Most people imagine investment banking in New York as suits, power lunches, towers of spreadsheets, and numbers that look unreal. And yes—there’s plenty of all that. But if you strip away the noise, there’s something else humming underneath: fear. Fear of losing, fear of missing out, fear of falling behind the person sitting two desks away.
Last winter, I was working on a merger deal that had been circling for months. Everyone in the office was running on caffeine and anxiety. Our managing director kept repeating the same sentence every morning: “Markets don’t sleep, so neither can we.” It was meant to be inspiring. Mostly, it made us check the time and realize we’d forgotten what sunlight looks like.
One night around 2:30 AM, I caught my reflection in the office window. Tie loose, shirt wrinkled, eyes red. I looked exactly like the stereotypes people joke about. But what bothered me wasn’t exhaustion—it was the sudden thought that I couldn’t remember the last time I had a weekend without mentally calculating valuations in the back of my mind.
Then came the moment that snapped something in me. Right before a deadline, I got pulled into a call with a major client—someone whose name has been printed on the business pages for decades. He sounded calm, but halfway through the conversation he muttered something under his breath: “Just don’t let them think I’m losing.”
That was it. That was the heart of it. Not profit, not growth. A billionaire terrified of perception.
We finished the deal eventually. Bonuses happened. Everyone congratulated each other. And I pretended to celebrate too. But inside, I kept replaying that sentence.
Sometimes Wall Street feels like a skyscraper built on insecurity, dressed in Armani. But I’ll say this: living in New York teaches you resilience. It forces you to question what actually matters.
Maybe someday I’ll leave this world for something slower. Or maybe I’ll stay long enough to see whether all this fear eventually turns into something meaningful. But for now, I’m learning to breathe between the chaos—and remind myself that money isn’t the only currency we’re trading.