(December 14) – “Even by the inflated standards of high finance, Wall Street is overflowing with holiday cheer this year. Investment banks have set aside $13 billion to pay bonuses, 20 percent more than last year, with pay packages above $10 million no longer a rarity,” writes Joseph Kahn in The New York Times this morning.
“Yet among Wall Streeters the mood has changed. One industry veteran bemoaned the ‘opportunity cos'” of remaining a financier in the Internet age. Others are leaving to join online start-ups, technology companies and venture capital firms, the pillars of the new economy, where they sometimes take home more than their old bosses from Day 1 — and, they say, have more fun.
“For the first time since Wall Street became the surest professional path to riches during the frenzied 1980’s, those with the biggest paydays are former investment bankers.
“Like Timothy Weller. He is the talk of the Street, but mostly because he no longer works there. Last summer, Weller, 34, left Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, where he was a middle-ranking analyst tracking the telecommunications business, to join Akamai Technologies, which provides networking services for the Internet.
“Akamai, based in Cambridge, Mass., enticed him to sign on as chief financial officer by selling him 1.05 million shares, valued then at $2.63 million, and even lent him the money to buy them. Gratification was quick: when Akamai went public in October, its stock soared from $26 to $230. Weller’s stake is now worth $240 million.
“But that could change if the share price falls. And companies often place restrictions on when shares can be cashed in.
“Few bankers will reap such gains, but many are still taking their chances on the Internet. One-time masters of the universe say banking has become prosaic, with the heavy demands no longer producing unrivaled rewards. Bankers now ogle online entrepreneurs the way lawyers and accountants once envied Wall Streeters.