Rolfe troob monkey business; swinging through the wall street jungle (2000)

deb ~Eob , ,; j , ~ :; onke • _"USlneSS Swinging Through the Wall Street Jungle I John Rolfe and Peter Troob ~ !i3 I m \WlNER BOOKS A Time Warner Company / ,' Copyright © 2000 by john Rolfe and Peter Troob All rights reserved Warner Books, Inc., 1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 Visit our Web site at www.twbookmark.com O A Time Warner Company Printed in the United States of America First Warner Books Printing: April 2000 1098765432 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rolfe,john Monkey business : swinging through the Wall Street jungle / john Rolfe and Peter Troob p em ISBN 0-446-52556-1 Rolfe, john Brokers-United States-Biography Donaldson, Lufkin & j e"nrette, Inc Stock exchangesUnited States Stocks-United States I Troob, Peter II Title HG4928.5.R655 2000 332.6'2'092-dc21 [B) 99-3960 CIP When we started writing this book, we ran into a dilemma We had lots of stories we wanted to tell, but we also had lots of friends who didn 't necessarily want their names associated with those stories We knew that a story without people isn 't much of a story, though, so we decided to make some changes The stories in this book are true However, we've modified the identities and certain details about the people and companies and divisions we've written about All the names excep~ our own, DLJ's, and those of DickJenrette andJohn Chalsty, have been changed The dialogue has been reconstructed to the best of our memory After all, we didn 't spend our days as investment bankers wired up like a couple of CIA guys Hopefully, we've managed to protect the innocent and embarrass only ourselves We're OK with that We hope this keeps our friends friendly and ensures that neither of us will ever wake up with a horse's head under our bedsheets Truth is indeed stranger than fiction Contents Acknowledgments I IX Introduction Recruiting: The Seeds of a Dream Interviews and Ecstasy 24 Summer Boot Camp 40 The Courtship 77 Training Wheels 84 The Food Chain 91 The Business 96 The Sizzle 106 Fishing for Value 121 The Merry-go-round 129 The Bottleneck 141 The Holiday Party 154 Drafting 176 Push the Button 195 Travel 207 Bonuses, Reviews, and Compensation 226 The Epiphany 239 The Last Straw 249 Liberation 257 Epilogue 268 Acknowledgments There are a whole bunch of people we need to thank First of all, we'd like to thank the lovely ladies who've promised to spend the rest of their lives putting up with us: Marjorie and Amy We're two very lucky guys, although we might not tell you that quite as much as we should Your support and encouragement are priceless We love you Second, we'd like to thank our entire families Moms, dads, stepparents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, inlaws, and the rest of the gang We're just happy that we're not the only dysfunctional ones in the crew You make us proud Ifit weren't for you, we'd have no one to thank for our deviance We'd like to thank our editor, Amy Einhorn, for great editorial advice and for making this entire process as easy as it could have possibly been Thanks for helping us relax when we just got too damned hyper You're an angel We'd like to give special thanks, for both reading the early drafts and providing other invaluable advice, to Lisa Cohen, Susie-Q Silva, Julie Wurm, Mike Marone, Nick Day, Deion Oglesby, and Lou Wallach We'd like to thank everybody else who read the early drafts of the book and told us that we needed to try a little harder Climpedy Ballbag, John McGuire, P Rowan, x ~ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Dan Shore, AlI- Sports & Kelley Day, David Hillman, David Jackson, and Jon Bauer One day perhaps we can repay you-like with a cookout or something We'll even buy the beer We'd like to thank the entire crew at Time Warner Trade Publishing, especially Sandra Bark-without all of you, it wouldn't have happened We'd like to thank simian artist extraordinaire, Larry Keller You draw the best monkeys of anyone we know May your life be full of bananas We'd like to thank our counselor, Bob Stein, for providing good advice and helping us chart a safe course through the sometimes uncertain waters of publishing legalese We like you lots and would love to spend more time shooting the shit with you, but that damned business of getting charged by the hour is standing in the way And, of course, we'd like to thank all our other pals who were in the trenches with us at DL], without whom we wouldn't have had anything to write about You know who you are We hope that every single one of you finds what you're looking for ~ Monkey Business Introduction I never could understand how two men can write a book together; to me that 's like three people getting together to have a baby -Evelyn Waugh A e-, O N N C w N -Z CD pU) Q ( : 0 CD N < CD cO N n cu < CD n -, C N Cl (D n b CD CD O S CD C N S Q 1l- - (n O ACi -h cn 33 (D C A) cu (D n (D Q (D D (D c N a- oCD O ^ w =- 3 ((D D w C- c CD N w Q rn :3 CD c D rN-r CD CD (D O cra ^< CD w L (D O' CD (D ? 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