Young Money by Kevin Roose, 2014

An insightful view into Wall Street, Young Money is a fast read that follows a group of recent college graduates who take jobs with Wall Street investment firms. 

Highly compensated with over six-figure salaries, these recruits are expected to work night and weekends, 24 hours straight.

The work is soul crushing - rote assignments that are given at the end of the day that are to be completed by the next morning. 

There is no intellectual stimulation - they put together Excel reports.  With their Ivy League degrees.  Worse, the reports may not even get looked at.  

For the hours they work, there is little compensation besides monetary compensation as the six-figure salaries are supplemented by bonuses in the tens of thousands. 

Although generous, the bonuses are no longer in the millions as they were before the 2008 financial downtown.  There are many other positions and companies now that offer bonuses in the tens of thousands. 

As entry-level workers, the people - well, kids - profiled in the book come from modest backgrounds and have not reached the height of wealth and decadence that Wall Street is known for.  Two of the eight kids profiled do stay in investment, and are becoming out of touch adults whose sense of reality becomes colored by the negative aspects of money and wealth.

With short-tempered colleagues who live by the "time is money" mantra, years working on Wall Street results in a skewed sense of priorities, culminating in the infamous Kappa Beta Phi society composed of Wall Street elites who host a dinner with skits that demonstrate how silly, sophomoric and frankly, obnoxious, these people can be.

There will never be a shortage of bankers or applicants for Wall Street jobs, but the world is changing.  Wall Street is becoming archaic starting to look and sound like the stodgy old man who mutters "kids today" under his breath.

With the 2008 financial crisis and 2010 Occupy Wall Street protests, recruitment for investment firms at top colleges are down. Technology companies are disrupting the pecking order for undergraduate (and business school) recruits.

Wall Street is no longer the only place for well-paying jobs that can potentially make someone a millionaire, as technology companies provide stock options and potential billion dollar IPOs.

Technology companies, especially start ups, also have long hours and all-nighters, but the work is more rewarding than that of being Excel monkees.  The work associated with creating something involves making decisions, individual contributions and being creative; work that provides a sense of accomplishment.

The lack of fulfillment described by the kids profiled in Young Money echos the sentiment captured in Lloyd Dobler's (John Cusack) soliloquy in Say Anything:

I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that.

I finished Young Money during a weekend trip to New York City to celebrate a birthday.  Staying in the upper East side and dining at wonderful places like Asiate was the perfect backdrop for reading the book.