Young Money: Inside the Hidden World of Wall Street's Post-Crash Recruits

by Kevin Roose Narrated by Nicholas Tecosky

Overview

Becoming a young Wall Street banker is like pledging the world's most lucrative and soul-crushing fraternity.

Every year, thousands of eager college graduates are hired by the world's financial giants, where they're taught the secrets of making obscene amounts of money-- as well as how to dress, talk, date, drink, and schmooze like real financiers.

Young Money is the inside story of this well-guarded world. Kevin Roose, New York magazine business writer and author of the critically acclaimed The Unlikely Disciple, spent more than three years shadowing eight entry-level workers at Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and other leading investment firms. Roose chronicled their triumphs and disappointments, their million-dollar trades and runaway Excel spreadsheets, and got an unprecedented (and unauthorized) glimpse of the financial world's initiation process.

Roose's young bankers are exposed to the exhausting workloads, huge bonuses, and recreational drugs that have always characterized Wall Street life. But they experience something new, too: an industry forever changed by the massive financial collapse of 2008. And as they get their Wall Street educations, they face hard questions about morality, prestige, and the value of their work.

Young Money is more than an expose of excess; it's the story of how the financial crisis changed a generation-and remade Wall Street from the bottom up.

Editorial Reviews

MARCH 2014 - AudioFile

Nicholas Tecosky’s narration shares the youthful character of the subjects in this audiobook, but, fortunately, it betrays none of their exhaustion. In this heroic feat of journalism, author Kevin Roose shadowed eight young financiers’ beginning careers in the meat grinder of the financial industry. But there are no wolves on this Wall Street—only ambitious and hard-working 20-somethings made to work obscene hours doing largely unfulfilling work that makes them question why they went into finance in the first place. Roose's portrait is sympathetic but never naïve. Tecosky’s voice is not particularly warm, but that actually makes it a good fit for the smart but conflicted characters who lose a piece of their humanity in this cautionary tale. D.B. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

01/13/2014
In highly entertaining and impressive fashion, New York magazine business writer Roose (The Unlikely Disciple) shadows eight young, ambitious college graduates from various walks of life as they embark on careers as Wall Street analysts. In the three years that Roose follows and befriends Arjun, Chelsea, Derrick, Jeremy, Samson, Richardo, Soo-jin, and J.P., their bright-eyed enthusiasm gives way to exhaustion, struggles with abusive environments and bosses, suicidal thoughts, and disillusionment with the world of finance. Roose’s vivid prose brings these stories to life as his subjects forge their way in the adult world of high finance and life in New York City, navigating workloads, relationships, sex, booze and drugs, the meaning of life, and their conflicting desires for security, prestige, money, intellectual stimulation, and purpose. Through Roose’s intimate portraits, readers see not only a snapshot of “millennial” life in this privileged sector, but also an industry in transformation since the 2008 financial collapse. Roose’s captivating read is sure to appeal to readers young and old who are interested in the zeitgeist of Wall Street since the crash. Agent: Sloan Harris and Kari Stuart, ICM. (Feb.)

From the Publisher

Praise for YOUNG MONEY:

"If Kevin Roose's finely crafted YOUNG MONEY does not scare you straight about the life of a young financial analyst on Wall Street, it can't be done. Roose's frolic through Wall Street's playpen is a must-read." —William D. Cohan, New York Times bestselling author of House of Cards and Money and Power

"Despite all the press about Wall Street, the stories that don't usually get told are those of the recent college graduates who clamor for the chance to work 100 hour plus weeks at the big banks. Kevin Roose's new book, which follows a handful of analysts through the trials and tribulations of their early years on the Street, is a thoughtful exploration of their motivations and their experiences-and it's a great read." —Bethany McLean, coauthor of the New York Times bestsellers The Smartest Guys in the Room and All the Devils are Here

"A cautionary true-life tale, YOUNG MONEY should be required reading for every college student who is contemplating a job on Wall Street. As for the rest of us, who remember Wall Street before 2008, Kevin Roose has provided a great window into how that world has changed-and how it hasn't." —Connie Bruck, New York Times bestselling author of The Predators' Ball


"Highly entertaining and impressive ... Roose's captivating read is sure to appeal to readers young and old who are interested in the zeitgeist of Wall Street since the crash." —Publisher's Weekly


"[Young Money] offers a compelling glimpse of Wall Street in the post-2008 recession era...thought provoking, excellent book." —Booklist

"The young people who have flocked to Wall Street are often badly used, caught up in power struggles among middle management and little appreciated ... [Young Money] captures the daily indignities to which the junior capitalists are subjected." — Kirkus Reviews

MARCH 2014 - AudioFile

Nicholas Tecosky’s narration shares the youthful character of the subjects in this audiobook, but, fortunately, it betrays none of their exhaustion. In this heroic feat of journalism, author Kevin Roose shadowed eight young financiers’ beginning careers in the meat grinder of the financial industry. But there are no wolves on this Wall Street—only ambitious and hard-working 20-somethings made to work obscene hours doing largely unfulfilling work that makes them question why they went into finance in the first place. Roose's portrait is sympathetic but never naïve. Tecosky’s voice is not particularly warm, but that actually makes it a good fit for the smart but conflicted characters who lose a piece of their humanity in this cautionary tale. D.B. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2014-01-12
It's not all beer and skittles on Wall Street. After all, writes New York business and technology reporter Roose, a budding Rockefeller needs to be able to "write a coherent memo to your boss after your third or fourth Jäger Bomb." When they're not imbibing Jäger or Red Bull by the gallon, the eight young Wall Streeters whom the author profiles are working around the clock—literally, in one instance, a stint of "110 hours in a row, without setting foot outside the building." One hopes the boss was appreciative, though, by Roose's account, the young people who have flocked to Wall Street are often badly used, caught up in power struggles among middle management and little appreciated. The author often takes an offhand, anecdotal approach; sometimes the effect is too breezy, but at other times it captures the daily indignities to which the junior capitalists are subjected. On the other hand, as he recognizes, no one made them take the gig. The better part of the book is sociological in nature: Roose examines the trends that have governed the world of finance since the great collapse of 2008, which exposed not just weaknesses in financial governance, but also the fundamental whiteness and maleness of the system, to say nothing of the disproportionate representation of graduates of Wharton. To gauge by his observations, the culture of Wall Street was once a strange cocoon now laid open: Until the crash, even a loser could count on lasting two years before being let go, but now, among youngsters anyway, the atmosphere is one of fear and uncertainty—just like in the rest of the economy, in other words. It is instructive to note that after the bloodletting that followed the collapse, only a few of his subjects remain in high finance, while most Wall Street firms are having trouble recruiting the best and the brightest. Of particular interest to young people contemplating a career in investment banking and trading, though with plenty of discouraging news.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173557049
Publisher:	Hachette Audio
Publication date:	02/18/2014
Edition description:	Unabridged

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