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Monkey Business: Swinging Through the Wall Street Jungle
: Monkey Business is the story of two investment bankers trying to make sense out of the career that they have chosen. As we all know, jobs can be stressful and it often helps to temper a little humor to keep one's sanity. However, investment bankers have never been known to be top comedians and Rolfe and Troob are no exception. This book is a whiny litany from two little rich boys from Ivy League schools who did not have the tenacity to put in the hard work it required to rise to the top of their chosen field. It is written in a vernacular that one can only call high school locker room and is about as funny as a fart joke. In their world, banking assistants are to be used as sexual toys, the word processing department is a group of "Christopher Street fairies" and the copy center is "a platoon of patriotic Puerto Ricans". The book is neither informative nor funny.If you want workplace humor, stick with Dilbert.
 This book was fantastic. It's the only truly entertaining Wall Street book that I've read in a long while. Two of my friends, both junior investment bankers, couldn't stop raving about this book so I went out and picked it up. It's brilliantly written, unlike most of the stuffy garbage that Wall Street wanna-bes churn out. This is the only book I've read that truly demolishes the myth behind the "glamour" of Wall Street.
Monkey Business is great! The book is well written and extremely entertaining. The story is lively and the overall cadence of the book makes it easy and fast to read. Rolfe and Troob have a nice style of writing and are two authors that the reader really likes. They seem like good guys. What I really like about the book is that it is not about deals. I was worried that when I picked it up to read that it would be about boring deals. It is just the opposite. It is a joy to read and I think I learned something in the process. I have lots of friends who are bankers and I never understood why they never seemed happy. They made lots of money, but always seemed nervous and jumpy. This book allows the reader to "jump on board" and experience what junior investment bankers do. The stories are great and the characters are unforgettable. This book is not just for men. Monkey Business is a great read for anyone who wants to understand banking and laugh while reading and learning. It is perfect for a plane trip or while on vacation. It is lots of fun.
This is one funny book. Monkey Business will still be read by business schoolers and junior Wall Streeters 20 years from now. Many Wall Street books out there lose their timeliness quickly and slip into obscurity, but this one manages to make its point(s) without dating itself. My guess is that it will still be making folks laugh far into the future. Rolfe and Troob have managed to be prescient, as the ugly side of the gold-seeker mentality has come to the fore with the this year's blow-up in the dot com world. Rolfe and Troob made the right decision to follow a different path several years back, and they're now being followed by numerous young professionals who realize that there's more to life than this year's bonus.
Finally someone is speaking the truth about life on Wall Street. It is amazing with what tricks and finesse investment banks recruit young people into their torture chambers and turn them into money-hungry paper-pushing machines. It was delightful to read Monkey Business and learn that other former Investment Bankers feel the same way. And its a relief to know that Rolfe and Troob have made their way out of the industry and moved onto bigger and better things. I highly recommend this book for anyone currently or historically involved with the whole Investment Banking and Wall Street culture. It certainly is hilarious to read about the authors' own experiences, and you can even learn a thing or two.
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