Monkey Business: Swinging Through the Wall Street Jungle Paperback – April 1, 2001

I got this book yesterday and read through it quickly that night. First of all, it is hilarious. The critic review on the covers says "funniest book since Liar's Poker." I disagree, this is funnier, even though Liar's Poker was funny in its own right. Caveat Emptor, though, the humor is bawdier than most anything I've heard in a locker room. The language itself is a testament to the investment banking world and how it desensitizes junior bankers.To many, the book will be most startling in just how unglamorous the Investment Banking life actually is. Even the rainmakers at the top of the heap, the managing directors, don't necessarily live a glamorous life. While junior bankers have to grovel to the MD's, the MD's themselves spend their lives groveling to clients and the buyside, trying to justify their existence with pretty pitch books and fonts that are just right.The most amazing thing about the banking life, though, is not the hours. It's how useless most of those hours are. From what I gathered, the associates and analysts do maybe 4-8 hours a day of real, productive work. The rest of the hours are spent making mindless changes for MD's, only for the MD's and Vice Presidents to change their mind and throw out a lot of that work. Associates spent a lot more time in meetings and travel than I expected, typically just to bring pitch books and give a formidable presence for the bank.In other words, Monkey Business reads somewhat like a long MBA case study about a mismanaged company who promotes top performers rather than good managers (although it is far, far more interesting than a case study). The MD's have all the hallmarks of bosses from hell. They don't understand what junior bankers actually do and they motivate by crucifying for mistakes and missed deadlines while taking all the credit when there's success.From the long hours and the constant mistreatment, it's easy to see how investment banks precipitated the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. During the peak of investment banking, 2003-06, bankers were so desensitized that they had no idea how to think or build value for the economy. Everything was about money, everything was about selling and sounding good and not truly working on behalf of their clients. While most of these shenanigans happened in the trading side of I-banks and not the banking side, the same culture permeated throughout, the almighty dollar before EVERYTHING else.My only real disappointment was the new post-crisis afterword. Most of the afterword was fine, tying up the loose ends and showing the investment banking can actually lead to good buyside or senior banking jobs, if you're willing to sell your soul for a few years. Rather, I was disappointed that he focused on the trading that led to the crisis, something well-known at this point. I was more interested in why banking still hasn't changed, why analysts and associates are still so poorly treated and why there's so much motion with so little relative value produced.Read this if you're interested in how businesses work and if you want a good, if very vulgar, laugh. DEFINITELY read this if you're an Ivy undergraduate or MBA student considering wads of money I-bankers may be throwing at you. Realize that there's more to choosing your offer than the salary and if anything could possibly offer a career path half as attractive as the eventual buyside job after banking, take it.

For people in the investment business, or finance, this is an enjoyable book to read. It is a refreshing reminder of the saying ' Be careful what you wish for, because the wish may come true'. Life for 2-3 years in investment banking is depicted from the point of view of 2 guys who realize that the investment banking dream is not living up to their expectations (regardless of the money involved). The style is ironic and intended to reflect a shallow world, which seen from outside seems to be all powerful and mighty.

I first read this book as senior in high school and then again in college (and again recently). It never grows old. It's a true classic.It gives a very realistic first-hand account what it is like working in a Bulge Bracket firm like DLJ (which was representative of most other firms). It presents the ambition and greed that drives some people to pursue careers like investment banking, the hours and all-nighters, the disillusionment over their meaningless corporate existence, and the eventual realization that $200,000 per year (or $500,000 per year for a VP) is not enough to keep them going.It is filled with humor that is not always so politically correct and it does have a sadness to it. Both eventually leave investment banking. Their views on their careers as investment bankers is filled with both disdain yet some appreciation over what they learned and the connections they made. I think their experience is representative of the fact that very few people remain in investment banking for more than a few years (the burn-out rate is very high).

Hilarious, to say the least...peppered with humor (some of it off-color), Rolfe and Troobe provides an account of their career in the IB world. My interest in this book is purely for reasons of entertainment; I can't seem to agree with statements like "must have if you decide to take the IB route" or "should make you rethink the banking profession" and all that. While this book chronicles the life of the authors at DLJ, one can, enough creativity assumed, come up with a hilarious account of any profession. So I don't look at it as a swipe at the IB profession as much as a swipe at the great circus we are all involved in on a daily basis. An investment banker, probably mortgages a bigger part of his/her life for the almighty $, but it's only a matter of degree. In fact, one of my recent client calls reminded me of, "...unlike the contestants in traditional beauty-pageants, bankers aren't normally required to wear bathing suits at the pageant, but if the client asked them to, they'd come in wearing the tightest nut-hugging speedo ever seen"