Why I left Wall Street and what Lyft got to do with it.
It was 2007. Sub prime mortgages had blown up that summer but Wall Street was still in denial. It was thought to be an isolated incident. No one had thought it would become the biggest financial crisis in the US history.
My career was all about a safety net. When I graduated and joined Lehman’s newly formed “e-commerce” department, they put me in QA (Quality Assurance) instead of engineering like I was supposed to. Immediately, I was upset and wanted to leave BUT I stayed because it would not look good for my resume.
I eventually moved to the Global Real Estate Group. And whenever I got yelled at as an associate in CMBS (Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities) Department, I told myself that I should stay because Lehman had already started my sponsorship for the green card. When my request to join an underwriting got rejected because I had asked, “why was Lehman investing heavily in Archstone deal” (probably one of the reason it went down), I told myself I needed Lehman to pay for my MBA so I’m still going to stay.
Excuses were plenty. I didn’t have the guts to NOT care about the safety net and ask what I really wanted in life.The truth was that I hated being just a part of a huge cogwheel. I packaged the mortgages into a bond but selling them was someone else’s job.
It was when I read the Big Short that it all came together for me. I had indirectly help cause one of the worst recessions of 21st century. Bad loans created bad bonds that were then rated by rating agencies with mistaken sense of safety. The main characters in the book used Lehman’s bond surveillance reports to predict that mortgages will blow up! The reports that I had helped to create.
All I wanted was a safety net. But that burst in 2008 during financial crisis.
But before it burst, there was one event that made me think hard about my life.
It was the day that John Zimmer quit Lehman.
He came by our department and said he was leaving. I did not know him well at the time. Never had talked about anything personal. But before he left, he told me WHY he was leaving. He was starting a company in LA. He was going to build a ride sharing app on Facebook. The company was going to be called Zimride. His co founder had named it Zimride before he even met John. It was fate. Everybody thought he was nuts for leaving Lehman to start a company. But I saw the true happiness in his eyes. And I wondered how that felt. I didn’t leave shortly after. In fact, it took about four more years to move to SF.
You might be wondering who is John Zimmer? He is the Lyft CEO.
Three months ago, I was listening to a start up podcast. The interview happened to be with John. He had been preparing for his leave for about six months before he finally quit. He would go to Lehman recruiting events on campus and at night would dress up as a giant chicken to get students to sign up for Lyft (formerly Zimride).
He was pursuing his goals little by little while I was just wasting away in my safety net. Was I happy back then? No, I was fooling myself into thinking that life was just perfect. I worked hard in an industry I didn’t have passion for, in an environment that forced people into back stabbing for survival. To compensate for that unhappiness and exhaustion, I bought expensive clothes and ate at Michelin star restaurants.
I felt tears in my eyes as the rush of regret came over me. Lost time can never be found again. Overwhelming feeling of stupidity followed. How was I so oblivious to the fact that he was doing all this in 2007? If I had cared more about my coworkers instead of just my own problems, I could have had more meaningful conversations with him back then. The truth is, in life you never know who will help you and when they will help you.
I finally did find my way — even if it was four years later.
That last conversation with John truly saved me. I will never forget it. He gave me the courage to look beyond the safety net. After that conversation, I started taking classes at General Assembly. Eventually, I saved enough money and drove across the country to move to SF to join a start up. Now that I think about it, I had planned for my dream little by little too - I just didn’t know it at the time.
