A Wall Street Banker Turned to Comedy for Happiness and a Career Change
He made his fortune — and then he made it better
How the American economy works. The big financial institutions are doing wonderfully well, but so are the new entrants from Wall Street and Silicon Valley. The big winners tend to be those that can do well doing good: They get to make money while spreading that money around. These are the people you’re more likely to know on a first name basis than the ones who make money doing bad or in ways you’re not necessarily proud of.
So how did this happen?
First, Wall Street isn’t Wall Street anymore; it’s a small group of people out of their minds. The problem isn’t the bankers. The problem is Wall Street. I don’t know where the name came from, but it refers to where the financial industry is headquartered. There are a lot of really good people at the top of Wall Street, but they’re all just doing it because they like it, because it’s rewarding and profitable, and because Wall Street is where the money is.
There’s no way for Wall Street to make money doing something good anymore. So they don’t, and the only ones of those who can do that are in New York and Silicon Valley. I’ve talked often about how much I prefer the life of a small business owner to anything on Wall Street. But my career was cut short by the recession, and it turns out that what I like best about entrepreneurship is also what I enjoy the most in my personal life.
I made my fortune as a financial journalist and author. In 2001, I published my first book, The Dollar Crisis: The U.S. Economy in the Shadow of Global Diminishing Values, and How the Federal Reserve Caused It. I was 25 years old.