Wall Street Bankers Quitting To Start Their Own Businesses - HuffPo

[WillyT]

Wall Street Bankers Quitting To Start Their Own Businesses
Nate C. Hindman - HuffPo
First Posted: 1/13/12 01:50 AM ET Updated: 1/13/12 11:59 AM ET

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Shane Robinson celebrated his Merrill Lynch job offer over lunch and cocktails at a trendy Manhattan restaurant. His bosses toasted him and asked what he planned to do with the $10,000 end-of-internship bonus. Robinson, then 24, in late 2007, said he would probably save it. "Why?" he recalls them asking. "Just go spend it -- you're going to make a lot more."

As the economy started to spiral downward less than six months later, bonuses dried up, layoffs ensued and the young banker was told by his superiors that he might want to begin looking for other opportunities. "It left a bad taste in my mouth," Robinson says. "Why would I want to have my fate determined by things that are outside my control? If I'm going to fail, I would much rather fail because of my own doing."

Not long after the recession hit, Robinson decided to ditch finance. He contacted A.J. Steigman, a former Merrill Lynch colleague who had quit to start a sneaker store, and the two hashed out plans to create an urban clothing website that was part social network, part e-commerce. For months, they slept on friends' couches while fundraising in different cities. They spent countless hours online, building the core technology and a community around their streetwear blog. Finally, in 2010, the duo secured $265,000 from investors to make their startup Soletron a reality.

Soletron's founders' path from high-finance to high-tech is becoming increasingly well-trodden, according to economists, venture capitalists and startup CEOs -- especially now, as we see some contraction once again on Wall Street, not to mention the stigma Occupy Wall Street protesters have bestowed on the "1 Percent." As employee dissatisfaction spreads through the financial services industry amid waning profits, slashed bonuses and layoffs, New York's bustling world of tech startups is attracting and absorbing fed-up financiers, offering them jobs, cash and a shot at creating empires of their own.

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More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/13/wall-street-bank-tech-startups_n_1200373.html?ref=business&ir=Business

[rfranklin]

1. Odds are not very good apparently...

But for each successful startup that has grown out of a Wall Street hangover, or received a boost from ex-Wall Street talent, there are at least 100 new businesses that flop, creating and then ultimately destroying jobs. Some fear those numbers will grow as the threat of a startup credit crunch becomes more real.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/13/wall-street-bank-tech-startups_n_1200373.html?ref=business&ir=Business

[LiberalEsto]

2. Loan-sharking business, no doubt

They've got all the necessary experience

[Mosaic]

3. huff po is always helping wall street discreetly

The loyal corporatists, aol, they really are. Never trust them.