85: [00:24:08] So you kind of can try a couple.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:11] A couple are probably easy to come up with, but then how are you finding those additional ones, just doing some certain screens, you remember kind of how you filtered?
BadAxe85: [00:24:19] Yeah, I mean, I had access to Fact Set and Bloomberg. And so it's a little bit easier. So you have a leg up in that regard. But, you know, I would say, I mean, talking to like undergrads Or something like, you know, probably don't Read seeking alpha, that's not really going to get you where you need to be. And I would say, and it was it was a little bit easier because I was used to writing as a cell sider. And so like writing a thesis that made sense. There's four or five points to it that are the main points. And there's like some sub points for your thesis that would defend that. Tell it that, uphold that assumption. Valuation is a big deal, obviously, so I felt like it really tried to nail that part Of it Valuation relative to and it's fairly easy to build cap tables and stuff from publicly available data. And so if you have a short or Long, it's everything On Wall Street is relative, right? And so you say, Hey, this is overvalued y because of X, Y and Z and like, that's a very defendable. It doesn't have to be academic, but it's a very defendable way to go about it. Instead of saying, Hey, this company is a zero, and here's why one, two and three, that's not really going to necessarily advance the idea, especially to your PM who is, you know, seeing how many stock pitches over 20 years.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:27] Right. So you're saying make it more of a relative valuation?
BadAxe85: [00:25:32] I would say, yeah, I'd say that's an easier way to go because you can always expound upon that or you can revisit that. But yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:38] Interesting. Ok, so you're seems like you're well prepared. You go into this buy side kind of dream role, it sounds like, and you're talking to the PM and you make great impression. You're very direct. You appeal to your kind of humble beginnings and you're how hard it works. And so tell me what that was like or tell me, tell me that what was that like when you got the call and was it or you surprised? Or did you feel like you had nailed it?
BadAxe85: [00:26:05] I mean, you're always surprised. You know, if you're if you're not surprised, you're not really seeing the world very clearly, but it's overconfident. Yeah, I mean, man, I was elated. You know, I thought that, Hey, listen, you know, I made it. I didn't know where I made it to, but I made it to somewhere and I knew that it was. It was a respectable firm, and I knew the guy I was working for was, you know, he's legit. He put up huge numbers, and so I felt like I was going into a great environment. You know, besides brutal and performance can be up and it can be down and like one day you can be, you know, Feeling like you're the master universe. The other day you're in the gutter. And so it's just it's this huge swing mentally. And so the pressures of the sell side, where it's like grinding out the hours, getting back to your clients, doing the IPOs and stuff like that, moving to the buy side, which is different types of stress, you can be blown up by one name and you nailed every other thesis or whatever. And so you just it's a different type of skill set. It's much more, especially now. These days is much more data driven because you're buying a third party research and you're saying, OK, well, we're scraping six hundred million cell phones in China, and we're going to see what that tells us, you know? And so it's a little bit it's a little bit of a different skill set and then the stress swings to other parts. Of, you know, your portfolio
Management and things like that, you have to Look at a lot more angles, but In less depth than on the sell side, I'd say
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:24] So tell me a little bit about those hours on the sell side. What what do you think you Were putting in weekly
BadAxe85: [00:27:29] On average? Oh man, earnings would be probably almost banking hours because I was on just a two man team. It was just one senior and one junior. Yeah. And we had an MD in our group and he had a couple of guys working for him. But really, it was just it was a one on one relationship, which is great. But it was Immensely stressful Because, as you Know, as we know, there's no playbook for this business. And so it's either sink or swim, it's either die by fire or like you make it through.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:57] So you were doing, what, 90 hours, some week or
BadAxe85: [00:27:59] 90 hours a week, but there are some weeks where he did 90. If we're especially if we're like Assisting With an IPO process or something like that. But I would say your typical sell side like junior role would probably be like 60 to 70. Probably.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:14] Ok, that's fair. And then so when you kind of got into this buy side rule, was that the hours better, but the stress was more magnified because of that. Every day you're getting feedback on your positions and stuff like that.
BadAxe85: [00:28:24] I think though, I think it's magnified, the hours are slightly better. But then again, in earnings season, you don't have to write up much. I mean, since we're at a big shop and a lot of the other PMS own tech names we did internally publish, which is another part of the skill set that smaller firms might not have to do. But like, everybody owns tech, I mean, if your shop owns a billion dollars of Amazon, you have to know what's going on and like, you have to be able to communicate that internally.
So I'd say the Hours are a little bit better. But earnings nights you maybe have like nine or 10 earnings at night instead of one or two, right? You'd be able to go home earlier because, you know, either position yourself well or you didn't. So it's different in that respect.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:05] Tell me a little bit about or whatever you're able to share. Tell me a little bit about the how much in terms of the positioning and stuff like that you guys were, you'd look at like what other funds large funds were doing, other large holders were doing is it was that always like alerts where everywhere and there was a tech in place to kind of give you guys a heads up when there are certain people who are moving out of certain positions?
BadAxe85: [00:29:26] Well, you're talking. You can talk to your traders and they'll tell you a little bit of what they see. But you know, our fund in particular relative to the asset base that the mutual fund itself that had all these different funds, our fund wasn't wasn't that big, it was several hundred million. Then we had another Fund that was several hundred million. So, you know, call it a Billion dollars of capital big enough to start sweating, right? But it's not so much what your competitors are doing. It's it's you have to be somewhat concentrated. And I think the outperformance if you look at the outperformers in the hedge fund space, it tends to be the same teams that tend to be quite concentrated. And so we're pretty concentrated, definitely under 50 Longs, and our short Names would be smaller in a longer tail, but I'll probably leave it at that.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:12] Do you feel like you feel like that's in terms of the hedge fund universe? I know, obviously last year and the year before, it's been really, really tough time. And so, Tommy, talk to me a little bit about that. What's the future look like? Do you feel like for the industry?
BadAxe85: [00:30:27] I think it's and I mean, I don't Mean to be like doom And gloom, but just from what I see, I don't I don't see from my vantage point. My two cents, it's all it's worth. But from my vantage point, I don't see an abatement of headwind To hedge funds. I don't see an abatement To quantitatively driven funds. I see the two Sigma's
And the Akers and the Renaissance. I mean, you have these supercomputers that are, you know, they hire legions of mathematics PhDs to try to optimize this every single second of every single day. And like human beings, are fallible, right? So I just I don't I don't see a future where the fundamental long, short equities will rise to power, as they did In the early two thousands, maybe. Mm hmm. And just look at that with hedge fund closures. I think that the platform models like the point seventy two is the millennium's, the surveyors, those types of pods, they can be outperformers. Those can be brutal places to work. I know some of them
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:33] Tell me why. Why are they so brutal? Just to see grind?
BadAxe85: [00:31:36] Yeah. So like at some of the shops will say, Hey, listen, you know, like you nailed EPS, but you missed it. Why? That comes out of your bonus if you even make it to the end of the year and I mean, so and you don't necessarily have to be brilliant to work there, But I think if You work on a high performing team, you can do really well. And like, you can make a lot of money, but it's going to be your life. I mean, you have to be it's it's your job. Is your life for sure.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:02] Yeah. Talk to me about comp. You mentioned money. Is it? Are those kind of pod those platform positions in the first few years when you're working there? It sounds like it's a high risk job, but potentially highly rewarding. Talk to me about that versus like the long only managers and
BadAxe85: [00:32:20] Long rule is that you have you have more longevity. You probably have more visibility into how you're doing necessarily. It's not necessarily like the mafia where they just take you out back and shoot you or whatever. But and again, I've never worked at the platform shops, but from what I understand about them, and obviously it varies from team to team. Some teams are much more forgiving than others. It's just it depends. It depends on how your PM is doing as well. But I would say that the base, the base on the buy side can be actually quite low, but your comp can vary tremendously. And so you know your comp, your bonus could potentially be a multiple of your base. It just depends and it tends to hockey stick. I think when you when you make this more senior levels than especially if you make senior or even if you make PM, then it can be very lucrative.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:07] So you're talking like when you're first there, I was just like a grunt. You're doing probably like 80 to or maybe even as low as 80 base, even after banking or 100 base.
BadAxe85: [00:33:18] Yeah, maybe like maybe eighty five to one hundred and ten base. Yeah. And then the total
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:22] Gas total gas. But then it can jump with the bonus. If it's a if it's a knockout year, it can be like a three hundred thousand dollars bonus for
BadAxe85: [00:33:29] Yeah, I'd say that's fair.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:30] Yeah, OK, so you're. And then what about yourself? So you're in this buy side shop with the comp much better from from the sell side.
BadAxe85: [00:33:38] I mean, you know, it was you still you had you had decent economics, but it just it depends on How you did. My base was higher on the sell side. Actually, the base is pretty good just because they know they're grinding you and they'll pay you to stick around and you become more valuable over time. Obviously, buy sides a little bit more feast or famine, I'd say.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:57] Yeah. And so with the years that you were there, were they good years or was it like there
BadAxe85: [00:34:02] Was a great year? Yeah, and one of them was a decent year, but not great, you know, low single digits, call it. But one year was fantastic, but it just it depends. And you know, I think something is, I guess, kind of taking one step back is like buy side, sell side on the public equities. At the end of the day, there is an element. And by the way, VC was on my radar like the entire time. But just there's not that many of Us, right?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:23] But it was not or it was. It was always,
BadAxe85: [00:34:26] Yeah, but you know, stepping back, I think at the end of the day, unless you're really passionate about the markets, it can kind of feel like you're a reporter. In some ways, the earnings print hits the stock does well or doesn't it trades in the after hours. You probably moves 90 percent of where it's going to move for the next month and a half or whatever, and like a few minutes after close. And so you write it Up, but really, you haven't Impacted that story. You haven't impacted that narrative. You positioned around it. Maybe you feel like a genius may feel like an idiot. It's probably a coin flip. I mean, even if you have a fifty five percent heart rate like you're a stud, yeah. So you know, it's just it's really varied. But at the end of the day, you can you can kind of like have that creeping feeling like, Hey, you know, I kind of feel like I'm just parroting the sell side because this brilliant guy at Morgan Stanley or whatever wrote this awesome piece about this industry, and he knows way more than that than I do. And but like, oh, by the way, I'm going to tell my PM that I agree with this guy or whatever. So, you know, like the value add, it can be kind of kind of hazy. So just it depends. And so I think like going into it, making the buy side is not everything, it's just it's are you passionate about investing or your passion about the markets? So I think that's a big question because by side sell side, you can still kind of feel like you're just, you know, kind of reporting the news they print. You react,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:45] Even though it's interesting because you say that even on the buy side, you kind of felt like, well, yeah, you're still looking at the smartest sell side analysts to see. And oftentimes you're just agreeing with that. And where are you adding additional insight?
BadAxe85: [00:35:56] Where are you adding an insight? Yeah. And so like, you're what? What you think the stock is valued at, for example, just to take just a random example instead of a sell side, analysts might say, Hey, I think there's thirty five percent upside or 40 percent upside on the buy. So you might say, Hey, this thing was like, I think we have visibility to a triple. Whereas if the sell side analysts came out and said, Hey, I think the stock kind of triple the next 12 months, that might not give them a lot of credibility. That might be a huge risk. Yeah, whereas on the buy side, you can march in your PM's office and say, Hey, we should be pounding the table on this. Let's back up the truck and here's why. Yeah. And so and you know, you can Like not just talk to analysts, but you can use third party research, you can talk to experts. And so there's just there's more tools you can use provided you have the budget for it and a lot of buy side shops, though they don't really have budget, they don't really get meetings with. Companies generally get access to management. I was fortunate enough to work at a huge shop, and so I literally met hundreds of executives and I would do all kinds of like testing the waters, IPOs, All the huge like pipeline out of Asia, all that. I was all involved in that because I wanted to be.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:36:57] Did you feel like you were able to then deliver some unique insight to your PM?
BadAxe85: [00:37:02] I mean, you try as best you can, whether or not he's going to take the ideas. Your job is to support the more senior guys at the firm and just to deliver whatever you think is best, whatever is relevant and try to cut through the noise. And as I said before, you know, on the buy side, you're more of an information aggregator and more of a distiller. And whereas on the sell side, you are somewhat network driven, but you're also you try to at least attempt to have kind of a thought leadership position on something that's differentiated on a second.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:32] It's interesting, yeah. And in terms of your day to day on the on the buy side, so were you? What percentage of your time do you think you were doing different things? So like you get, you get to the office where you are on calls most of the day. Were you putting writing up investment committee memos like what were you looking at evaluating for positions? What was that? But like, what was the majority of your day in that role? Like, were you so?
BadAxe85: [00:37:54] So my role was more like a drummer. You have a whole bunch of different things going on. You have to maybe hit up some of yourself, something else that you really like, you have to talk to. Maybe, you know, maybe there's an IPO deal at your PM wants you to take a look at
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:06] Some sell side sell side analysts start there. Why are you talking to them?
BadAxe85: [00:38:09] Why are you selling your day to day is, you know, you might be talking to clients. Obviously, you have a lot of email flow, you're cranking out models, you're working on an initiation, you're working on maybe an earnings report that night or whatever. That's day to day. They're on the buy side. It's more you have a ton of email flow because you have all the banks are shooting their research, their deep dives, their earnings, everything, all that. Then you have your whole third party research dump and then you potentially have the IPO pipeline coming to town. Then you have meetings, you have to prepare for It because you have this revolving Door management coming in. And so you have all these different things. You have to rank order priority. And then if your PM or the guys are yelling at you, obviously, then you have to scramble on that. So it's more of like tone of information flow and you're on your phone all the time. So I like that more. But it was it was more stressful in certain ways.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:54] So you said you kind of had been looking toward B.C. all along? Tell me that's very different, obviously in the public market. So tell me a little bit why that started attracting you because I've heard that a lot, actually. I've interviewed a lot of people who kind of are like VC was always the earlier stage was always kind of really interesting to me. So tell me a little bit of why you were intrigued.
BadAxe85: [00:39:15] Yeah. So if you look at a public company, for example, so a public company, they do what they do really well. That's why they're in business. Printing cash for billions of dollars. But the Innovation, I guess for lack of a better word at the core, like when you talk to the management, the conditions that make innovation make sense aren't really always visible to management. And so you have these businesses that are very rinse and repeat. They're very scalable. But you don't necessarily have this really Interesting disruptive idea that’s an emerging Market category you're looking at. What's the market doing now? What are the trends of the market? How is it being shaped and is the market coming to my views or is it going away from my views over time and with B.C.? Not only do you have to entertain the idea of really living in the future because you have to say, Hey, this person says I can take a ride in somebody else's car or sleep in somebody else's house. How ridiculous is that? You have to be able to entertain all types of ideas that are potentially emerging market categories. And the other part of B.C. that I liked a lot, that you Just don't get buy Side or sell side public equities, in my view, is, you know, you're Like on the buy side, everything Distils the one number. It's just what is your alpha? How many stocks are you calling, right? What are you doing for your team? Whereas on the VC side, it's more strategic discussion. You sit on boards, you talk to people about strategy. You might know that your portfolio company is going to miss numbers for three, three different quarters like you know that you're trying to fix it with them. And so you're much more involved in operational aspects of the business, but you still are able to have a high degree of financial Literacy and also The emotional intelligence piece. You know, part of your job is networking and meeting people and making those introductions and being that connector piece. And so that kind of multivariate Skill set, I felt fit my Personality much better Than just being a hedge fund analyst Or just being A sell side researcher
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:41:06] And wanted to be out actually meeting exciting entrepreneurs and
BadAxe85: [00:41:10] Just absolutely, absolutely. And like and even though entrepreneurs can be very eccentric, you know, you never want to try to necessarily discount them when they walk in, even if they're dressed like Steve Jobs, because that person had given up everything to pursue this idea. And maybe They're brilliant. So I love it. It's my favorite asset class to work in so far and definitely bring like the hard financial skill set of the street and then injecting it into VC because you can talk to one of your portfolio companies, CFOs and like hammer out the numbers Or whatever and test the assumptions. And then, yeah, you have the emotional intelligence piece, so I love it.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:41:42] I assume a lot of that's like VCs if are you investing in stuff that's like pre-revenue or like just really early stage that early.
BadAxe85: [00:41:49] So we're Series A and Series B investors, these Companies. Yeah, they found some product market fit, you could say maybe they're doing like a couple million in revenue. Maybe earlier, maybe a little bit later just depends. And then we come in and help drive the business and scale it.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:03] So when you say you're talking to the CFO and filling out the numbers, a lot of it's probably looking at unit economics, trying to figure out where what other markets can we bring this to or how are we going to scale it?
BadAxe85: [00:42:12] Yeah, absolutely. What's happening with the product roadmap? What are they doing with their marketing spend? How are they thinking about headcount growth in that?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:18] Was that natural for you just going there?
BadAxe85: [00:42:21] It was a transition. I mean, so the guy I work for is he's a brilliant guy and he's been in the space for twenty five years, probably more. So he's he's very knowledgeable, especially like he just does software. So it's more When I came in, I think, how should I put this? So he said, Hey, what do you think of this company? Take a first pass this company and say, Hey, listen, you know, in years two and three, it looks like they're going to do this. I think that might be a little bit of stretch To say, Well, what are they doing Right now? Like, how is the business performing right now? And so it's a different type of modeling exercise as well because you'd say, Hey, we're going to hire eight sales reps. How do you put That in your model when you're used to A publicly traded company that has like a bazillion people working in sales? And that's just one line item on like some gigantic spreadsheet, right? Yeah. So it's a much more Hey, Susan disagrees with David and like, that's a really key customer success person. Like, we can't lose them. So how do we think about you immediately jump into like crisis mode and then you go from like modeling out with the CFO. Your headcount growth Is like, Oh my God, We have this human resource disaster. And so it's a little bit. So the agility has to change a little bit on the VC side.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:26] It's interesting. So talk to me a little bit about you had been kind of interested in B.C. when you were on the buy side. Talk to me about how you are, how you approach just trying to find the next step in terms of how you ended up where you are and. That whole process was the interview process really different, I assume it was.
BadAxe85: [00:43:44] It was, I mean, the shop on. So it's a Chicago based firm. And whether they had bias towards Midwesterners, I don't I'm not really sure, but they had the job posting. It's an old school shop. I mean, we started back 40 years ago, so we're on our 13 fund, so it's a known quantity. And I sent a letter to the to the director of research and said, Hey, Listen, like by the Way, and he's one of the partners. And I said,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:10] Like a snail, a snail mail letter,
BadAxe85: [00:44:12] Snail mail order.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:14] Ok, yeah. I was like a letter. I mean,
BadAxe85: [00:44:16] Because I mean, they posted a job on the site and they said, Hey, you know, we want somebody that has some street experience that can bring to the job. And I thought that was a good fit for it. And I done my MBA and my CFA was taken care of and I had a few years on the street. And so that struck Up the conversation and went really well. I came in, I met the partners and it was. The interview process for VCU was definitely different than sell side by side public side, I'd say.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:40] In what sense were they still asking you to pitch a company or an industry or a niche and
BadAxe85: [00:44:45] More like, you know, more industry say, Hey, you know, how do you think is the virtualization of software and this X, Y and Z subcategory? What do you think is going to happen there and why? And what would lead you to believe that that's actually accurate? Or what is this market? Do you think this market's a winner? Take all or whatever, and then they put you through some exercises and flex sizes. But I think that VC is so idiosyncratic to the firm that your interview process, should you get one of the VC firm, is going to be so entirely different, probably everywhere. I don't think it's very formulaic. It's not like, you know, you crank it out when J.P. Morgan will interview like a thousand people a week.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:45:19] So how do you think people should prep for this? Just do a lot of research on the specific fund you're interviewing with, obviously. But anything else, they can know your own specific deals in your own specific background. Obviously really well. But what else?
BadAxe85: [00:45:33] Anything else? So if you're trying to prep for VC interviews, I would. I would. I would. I would do this. And this is something that a VC told me before, and that served me very well. You have say you write four or five investment memoranda. Those might be a three to five page document and you don't necessarily have to outline valuation expectations or public comps, but just have a really clear thesis about how you think this embryonic business that you find through whatever list, you can find all sorts of like high growth startup lists online and just dig into it, go to the website, you can call them up even. And that shows that you have the tenacity and you can put together kind of a tangible because all the time I'll see something on the web and I'll say, Hey, that's kind of a cool business. Let's try to figure out who the CEO is. Let's email him and talk to him. I mean, that's part of our job, right? Right. So if you can demonstrate that and you can demonstrate that you have cogent thought behind it, I think that would serve you very well. I'm just saying of saying, Hey, I want to be a VC like hire me. I have cool thoughts about tech like, dude, nobody cares if there has to be a lot there to really be convincing.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:46:35] Yeah, it's an interesting point. You know, it's not about what you think, especially in the junior levels. It's more about like, what can you actually do for the fund in terms of sourcing, in terms of having smart, smart thought process? After you've done the work
BadAxe85: [00:46:49] For sure and you have to bring you have to you have to have some type of networking element to it. And like, I personally love networking and I still have a lot of good relationships with the banks on the sell side when I was a buy side client because also when I went over to the buy side, I wasn't a jerk because like I know, like we're all essentially trying to do our jobs. There's no Magic Curtain, it's just a bunch of guys that are busting their ass, right? Yeah. So I think, you know, moving into VC, I told them to when I came here, I was like, I love networking. I love meeting new people. I love meeting entrepreneurs, even if it's somebody that is never going to be able to help me. I'm happy to connect you with somebody who might be able to, whether that's other VCs like we talked to other VCs all the time, whether they're pre-seed guys, these investors, I talk to private equity firms, and maybe those are the people that take the deal from us when we grow the company up. And so building that network, some people don't like to do it. Some people are more naturally introverted. I personally love it. It's one of the funniest parts of my job. So are you? How are you doing this? How are you meeting entrepreneurs? How are you going out and doing this? Just curious that your day to day. So like, how? Yeah, how often are you working with portfolio companies versus doing that stuff? So I do. We're pretty high touch, so we actually do quite a bit of portfolio work. There's, you know, we have a couple of portfolio Companies in the valley. We go and visit them. Every board meeting. I do conferences, probably my favorite conference this year, I went to Paris for a software conference. It was fascinating. I spend a whole week there and I went to and I kind of Network my way into this huge Accelerator called Series F or Station F. I think it's called. I have like hundreds of Companies, just like trying to grow their business with these crazy ideas. And, you know, if you entertain the idea for an entrepreneur and say, Hey, like what was the spark and you meet all kinds of interesting people, I mean, I met one guy, actually, he was in Chicago, not at a conference, but he came in to pitch to us and I said, What was the inflection point for you To like, give it all up? This is like, this is, you know, it's great, like high level Education. Super sharp guy. He'd worked on the street before. And so this is like a legit stamp dude, right? I said, what made you just walk away from all of that and go, convince your wife that we're going to sell it all and do the startup? And he said he was at that point he was he had taken a consulting job and he saw some Amish guy go through a McDonald's drive thru And he's like, Why am I here Doing this when I can be building a business? For some reason, that Image stuck in his head and Like that was really valuable to him. As odd as that sounds to us, you take him at his word.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:49:13] So why? Why would why would seem an Amish guy going through a drive through? What was that religion?
BadAxe85: [00:49:17] Exactly. I mean, you know, you don't know what really is going to put you over the edge. What was that straw that broke the camel's back kind of thing. But for some reason, he said that for some reason seeing that image and he was in like rural Pennsylvania, working some consulting job, and he saw that, and for some reason That pushed Him to start a company. And so and that and that's just like NVQ. You meet people that have all types of different backgrounds. It's not formulaic in any way.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:49:45] Right? Yeah, it's really interesting. Yeah, just I'm sure it's fascinating. I know in private equity, when I was doing that, I think the coolest part about the job was meeting management teams and understanding their story and kind of how they kind of got involved or started the business. And yeah, fascinating. Yeah, awesome. Well, I guess, what else do you think before we call it, what else do you think is important or something you'd like to share if you could talk to your younger self, the classical musician, or maybe some other non-traditional candidates out there, what would you share with them?
BadAxe85: [00:50:18] Well, you know, as I went through my story, I would certainly encourage. If you really do have the dream, you're probably not that many steps removed from it, but you might be several years. I mean, it took me several years of Tenacity to try to break into something, to try to really reinvent yourself. And it is Possible. And I think a lot of people just don’t have the tenacity to do it. They're just, they give up somebody, talk them out of it. So going back to my younger self, find. Your mentor Relationships and follow up with them because you never Know what doors they're going to open for you, or even if they can't, it's going to make you a good mentor later in your life. I would say that and I would say, You know, I'm bummed I didn't find like Wall Street friends, so to speak, when I was in undergrad, even though, like my school really didn't have that. But I wish that I had more of a community that exposed me to that because I think I would have taken off like right Out of the gates. But again, you know, follow what you love, actually something that I've asked a lot of executives over the years, and I've met a lot of them. You know, when you're wrapping up your walking to the elevator, I say, Hey, listen, if you were to Do it over again, what would you do? Almost invariably, they say something qualitative. I would have been a cook, I would have been an artist, I would have been a travel author. I would have done something other than, you know, they're not going to say, I would have been a prosecutor and attorney. I would have kicked a lot of ass in New York. You know, you don't. That's not really a common. It's almost always something that's qualitative. And so I think there's always an element for that because ] I mean, you know, this just as well as I do, You have a lot of people, men and women that will grind their entire Careers in this Business, and they don't really have a lot of qualitative stuff to show for it. They might have a really interesting track record. They might be very accomplished, might be very wealthy, But they never did Get to follow their Dreams. And maybe that's why they’re like, you know, pushing their kid into whatever because they never got that chance. And so, you know, follow what you love. And I know that sounds corny and stupid, but I did that into my twenties and I was still able to make it. So I think if you think you don't have a shot, you probably should reassess.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:52:20] Is there any part of you that kind of misses that classical stuff or how do you get how do you feed that passion, those passions?
BadAxe85: [00:52:26] I mean, because I mean, like the best man in my wedding, for example, he's a highly accomplished percussionist on the West Coast and like he's a symphony musician, is a high level Guy, and he's one of the Very few that made it. And, you know, he doesn't make a lot of money. He does pretty well, but he's not like, you know, crushing it like you'd have a guy in New York or something. But he really followed his passion. And so if I could have done that, I mean, yes, a part of me misses it because you never know what would happen to your life. But I'm glad I chose what I did. I still am. I'm still happy, but I'm more happy that I followed. I chase my dreams, I chase my dreams with jujitsu, I chase my dreams in music and so I can. I can walk away and say, Hey, listen, like I did that. I did the stuff that I really love, and I feel like that brings you peace.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:53:09] Awesome. And yeah, for sure. I agree. I think your only live once, right? So, yeah, just go for it. Anyways, we'll end on that. Thank you so much for taking the time. And really, it's been a pleasure.
BadAxe85: [00:53:21] Yeah, absolutely, Patrick. And thanks again, you know, like for building a community and bringing it where it is. I mean, there's a lot of late nights I was doing the CFA and stuff like pretty brutal and I get on it. I read your website and some people just like totally trash the CFA or whatever. And I think it's just it's awesome to have the resource and I still go on all the time. So I love what you're doing and just keep pushing it forward and appreciate that some young people that want to work on Wall Street someday and we'll try to try to dissuade them as best we can.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:53:48] If you'd sound like you'd be an awesome mentor, so thanks for taking the time. 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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