Hopping over the Rabbit Hole

Chapter 5 An Entrepreneurial Blueprint: The Don’ts of Building a Business

“It’s not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”

—Charles Darwin

It was January 2004. I was a managing director at Lehman Brothers. And it was comp day.

“Your base pay is $400,000. We’re also giving you a $700,000 bonus—$600,000 is your firm bonus; $100,000 is the team bonus that’s granted to you as several managing directors believe that you’re a team player. So your total compensation for your efforts at Lehman Brothers is $1.1 million.”

“Thank you,” I said, respectfully.

“You seem upset,” he paused. “Do you think you were unfairly compensated?”

“I didn’t say that,” I said as I stood up. “I simply said ‘thank you.’” I shook his hand and left the conference room.

By any stretch of the imagination, $1.1 million was—and still is—a tremendous sum of money to make in one year. Growing up on Long Island in the 1970s, I would never have dreamed of reaching that level of annual income. However, in the bank account–measuring contest on Wall Street, I was being compensated as a middling, journeyman managing director at Lehman Brothers. Although the compensation might have been deserved at the time, that characterization didn’t sit well with me.

I sold my first company, Oscar Capital, to Neuberger Berman in 2001. Just two years later, Neuberger merged with Lehman Brothers, who effectively became my employer. Within a few months, I asked the ...