(3/16) Non-fungible by Nature
The following post is part 3 of a super long story about how I came around to crypto. Part 1 can be found here. Part 2 can be found here. Part 4 can be found here.
Much to the chagrin of my friends and family, I was re-poached by GFI Group away from Metrotech and back on Wall Street. My old boss called me up for drinks one night and 3 shots in I agreed to head back to GFI Group a mere 9 months after I started at Bear Stearns. I couldn’t point to a single personal accomplishment at Bear Stearns and my boss didn’t seem to care, so it was just something that had to be done. I had. to look out for my best interests, so that’s what I did. I negotiated a nice new salary and signing bonus and felt bad, but I secretly loved watching my boss (at Bear) squirm when I told him I was leaving. I was saying ‘goodbye’ to Bear Stearns almost as quickly as I said ‘hello’.
I had a fancy new desk and a fancy new title and a fancy new salary when I pulled back into GFI Group. It was strange being back, but it felt better than Bear. Anything was better than Bear.
I was paying attention to the news so I had heard rumblings of some banks going through some regulatory issues, but nothing could prepare me for what actually happened. One morning, in my new office, my buddy on the trading desk called and said ‘dude, look at the price of Bear Stearns [stock].’ I hopped on over to Google finance and saw it was down. Bad.
Refresh.
Dip.
Refresh.
Dip.
Refresh.
Dip.
I peeked over my screen and hollered at the dude sitting across from me: ‘Hey Steve c’mere look at Bear!’
Within one week, the price of Bear Stearns stock had dropped from ~$80 to ~$0.80. And the market was in absolute shambles. It was ALL over the news. It was all anyone could talk about. And all I kept thinking about was my boss at Bear with his $800k in RSOs that dwindled down to a mere $8k.
I called my only REAL friend at Bear - this 50-year-old dude who I really looked at as a mentor - and he confirmed that our boss’s fortune was gone. I’ll never forget his words: ‘Yeah that little pecker-head motherfucker is runnin’ around like a chicken with his got-damn’ head cut off. Fuck him. How are you?’
Little did I know, 3 months after I left Bear Stearns (and after 87 years in business) they would be out of business.
Everyone at GFI gave me credit like I foresaw something…people were like congratulating me that I had the ‘foresight’ to leave Bear before it toppled. I just laughed - I had NO clue what was going on - I just knew that I hated it there and was happy to have left when I did.
Several banks fell after Bear and a lot of people weren’t the same after the market collapsed. Thing was, GFI Group was a broker, so it didn’t matter if the markets were up or down - as long as people were trading, the company could make its money. As for the collapse, I wasn’t all that fussed either way - I didn’t have anything wrapped up in the markets and no one I really knew did, either. But learning about everything that happened gave me more insight into how shitty the whole thing was. Why were AIG brokers still collecting these million dollar bonuses while their company was getting bailed out by regular taxpayers? Shit made *no* sense to me AT ALL. Banks were really starting to look really bad to me…
To be continued…part 4.