I arrived early Tuesday morning, the second day of the internship, and was greeted with an email informing me of my first official project: Deutsche Bank had a specific color palette it used in all its presentations to clients. Recently, the bank had changed their company-wide shade of orange. In the Microsoft PowerPoint color-settings feature, the old orange code was 255, 165, 55, while the updated code was 246, 135, 10. My task was to go through all folders in the auto-and-transportation drive and change relevant graphs, charts, and boxes from the old orange to the new orange. There were over a hundred companies in the drive with multiple pitch books in each folder. I wondered if my performance on day one had sealed my fate: Would I now be singled out to complete tasks like this, since I couldn’t be relied on for more important projects?
Nearby sat another summer associate who seemed good-natured and looked more like a substitute teacher than a banker.
“Got your first project yet?” I asked as we crossed paths in the hallway.
“Yeah, you?”
He responded in a hushed voice. “I did.” I could tell he was reticent to give details unless I did first.
“Basically gotta go through a bunch of old client books and change stuff from one color to another color.”
A smile of relief emerged on his face. “Honestly, I’m happy to hear you say that. I mean, that’s brutal, but listen to mine—you meet that Indian managing director yet? Kind of wiry looking—”
“Hair plugs?” I said.
“That’s the one. Apparently he used to be really fat, like obese. Someone told me he got that gastric-bypass surgery like Al Roker. Anyway, I have to go through all the old pitch books for the clients he covers and change the photo of him from the fat version to the thin version.”
“But aren’t those just face shots? And like an inch big?” I asked.
“0.92 inches long, 0.37 inches wide,” he responded.
But the truth was, we interns weren’t qualified to do much more than these menial tasks. Paying dues was part of the process, as was not saying a peep about how boring it could be. Around us sat full-timers who had at some point been in our position. Now they appeared to be wheeling and dealing, so my goal remained to keep a low profile and not give them any reason to take away the full-time offer.
“Then you’ll create a zip file for link manager and save it to the hard drive. But for Pete’s sake, whatever you do, do not paste the tombstone as a JPEG!” said the woman who taught our formatting boot-camp class later that day. The session lasted long enough for me to know how vital formatting would be for the job, but it was over hastily enough that I picked up almost nothing.
Then there was the day where I spent the better half of the morning and afternoon constructing a “rose page.” With no guidance, aside from seeing a “spider chart” that resembled a spider, I assumed the structure of the rose page was supposed to look like a rose. Things were cleared up once I delivered my first draft and was informed over email it’s a “rows” page.
To keep us sane and instill the hope of more excitement come full-time status, the bank organized plenty of events each week: drinks on Stone Street, dinners at Cipriani’s, wine tastings at Capital Grille—the good life. Most events ended the same way: full-time bankers showing off their loud mouths and crimson-stained teeth, while we interns clung to the hope that the full-timers would remember our names. I was cornered on three occasions by the same senior banker who, unsolicited, explained his mantra to me: “If you don’t think you’re the most important guy in the room, why would anyone else?” I feigned enthusiasm as best I could at these outings, hoping that maybe it would become real at some point. The amount of booze at these events was staggering, though it still didn’t excuse a managing director in the leveraged finance group from shot-gunning a beer at the Seaport one Friday and then exclaiming, “If any of you interns recorded that and put it on social media, I’ll make sure you never work in finance again.” I guess the bank figured if they could keep us sufficiently sauced throughout the internship, we’d either be too drunk or too hungover not to return full-time.
To show us that Deutsche Bank wasn’t solely interested in its standing in the almighty “league tables,”5 community-service events were organized. T-shirts with “DB Cares” across the back were doled out before we made the trek to P.S. 27 on the Lower East Side to volunteer at a summer camp on a muggy July afternoon.
I was paired with Yaleesha, an eight-year-old from Alphabet City, and tasked with helping her create an imaginary world with a piece of purple paper, three markers, four popsicle sticks, gold glitter, some cotton balls, scissors, and a half-eaten glue stick.
“Who’s that,” I asked as Yaleesha drew a stick figure with glitter eyes.
“That’s one of my brothers,” she responded, tilting her head then using some cotton to make his hair.
“How old?” I asked.
“Ten.”
“Any sisters?” I asked.
“Thirteen,” she said.
“Wow. Know how old they all are?”
She shrugged. “No. They live with their dads. Can you give me the glue stick?”
To repay me for helping her assemble her imaginary wonderland, Yaleesha taught me the “Stanky Leg” later that afternoon during the dance portion of camp.
But the dance party didn’t last long. After five weeks in the Industrials group, it was time for my rotation in the Financial Institutions group (FIG), which was more of the same mundane tasks interspersed with me watching YouTube tutorials on how to use the OFFSET formula in Excel. The rotation was highlighted by the occasional invitation to join an MD in the conference room and sit silently as he spoke to a client. Banking had its own language, but I had more difficulty picking it up than others, it seemed. I’d take notes during these calls, knowing full well that no one would ever read them. While questions were encouraged, it was also a way to show the full-timers just how lost some of us interns were. Investopedia replaced Google as my preferred search engine.
Conversations between interns as they crossed paths during the day were all the same: “Dude, I heard Raj’s getting crushed in Healthcare…everyone in TMT is getting crushed this quarter.” It was a badge of honor for some reason to be getting crushed. It seemed like it was happening to everyone; and if it wasn’t happening to you, you were doing it wrong. Was I getting crushed? I couldn’t even tell. And if you stayed past 3:00 a.m. one night, all that mattered was working it into every conversation you had the next day.
The summer internship culminated with a case study, a thirty-minute presentation each intern would give to a panel of bankers that exhibited all we had learned over the summer, from formatting to valuation to sales. Again, the idea wasn’t to blow them away with our industry knowledge, but rather to show we had the raw tools to be full-time employees. Presentations were held on the penultimate day of the internship. This was not so much an opportunity for someone to shine, as an opportunity for someone to royally fuck up and show he didn’t belong.
I’d spent progressively more time working on my presentation as the weeks passed. By the final week of the internship, we were expected to work solely on them. Full-timers were instructed to offer minimal guidance to ensure a level playing field. We received a single sheet of paper with very few instructions. Our client was Doddridge Coal Company, and the presentation was an M&A pitch. In our deck, we were expected to give a brief industry overview, choose a minimum of three and a maximum of six valuation metrics, then provide a concluding recommendation. I honestly didn’t know whether we were supposed to value Doddridge or potential acquisition targets (or both). I had general ideas based on stuff I’d worked on over the summer, but the lack of clarity for a novice in this world was staggering. Through eavesdropping on a conversation two other interns had in the bathroom, I learned that the goal was to pick a couple of possible acquisition targets and value those, then decide which company Doddridge should buy.
Sitting in the small waiting area outside the forty-fourth-floor conference room, I rehearsed my opening remarks and my transition into the industry-overview section. Then the conference-room door opened. The intern who had just presented emerged. He looked like he’d just been told he was adopted. And this guy had his presentations bound in official DB format—dark blue cover, section dividers, black back, the works. My presentations were in color, but hand-stapled. A head popped out of the conference room. It was a vice president in the Industrials group with whom I had interacted a handful of times.
“Ready,” he said. I couldn’t tell if it was a question or statement. It didn’t matter though. I was on the clock.
I walked into the conference room expecting to see two or three bankers. There were seven, all seated on one side of the long table. I sat on the opposite side and was immediately relieved I had printed those extra few copies of the presentation. I mumbled some greetings, then went into my opener, which I’d rehearsed all morning.
“Thanks for joining me today as I present why Apple should buy both Amazon and Google.” The room went silent. The junior bankers were baffled. Most of the senior bankers were preoccupied with their BlackBerries, but I spotted one managing director crack a smile. At least he would remember me.
“Just a joke,” I said as I distributed seven copies of my presentation, keeping the eighth and final copy I’d made for myself.
“Thanks, Bill. The floor is yours,” said one of the senior bankers.
I flipped to page one, the executive-summary page, outlining the four sections of the presentation. “Today, I’d like to talk about strategic opportunities for Doddrid—“
In one collective motion, the heads of all seven people across from me lowered so their scalps were facing me while their hands furiously rifled through my deck until they each found the first pages of numbers, the quantitative valuation pages, the pages I knew least about and hoped to breeze through. A series of pens clicked in succession as lines, circles, and question marks were scrawled on nearly every deck I could see.
I’d assumed the thirty-minute presentation would be comprised of me babbling for twenty minutes, then a light-hearted Q&A for five minutes, followed by some informal talk for the final five minutes, possibly about plans for the rest of the summer.
I had barely finished my first point on the executive-summary page when a voice barked out.
“Why don’t EBITDAs on page five and seven tie?” I looked up to identify the speaker.
“These adjusted or unadjusted figures?” asked another person. My head darted to the left.
“Bust,” said the first voice, as he drew a huge “X” through one of my valuation-output pages.
“Pretty bearish on your coal price assumptions. How’d you forecast them?” said a more senior guy.
“Why are you using forward estimates for your credit metrics?” asked someone else.
The pens were losing ink quickly. One guy stopped, shook his pen, then was forced to retrieve new ammo from his inside pocket.
I was getting fisted from every possible angle, even digitally when I heard a voice chime in over the speakerphone asking about my thoughts on future coal prices, given recent political reform.
I wanted to cry. Later that day, I’d hear from another intern that someone did cry during his presentation.
I addressed the questions I could and ignored the ones that flew over my head. I felt like I was drowning, struggling to gasp for air, before someone was pushing my head back under the water.
As I doggy-paddled along, the firing squad of questions slowly subsided. I could feel my time running short and knew I needed to end on something positive, really anything to counteract what had taken place in the previous half hour. A vision of Marshall, Beaux, and Waylon came to mind. I knew their composure during those meetings was rooted in their expertise, a key facet I lacked. But then I remembered how Marshall had harped on the subject of “legacy liabilities” in all three meetings. The PE guys always responded favorably when Marshall got on the topic. I remembered Marshall noting how all old natural-resource-based companies dealt with these legacy liabilities, but I never understood the details.
The room was silent.
“And I’d be remiss not to mention…” I began, as I considered if this was really such a good idea. “Legacy liabilities,” I said cautiously.
A senior banker made a note. Two other bankers made eye contact with each other, in a good way. Liabilities, by definition, were something one’s responsible for, a burden. Overall, they seemed negative.
“Legacy liabilities,” I repeated, this time more confidently. “Certainly something to consider here.” I held my breath.
One guy checked his watch. “Alright, think we can stop here and debrief,” he said.
Thank fuckin’ God.
“So how’d you think you did?” one of the senior guys asked.
I felt physically incapacitated, exposed, and plain stupid. Not wanting to show any more weakness but hoping to demonstrate some pride, I mustered up, “Okay.”
“You held it together. It’s not easy. We’ve been doing this a long time, and you kept your composure and looked confident,” he said. I felt anything but confident. “Can’t be expected to learn everything in one summer. The quantitative stuff takes some time—but that was a good catch, noting the limit those legacy liabilities are going to put on Doddridge’s ability to make an acquisition.”
I was right—they were bad.
“As far as presentation skills,” he continued. “Formatting looked good—color schemes, right sized font, pages not too cluttered.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“From a delivery perspective, here’s one point to remember. When you’re thinking about structuring the deck, you want to think about it in three main sections: First section—tell ’em what you’re going to tell them about. Second—tell ’em. Third—tell ’em what you just told ’em.” His assessment was corroborated by a few nods from fellow bankers. “Don’t expect anyone to make conclusions on their own. Spell it out—this isn’t literature.” I made a note.
“Last thing I’d add,” said one of the vice presidents as he flipped to the cover page of my presentation, entitled “Doddridge Strategic Opportunities.” “Our mission at Deutsche Bank is to show clients that we are a fully integrated bank, so regardless of the type of pitch—M&A, financing, what have you—the goal is consistency. So the title of all our decks is the same—‘Discussion Materials.’”
“I thought since the deck—”
“No thinking. All decks—same title: ‘Discussion Materials.’”
* * *
Decision day.
Word quickly spread through the summer associate group-text chain that most interns were asked to report to the human-resources department Friday afternoon, while only a handful of interns were summoned at 7:30 a.m. While most of the summer had been anything but clear, it was all but obvious that those asked to report in the early morning were not offered full-time roles. So when I walked into my appointment at 3:30 p.m., I had a good feeling. I was officially offered a full-time role to join the bank after graduation. It was a flood of relief—relief the summer was over, relief I hadn’t fucked up too badly, and relief knowing I could hang up my suits and return to wearing sweatpants once school resumed in the fall.
After meeting with HR, I returned to the forty-fourth floor, where it was business as usual. I half-expected congratulatory back slaps from the full-timers, but there were none. Though my internship was over, their work continued. As I cleaned out my desk, I spotted one of the Lulu presentation books I’d kept. Six months later, as I studied for my second-year business school exams in the same library where I’d been interviewed for banking jobs, I would receive a phone call from Marshall Crockard. I had some difficulty explaining why my DB email had been deactivated, but he quickly changed subjects. Lulu had received a $250 million equity commitment from Derry Capital, the last PE firm we had met over video conference. Marshall invited me to a Nailers game if I ever found myself in Wheeling, West Virginia—beers were on him. It made me feel like I’d contributed that summer, and I swelled with pride. That feeling of accomplishment was quickly eliminated when Professor Singh posted our final grades for Applied Statistics.
Meanwhile, on the last day of the summer internship, as I continued packing up my belongings and cleaning out my cubicle, Doug, the intern who looked like a substitute teacher, drifted over. He kept his keys and DB badge on a lanyard, which he was anxiously twirling around his finger—one way until it was securely wrapped around his index finger, then the other way. He looked lost.
“Congrats, man,” I said extending my arm with a closed fist. He reached out with an open palm and clasped down on my fist before realizing I was looking for a fist-bump.
“Thanks, you too.” He sat in the empty chair beside me as I continued tossing various training manuals I’d accumulated over the summer into my duffel bag. “So,” he leaned in closer. “You think you’re gonna take the offer?”
“Hard to say. Seemed like some interesting stuff happening. I feel like we only got a glimpse though. Like they didn’t show us everything.”
“That associate that sits by the door,” he said. “He’s there all day. When I come in the morning, he’s there. When I go home, no matter what time, still there. It’s like he lives here.” He stood from his chair and did a 360-degree turn, ensuring everyone around us was sufficiently engrossed in whatever was happening in his own cube. Then he sat back down and, using his heels, wheeled his chair closer to me. I could smell the coffee on his breath, accented by the tangy scent of a wintergreen breath mint.
“You’re all up in my grill. What’s going on?” I said, giving him my full attention.
Then he asked the question I’d been too fearful to pose all summer: “It’s just…I still don’t get it…what is investment banking?”