End of an Era: My Last Day at NSR – It has been a pleasure!

Forgive me, I have been trying to send out an email to everyone outside of NSR informing them of my new contact info but unfortunately the NSR server won’t let me send out so many emails at once.  More importantly (for me) stupid Facebook won’t let me export the email addresses or at least send a mass fb message to all my friends.  What a pain.  Regardless below is the email I sent to NSR – I believe it has the right touch of humor and good will to maintain my bridges with them going forward.  Look for an email from me with my new contacts as soon as I figure out a solution.

 

Dear All,

As my tenure at NSR comes to an end I have had the chance to reflect on the my past 2 years here; I am proud of the firm and how much progress we have made.  I remember my initial few months with the firm in early 2007 when we had offices in the Hilton towers and were doing everything from looking for deals to designing offices (and in my case, buying the coffee machine – thank you very much!).  Since then we have made significant progress in becoming a world-class private equity firm and have some of the smartest investing professionals in India.  We have also established some great investment screening and monitoring processes (which we always strive to improve).  Most importantly, we have developed great personal and professional relationships with all of our colleagues (from Mumbai to NYC to Dubai; from founding partners to Assistants). 

 

I think I am a better person for having worked with you all both because I grew my professional skill set and because I have made some great friends.  I will really miss this place and I hope that I get the chance to work together again with some of you in the future (I envision a future where I can boss Harsha and Nithin around!). 

It is unclear what my plans are for the future but I intend to do a little bit of “soul searching” and obviously have some fun (re: bridge classes!) before I figure out what the next step is.  Importantly, I plan to remain in India where I feel the maximum amount of opportunity lies.

 

I plan to keep in touch with all of you and insist that you be nice when I call you to ask for advice, introductions or most importantly cash! 

Transitioning out of the Corporate – My last Month with New Silk Route

This is my last month as a full-time employee at New Silk Route (“NSR”).  I am very excited and scared to leave the firm – I was the first junior guy they hired and really feel like I have had a significant impact in how the firm has grown.  I am sad to leave this small team of people that I respect and continue to learn from on a daily basis but I understand that I need the “threat” of zero-income to motivate me to make money in some other way! 

 

Leaving a small, tight-knit, firm like NSR is tough.  There are no formalized transition processes as I am the first non-Partner to leave the firm.  As I transition my portfolio company responsibilities to my colleagues, I have learned the value of my knowledge-base and contact-base within the firm, with our portfolio companies and with the universe of service companies we work with on a daily basis (auditors, bankers, consultants, etc).  I wish I had done this type of exercise before – it has helped me to understand how valuable I am to my peers and bosses.  Don’t get me wrong, my colleagues will be able to manage easily without me but there will be at least a few months of a learning curve to get up to speed.  Additionally, my motivation to work and quality of work since I decided to leave has waned a bit so the threshold to meet will be lower.

 

So what will I miss?  I will miss working with some very smart people on a daily basis (both Partners and Non-Partners).  The junior pool of people in India are not only my colleagues but also my friends.  I will see them after work and on the weekends after I leave but I won’t have the benefit of interacting with them on an informal basis during the workday.  I have also realized that I will miss being in the “flow” of business information – seeing new companies, talking to entrepreneurs and VIPs, etc.  A few friends of mine and I are working on a way to maintain this “flow” of information but I will talk about that in a future post . . . .

 

Keep coming back for more!

Escaping the Corporate – why Investment Banking is the Devil’s Work

"I Quit!" I wish it could have been as dramatic as that, but it went off more smoothly. I think it is only because Investment Banks realize that maintaining an alumni network will win them goodwill and business. Unlike NYC, of course, where leaving is a sign of disloyalty and is punished by a 30-minutes-until-you-need-to-vacate-the-premises routine. The escape has been made, ladies and gentlemen, and there is no turning back. To all my friends and former colleagues, this article on The Ten Reasons You Should Never Get A Job by Steve Pavlina will give you some perspective. So now that I'm gone, I want to document life on the other side. The ups, the downs, the ins, the outs, and pretty much whatever the hell I want to write about. Before I get to talking about how tough it is to start a business from scratch (my next post . . . maybe, it's not like I have a boss now), let me give one last perspective on my time as a banker . . . . .

 

Investment banks have created a recruiting system that lures smart, well intentioned, college students in, and traps them so they cannot leave. A combination of a turbo-charged lifestyle jump (high salary) and what I like to call the "prestige factor" explain most of this trap:

1. Senior level corporate employees regularly direct campus recruiting sessions and convince the young crowd that their "work culture is collegial" and that you can "grow with the firm" - or any other number of soft lies that divert attention away from the 80-100 hour weeks you will be working. These great sound bytes trick you into thinking that these firms have a jovial, cushy, and fun culture. At the junior level you will have no part of a "collegial" work atmosphere, neither will you "grow iwth the firm" unless it is wider. You work all the time and don't have a say how long or why.
2. Junior level corporate employees realize how bad life is their first year out of college. They will maintain the illusion that the senior level employees set because the only thing they have left is this "prestige factor." Imagine, after working like a monkey for weeks with no respect from your colleagues, you show up to a campus recruiting event where 200 eager young students are looking at you thinking you are a god. Honestly, it's the little things that matter, right?
3. The “Asian” factor. For some reason, Asians (typically FOB's) tend to give bankers some sort of superhuman status. The number of times that aunties and uncles (as well as their daughters) have raised their eybrows in delight is quite amazing. It is an ego booster that helps retain "talent."
4. The salary at an Investment bank is probably ~30-50% higher then any other job straight out of school. On a per hour basis, though, it roughly equals out. Also, you adjust to a higher income lifestyle where you have little time to spend a lot of money. Bankers become trapped because they cannot downgrade to a "less pay but more time to spend" lifestyle.

Finally, these two factors create a self-enforcing cycle. The more demand for these positions there are, the more students become attracted to it. Competition breeds competition. It is so smart, it's scary that bankers came up with this.