East Coast Millennial Finance Bro
It is 7am, you put on the same suit for the third time this week. You started to wonder if others at work would notice because you have been doing the same thing for one year now. You rather be sleeping since you were out drinking with the partners the night before.
You are in an Uber on your way to the Financial District. You check how your crypto portfolio performed overnight. It has been up and down lately and it is still under water due to the great 2018 selloff. You check the Asia stock and North America future’s markets: they are also down due to the trade war between the East and the West.
Your Uber driver now tells you that he got in Ethereum at $3 a piece. You wonder what you were doing in 2016 when the price was at $3. You now see your university friend Johnny is posing in front of Uber IPO on Wall Street on LinkedIn. This is everything you are not.
You are in the office catching up on the news from the industry experts and bloggers. It is the same “Innovation”, ”Blockchain”, and “Artificial Intelligence” in the titles again. It is the same fluff article non-programmers are writing. There has not been anything insightful of which you have not heard.
The interns are bringing everyone the morning coffee. Look at these happy souls. That was you two years ago. You started to wonder how everything had blinded you in university from other opportunities. The only focus was to prepare for CFA, get this finance job, and win that trading competition.
It is 11am now. Your friend Patrick just changed his mind on lunch for today — he had to postpone last minute. Patrick recently joined a 8-bro startup that just closed a 4.5-million series A round. Now he is always busy. You used to think less of his career choices since he graduated from an Arts degree. Now you are estimating his 0.7% share worth in the company.
You decided to go for lunch with Jennie from a different department. She is bringing lunch today because she did not want to spend money on lunch. She has this theory that if she saves $10 on lunch everyday, then she will afford an all-inclusive in the Bahamas this fall and eventually a house in the uptown area.
Back to work, now your office is filled with free soft drinks, a foosball table, and open-concept desks because Google is doing it. Google is the King. Your company is doing anything Google is doing except for paying way above industry-average salaries to employees.
You grabbed something to eat on your way home. You saw a billboard by this robo-advisory finance tech firm; you missed joining that boat. You walked by an ad by CoinSquare; you also missed jumping on that boat. It seems like so many people are getting rich. You are not rich.
You think of most of your Canadian-born friends. They are bragging about all the unlimited massage benefit and 6% employer-matched pension system at work. You think of most of your China-born friends. They are now back in China investing their family money on start-ups, brick-and-mortar shops, and calling themselves VCs/Angels. With no working experience, what did they know better that you did not?
It is almost 11pm. It is late. You bury your face in all your CFA books. Your eyes are getting blurry, and you are unsure whether you are tired or whether your vision is getting worse. You get bored. You go on to YouTube to amuse yourself. This corgi is making more money than you. This kid unwrapping gifts is making money than you. Another guy is bragging about how great digital nomads like himself are living the life.
Out of frustration.
You are going to do it. You are going to be Instagram famous with three of your photos. You are going to be a YouTube personality with all your dad jokes.
However, you had a good education and a decent working experience. You are thinking about artificial intelligence. You are about big data. But you do not know a word of Python. What do you do?
Hire all the virtual assistants from Upwork for $2/hour to be your “artificial intelligence” for now. This is good. You are going to be the next Zuckerberg. But this also feels like Elizabeth Holmes. You are not sure.
But this is okay and it does not matter at this point. Because, you cannot start anything until you finish writing that CFA exam.
