Michelle: You land a job on Wall Street, you're set for life, right? High pay, prestige, power. Mark: The dream. The pinnacle of success for any ambitious college grad. Michelle: Well, what if that 'dream job' is actually a trap designed to break you? And what if the real story isn't about getting rich, but about getting out alive? Mark: Whoa. Okay, that is a much darker take than the movies would have you believe. Michelle: That's the world we're diving into today with Kevin Roose's book, Young Money: Inside the Hidden World of Wall Street's Post-Crash Recruits. Mark: And what's wild is that Roose wasn't just an outsider looking in. He spent over three years shadowing these eight young bankers, completely unauthorized. He saw their emails, their diaries... he was a fly on the wall in one of the most secretive industries on earth. Michelle: Exactly. He captures this pivotal moment after the 2008 crash, when the 'Masters of the Universe' image was shattered, and a new generation walked into the wreckage. The book got a lot of attention, seen by many as a kind of post-crisis Liar's Poker, but with more soul-searching. So let's start there: why on earth did they go?

Michelle: You’d think after 2008, with banks collapsing and public trust at an all-time low, that top graduates would be running for the hills. But Roose takes us to the University of Pennsylvania, a prime recruiting ground, and the scene is just as intense as ever. Mark: I don't get it. Weren't these students watching the news? Did they not see the "We are the 99 percent" signs? Why weren't they terrified? Michelle: It’s a great question, and Roose offers a fascinating answer. For many, it wasn't about greed. It was about fear. These are lifelong overachievers. They've been on a structured path since kindergarten—get good grades, get into a top school, get a top job. Wall Street offers the clearest, most prestigious, and highest-paying next step. It’s the path of least resistance for the anxious overachiever. Mark: That makes a strange kind of sense. It’s like they’re choosing the devil they know. A guaranteed, high-status, structured life, even if it's a miserable one. Michelle: Precisely. And the banks have perfected this pitch. They created what's called the "two and out" analyst program. The deal is: give us two years of your life, work 100-hour weeks, and we'll give you an incredible salary and a golden ticket on your resume. You can go anywhere after this. Mark: So it's sold as a temporary sacrifice. A boot camp for future success. Michelle: Exactly. And this promise attracts people like Arjun Khan, one of the main characters Roose follows. Arjun is the embodiment of the "PHD" ethos on Wall Street—"poor, hungry, and driven." He's a brilliant kid from Queens, a Fordham grad, with no family connections. He fought tooth and nail to get a job offer from Lehman Brothers. Mark: Oh, Lehman Brothers. I have a bad feeling about this. Michelle: You should. This is 2008. The ink is barely dry on his offer letter when Lehman collapses. The job vanishes overnight. It's devastating. But Arjun doesn't give up. He hustles, networks, and eventually lands a last-minute spot in the mergers and acquisitions division at Citigroup. For him, Wall Street is the ultimate meritocracy. It’s proof that talent and hard work can beat pedigree. Mark: That’s a powerful story. But you mentioned the work itself. I'm picturing high-stakes deals, yelling on trading floors... not the reality, I'm guessing? Michelle: Not even close, at least not for first-year analysts. Roose describes attending a training boot camp where the most important skill, the one that separates the stars from the failures, isn't financial theory. It's Microsoft Excel. Mark: Spreadsheets? The entire empire is built on spreadsheets? Michelle: One hundred percent. Roose quotes someone saying, "You must be an Excel wizard—a grandmaster of the XLS file format." He even participates in an Excel formatting competition against new recruits. He gets crushed. The winner is an incoming analyst for Credit Suisse. The first year is a grueling, mind-numbing haze of building pitch books—basically, glorified PowerPoint presentations—and creating financial models in Excel, often until 3 or 4 in the morning. Mark: So it’s less Wolf of Wall Street and more The Office, but with higher stakes and no sleep. Michelle: A perfect analogy. The work is often menial, repetitive, and ultimately, a test of endurance. It's a form of hazing. The banks want to see who can handle the pain, who is willing to sacrifice everything—sleep, relationships, sanity—for the job. That’s the real initiation.

Mark: Okay, so the work is a grind. That sounds absolutely miserable. How long does it take for people to start cracking under that kind of pressure? Michelle: Almost immediately. The book is filled with stories of the human cost. The glamour fades fast, and what's left is just the exhaustion and the slow-burning realization that this "dream job" is consuming their lives. A perfect example is Derrick Havens. Mark: Tell me about Derrick. Michelle: Derrick is a guy from a small town in Wisconsin. He gets a job at Wells Fargo in Chicago and is trying to maintain a long-distance relationship with his college girlfriend, Erica. He promises her a nice Sunday dinner, a rare moment of normalcy. But then, an intern calls in sick. His boss demands he finish a project. Mark: Of course. The classic "something came up" work emergency. Michelle: But it's constant. He keeps texting Erica, "Be there in an hour," then another hour, then another. Finally, after midnight, he has to cancel. He gets a text back from her that is just ice cold. It reads: "I can't do this anymore. You have to choose what's more important to you—this job or me." Mark: Wow. That's a gut punch. It crystallizes the entire conflict, doesn't it? The job demands everything, and there's nothing left for the people you love. Michelle: It's the central tragedy of the book. And it's not just relationships that suffer. It’s their mental health. The book introduces us to Jeremy Miller-Reed at Goldman Sachs, who ends up working for a managing director named Penelope. She is the boss from hell. Mark: How bad are we talking? Michelle: We're talking public humiliation, contradictory demands, screaming fits. She assigns Jeremy a massive project, goes on vacation, and then comes back and tears it apart for weeks, only to discover in a client meeting that a chart she was supposed to provide is missing. She then blames Jeremy in front of everyone. He describes breaking down on his roof later that night, just completely shattered. Mark: That’s brutal. It’s not just pressure, it’s psychological abuse. So what are the escape valves? How do they cope? Michelle: Gallows humor is a big one. Samson and Jeremy, two analysts at Goldman, start calling the office "Azkaban," the prison from Harry Potter. They fantasize about a "Wall Street Drop Day," where all the analysts would quit at once and expose the toxic culture. Mark: A collective rebellion. I love it. Michelle: And for some, the coping becomes more tangible. Take Chelsea Ball, an analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. She's dealing with a neurotic boss, a disappointing bonus, and a growing sense of emptiness. Her work feels amoral—not evil, just completely disconnected from any positive impact. So what does she do? She takes up boxing. Mark: Literally fighting back. Michelle: Yes. She trains relentlessly and enters an amateur fight. She gets a trophy, puts it on her bedside table, and thinks to herself, "I still have value. I'm still good at something." It’s this desperate search for a sense of accomplishment and self-worth outside the all-consuming world of the bank. It's a powerful, and heartbreaking, image.

Michelle: And for some, those escape valves aren't enough. They have to get out completely. This is where the story really diverges, and we see the two paths that emerge for this generation. Mark: The escape or the surrender. Michelle: Exactly. On one side, you have the escapees. The best example is Samson White, Jeremy's friend at Goldman. He is deeply, profoundly unhappy. He hates the work, he hates the culture. He starts counting down the days until his second-year bonus clears. The moment it does, he walks into his managing director's office and quits. Mark: Just like that? What does he do? Michelle: He joins a friend to launch a tech startup. His Facebook post on his last day is just epic. He writes, "The nightmare is over. As of today, I am no longer a Goldman Sachs employee." He feels this incredible sense of liberation. He's choosing creativity and autonomy over the "golden handcuffs." This represents a huge shift, with Silicon Valley becoming the new promised land for many disillusioned bankers. Mark: That's the hero's journey we all want to root for. But what about the other path? The surrender? Michelle: It's more of an adaptation, really. And that's the story of Ricardo Hernandez, the guy who started in the high-pressure M&A group at J.P. Morgan. He was miserable, just like the others. But then he gets transferred to the Latin America group. The work is more interesting, the hours are better, the culture is more relaxed. Mark: So he found a survivable niche within the machine. Michelle: He did. He gets a promotion to associate, a big pay bump, and he starts to actually enjoy his life. He realizes he can have the financial security and a comfortable lifestyle without the soul-crushing grind he started with. He tells Roose he's happy and plans to stay. He's not chasing the insane wealth of a hedge fund manager; he just wants a good, stable career. Mark: So who made the right choice? The guy who escaped or the guy who adapted? Is there a 'right' answer? Michelle: I think that's the most profound part of the book. Roose doesn't give us an easy answer. He shows that both paths are valid. The system itself is changing. The insane profits of the pre-crisis era are gone, and the industry is smaller and more regulated. For some, like Samson, the only answer is to leave and build something new. For others, like Ricardo, the answer is to find a way to make the system work for them. It’s less about a single definition of success and more about aligning your work with your personal values.

Mark: It feels like the book's real message is that the post-crash era forced a generation to ask a question their predecessors didn't have to: "Is this worth it?" The money is still there, but the moral and personal cost is now impossible to ignore. They can no longer just passively accept the Wall Street path; they have to actively choose it, and justify that choice to themselves. Michelle: That's it exactly. The illusion of a purely meritocratic, glamorous world was shattered, and these young people were left to pick up the pieces and figure out what a meaningful career actually looks like. Some found it by leaving, and some found it by staying, but the questioning itself is the legacy of that era. Mark: It reminds me of that quote from Samson's diary you mentioned. Can you share that again? It felt so central to his whole journey. Michelle: It's beautiful. He writes, "Real life is incredibly difficult. I hope I figure it out. It’s possible that figuring it out just means living it... Embracing it, not settling for the path of least resistance, seeing all there is to see... enriching your soul instead of your wallet, realizing that life is a brief opportunity for joy and that those moments that don’t contribute to that joy immensely, are really wasted moments." Mark: Wow. "Enriching your soul instead of your wallet." That's such a powerful thought to end on. For our listeners, especially anyone who's ever felt trapped in a 'prestigious' but soul-crushing job, we'd love to hear your stories. Find us on our socials and share your experience. Michelle: This is Aibrary, signing off.