College Freshmen & Sophomores debating if the grind of investment banking is right for you - You might have some thinking to do after reading this article. Here are 3 takeaways from “Why I Started Alpine”.

“I didn’t realize it at the time, but Wall Street was changing me. At dinner, my fellow analysts and I compared the square feet of different peoples’ Hamptons homes and the sizes of bonuses we could get if we stuck it out. Money and material things became our goal posts, and winning the game became a function of tolerating sleeplessness and falling into line.” - Graham Weaver

The horror stories of 100hr weeks try to steer you away from banking. At the same time - you hear promises of the foundational skills you’ll build to set you up for success the rest of your career.

Graham Weaver was an analyst at Morgan Stanley ~20yr ago. He left to start Alpine Investors (PE firm). The industry has evolved since, but he wrote this to tell his story of why he left banking.

TAKEAWAY #1 - It’s Easy to Get Caught Up in Status & Money Games

“You Become Your Environment”

Graham explains that as you spend more hours people - you all begin to act like each other.

He advises regularly taking stock of the person you want to be in 10yr & avoiding “Group Think”

At his bank - everyone seemed to be driven by comparison. He was disgusted of the person he was becoming as a result - which he didn’t even notice until he left and talked to people with different backgrounds and life goals at business school.

TAKEAWAY #2 - The Hours Will Impact Relationships

“…the bottleneck to my going home was an insecure guy who was fighting for his job and didn’t seem to have much to go home to…”

His best friend in life - his mom - planned a weekend visit she’d been looking forward to for MONTHS. She had a detailed itinerary full of carefully researched restaurants & activities.

She ended up following the itinerary ALONE and saw Graham for 4hr total. His associate needed him at the office to format PowerPoint slides to make them look pretty. An Analyst’s #1 job is to support the team above you in any way you can. So - you’re at the office until they don’t have anything left for you to do.

You’ll learn a ton from the apprenticeship, but prepare to cancel plans constantly. This can take a real toll on your relationships.

TAKEAWAY #3 - You Can Always Leave

No two banks are the same and his experience could’ve been 100% different at another firm. There is nothing keeping you there if you are miserable and decide it’s not worth it.

To be successful in anything, you have to make sacrifices. He decided that the sacrifice of damaging his higher priority of putting a lot more time into the relationship with his mom was not worth it.

Powerful Final Remark - “My story of Wall Street may seem humorous or exaggerated, like I’m complaining, have an axe to grind, or have sour grapes. And maybe all of that is true. But mostly, I’m terrified to think about who I would have become if I had stayed.”