Is the exhaustion like junior banker something similar to burning out as an elite athlete? Apparently, they're pretty similar, but banking maybe a little worse because you have less notice of what you're doing to yourself. That's what you think Vitoria Okuyama, at least, and I should know, having done both.
Okuyama had previously been ranked as high as 118th.th in the world as a junior tennis player, and started Citi's analyst program in 2022. He went to a somewhat strange year to start a career, as the pandemic ended and the boom in deals began to dwindle, but Vitoria approached it with the same competitive spirit she had brought to tennis, working from 10 a.m. to 4 a.m. every day.
Unfortunately, this ended up bringing the same results as her tennis career: she came to hate it, and the process of forcing herself to compete began to bring on panic attacks. Her handlers seemed to be quite understanding (and she makes sure to remember that her Saturdays were always protected), but there is a limit to what the human body and spirit can take, and when she found herself breaking down crying in the gym for no reason in October 2024, she realized she needed to do something different.
What he did was a bit more unusual than the usual reaction of a junior banker to overwork; he decided to go on an ayahuasca retreat in the Peruvian Amazon. This is not unknown in the technological world, but he is still quite unconventional in finance. Probably sensibly, he allowed himself a little more time at the end, taking thirteen weeks' leave for the one-week retreat. One should not rush into that sort of thing.
For anyone interested in taking psychedelic drugs in the woods to unwind, the retreat in which Okuyama is shipped seemed to consist of in four ayahuasca sessions interspersed with yoga, sound healing and excursions into the jungle. The testimonies speak of transformations, «indescribable experiences» and restoration of the soul.
Somewhat predictably, one of the personal discoveries she made was that she didn't really want to be a banker. Reading between the lines, one can't help but suspect that up to that point in her life, Vitoria had spent a lot of time doing things because others expected them; She had spent her youth playing tennis, went to college on an athletic scholarship, and then applied for banking after being mentored by a mentor who knew her coach.
Now, it seems, he has learned to question what really matters, find his real boundaries and embrace his authentic self (i.e., he is influencer). This kind of story repeats itself many times a year, though usually without the ayahuasca; Investment banking really isn't a career for everyone, and part of the purpose of the analyst program is to help you figure that out.
In other respects, a reasonable rule of thumb in investing is that it is always better to make money than to lose money. However, there are times when losing money is not as bad as it usually is.
For example, although Sean O'Sullivan and his team at Millennium would presumably prefer not to have suffered a loss (estimated at around $100 million) from their exposure to First Brands, they may not be as concerned as one might think. As we know, in professional terms it has never been better to be a «wounded lion«The conditions in the labor market of multi-strategy hedge funds make managers with large sudden losses more likely to receive recruiting calls than layoff calls.
But possibly more importantly, the performance numbers that will matter in the long run will depend on who suffered the worst losses, not who suffered the first losses. First Brands may be a one-off, but it is also possible that this is the start of a credit cycle. If it is the latter, the long-term winners will be those who were the quickest to see it coming and take their money off the table. And in previous cycles, it often turned out that getting a little burned early on tends to focus the mind and lead to early evasive action. Team Millennium may be hurting tonight, but there's still plenty of time for them to have the last laugh.
In the meantime...
Elon Musk has discovered what bankers have long known - people will often ignore competitors' financial offerings, will put up with tough workloads and downplay negative publicity, but if you ask them to do all three at once, you'll lose even your most loyal lieutenants. (FT)
Jain Capital is in a hurry to add physical commodities trading to its strategy portfolio, so instead of trying to team up and set up pipeline deals and the like, they have acquired Anahau Energy to be the seed for a new capsule. (Bloomberg)
It's been quite some time since mere investment bankers have been able to afford the nicest properties in the Hamptons, but the former residence of Dean Witter International's president has now sold for $67 million. (WSJ)
Now that London is lagging behind Mexico and Oman in IPO volumes, it's no wonder some European banks are starting to wonder what they're doing there. Danske Bank is closing its ECM desk to focus on the Nordic markets. (Bloomberg)
Has HSBC really managed to improve credit trading with quantum computing? A skeptical view. (Scott Aronson)
America's superrich are so rich that you can get rich managing their wealth. Family office CIO salaries often exceed $1 million, and the total cost of managing one can be about 1% of total assets. It's a good job for someone with the right temperament, although the only way to move up is by marriage or adoption. (Bloomberg)
A fun game for a dull afternoon at the desk: think of all the things that could go wrong installing a sauna as the ultimate office perk. You could start with an operator's statement, «People show their vulnerability and the impulse is to support each other. . . If vulnerability is the gateway to intimacy, then the result is that teams leave feeling closer.».
Source: 26-year-old Citi analyst overcomes her exhaustion with Ayahuasca
