Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Banker: And Other Baller Things You Only Get to Say If You Work on Wall Street

Good, short book about the finance industry from a young Master of Wallstreet's fictional perspective It was even inspirational on some weird level. Hopefully no one really thinks like this guy, but feeling the power of his elite education and position on Wallstreet was offbeat, funny, and memorable. It would be easy to be offended if one took it too seriously.

This is a pretty funny book trying to describe the life of young investment bankers with big egos and immaturity as they grow up in NY working hard and playing hard. Maybe this guy is too cocky and really meant all this. Maybe he's just giving you a peek at the life. But it's enjoyable but not to be taken too seriously. Unfortunately, while the guy describes the appropriate path to the buy side and ultimate wealth he really overstates his position. Young investment bankers are tools to work massive hours propping up the real bankers with the math so the real bankers can advise on the deals. MAYBE these young bankers will grow into real bankers but eventually he will lose the attitude or doubtful he will make it. The book is a relic as I-Banking is dying on the vine as we speak. Still, an entertaining book of the life of young bankers. Cocky? Yes. Talented? Sure. But there is much more to it than that.

This book is absolutely hilarious, every chapter is gold! You have to take everything this guy is saying with a grain of salt, the author is actually not a banker but lived with a bunch of them so it is very satirical, but hysterical nonetheless. It is impossible to put down. It will have you laughing from start to finish!

I bought this book at the same time as Monkey Business: Swinging Through the Wall Street Jungle to get a perspective on what life was like as a banker. I read both and though they both gave similar information for people considering a banking career, Monkey Business was a more enjoyable read. The author of this book is downright unlikable, pompous and repetitive. I think most folks considering banking, except maybe those who just graduated from a 4-year university, would have more mature motivations and general life awareness. It was entertaining at first to read what Leveraged Sellout would do next or how he would be pummeled. After a while I felt that get repetitive and maybe blown out of proportion. I have several friends in banking and only the lowest associates and interns get anywhere near this type of treatment and almost never anymore. For that reason I give this book a lower rating since the outlandish parts are accentuated and overall could give a reader curious about banking the wrong impression. In contrast Monkey Business has the same events, but takes a broader view and the narrator doesn't enjoy or celebrate the bad treatment and sees it as a means to an end. I suggest this book for young men looking for entertainment as opposed to aspiring bankers who want the inside scoop. Girls or women are less likely to enjoy this book because LSO is a portrait of what the most annoying guys in college were like and the most unbearable blind dates.

Excellent satire on banking culture and everything in between. Too bad I went right to private equity you idiots. Enjoy the trash heap we call NYC.

this guy is defiantly very insecure. This is a horribly written while funny at times boring for the most part and uninteresting!

I picked up this book looking to garner additional insight into the world of investment banking. Unfortunately, the book is less informative than it is humorous. A very quick, light read for people completely unfamiliar with banking. If, however, you've read any other book, Monkey Business, Liar's Poker, Accidental Investment Banker, you will find no new information from this book.

The author, from his pedestal of private equity self-absorption, showers us with anecdotes of wealthy excess amongst Wall Street twenty-somethings. He provides various guises, to women, fashion, and music, but also stratifying America's top universities value to Wall Street. Unabashedly solipsistic but undeniably enjoyable.

I pity poor old "Leveraged Sellout", which would be the most wounding thing one could do to him ("one" being a person not blessed enough to work in front office advisory M&A at a bulge bracket investment bank), but only for his timing. After the events of September 2008 it's going to be a while before anyone preens about working in a Bulge Bracket investment bank on Wall Street. At this point (still in September 2008) there are only two left, one (Morgan Stanley) looking likely to go the way of all flesh in coming days (horror of all horrors courtesy of *Wachovia*!), and the last man standing, Messrs. Goldman, Sachs & Co, facing a very uncertain road ahead as an independent investment bank no matter how excellent its risk management, deal execution and intellectual capital may be. So I pity the anonymous "Leveraged Sellout" simply because, as a result of his timing, this excellent and brutally funny little book will either disappear into the same gaping void that claimed Bear Stears, Merrill Lynch, AIG and Lehman Brothers or, worse, be held up by moronic lefties as a poster child for everything that was wrong with Wall Street. It is no such thing. It's actually a riot - imagine a young Hunter Thompson or Tom Wolfe writing with verve about modern day Wall Street but not as an outsider or an ingenue, but fully steeped in the technical and cultural world of a 24 year-old master of the universe. I have no doubt that whoever wrote this was a genuine insider - the observations and devastatingly funny sending up of the minutiae (such as the distinction between IBD and FICC and importance of never using your mouse when manipulating a spreadsheet) would never be apparent to an outsider who hadn't done a significant stretch. I spent 7 years at a bulge bracket bank myself (as a lowly inhouse lawyer, resolutely in unglamorous back office), and but for the inevitable comic hyperbole, Damn It Feels Good To Be A Banker rings very true. I loved every moment. So it's kind of a historical document, even though it is pure satire. It captures the zeitgeist, circa August 2008, and if you've had any interaction with the IB fraternity in their prime - that is, before the Sub-Prime got them, you'll find this hysterically funny. Olly Buxton

Can't read this at all. For a better version of this book, read "Straight To Hell" by John LeFevre.

Mediocre over-the-top depiction of a satire-enfused stereotype of investment banker, based on the blogging experience of a non-insider. Doesn't cost a lot, doesn't take long to read, but also won't last in your memory. Far short of the classic Monkey Business, this book misses the wit and appeal of good writing. The depictions of excesses and elitist egos are at times quite fun, though. If you've run out of other books about banking to read, go ahead and get this, it's cheap after all. Shouldn't be your first buy though. Loved the youtube video. Great marketing campaign, you made me buy the book after all...

This book is amazing. I couldn't put it down and would recommend it to everyone!

Wohl geschrieben vor Lehman brothers. Ist wohl ironisch gemeint -hoffentlich - so richtig klar ist das nicht immer. Jedenfalls jede Menge amerikanische Arroganz.