by John Rolfe
There’s still a bunch of guys back there in the jungle swinging, arms full of fruit. Some of them like being swingers, but we chose to plant our feet on the ground. Sometimes we wonder if we should have continued swinging. When you leave something behind that you’ve poured so much of yourself into, it’s tough not to second-guess your decision at times. Every once in a while, as we ponder the path we’ve taken, Rolfe and I think about what we may have left behind. We wonder, are we missing out on something?
Our lives are a seesaw and what we strive for is some sort of equilibrium. When we were investment bankers, there was always a fat, greasy angry guy on one end of the seesaw and a happy little wood fairy on the other end. The fat guy didn’t look like he was going anywhere, and we didn’t see how we’d ever reach a balance.
Miss it? Like a cannibal misses a side order of vegetables.
JOHN ROLFE grew up in the heart of Dixie. After stints at Virginia Tech and the University of Florida, he took a job doing broadcast research in New York City, convinced that “if I can make it there, I can make it anywhere.” In 1993, after concluding that Frank Sinatra had sold him a bill of goods, John entered the Wharton School of Business, where he edited The Wharton Vulgarian. Following his sentence with DLJ, he was a principal with a private investment organization. Currently, John is a freelance man of sport and leisure, and is honing his panhandling skills for the next bear market.
PETER TROOB grew up on the rough-and-tumble streets of Scarsdale, New York, and while in grade school starred in James and the Giant Peach. Peter attended Duke University, then worked for Kidder Peabody in New York City. In 1993 he entered the graduate program at the Harvard Business School, where he edited the humor section in the Harbus and wrote the “Kosher Korner” column. This made his mother proud. Peter is currently a partner with a private investment organization and is anticipating many happy years there.
“Deadly accurate….appealing honesty…. [a]
no-holds-barred take on associate life. ”—Fortune
THEY HIT “THE STREET.”
Forget what you’ve read, forget what you’ve heard, forget what you’ve been taught. MONKEY BUSINESS pulls off Wall Street’s suspenders and gives the reader the inside skinny on real life at an investment bank, where the promised land is always one more twenty-hour workdays and another lap dance away.
“THE STREET” HIT BACK.
Fresh out of Wharton and Harvard business schools, John Rolfe and Peter Troob ran willingly into the open arms of investment bank giant Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. They had signed on as foot soldiers in a white-collar army of overworked and frustrated lemmings furiously trying to spin straw into gold. They escaped with the remnants of their sanity—and, ultimately, this book. Uncensored, unsanitized, and uncut, it captures the chaotic essence of the Wall Street carnival and the outlandish personalities that make it all hum….and it will become the smartest, most entertaining investment you’ll make this year.
“NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART.”
—Details
“AN ADRENALINE-FUELED ANIMAL HOUSE.”
—Entertainment Weekly
* For IPOs between $50 and $150 million in the telecommunications sector, and excluding foreign issuers, real estate investment trusts, and offerings done concurrently with debt issues. Full credit given to all managers, flncludes only Scandinavian hookers.