Daily Princetonian: There are lots of people who say that going to Wall Street is like selling your soul, and your time would be more worthwhile to do community service and other forms of work to save the world. What do you say to them?
Joe Gregory: I think that there are people whose desires and experiences lead them specifically to community service, and we're very fortunate to have them. You have to believe that within almost every environment if you have a trend interest in community service, you can fulfill it almost anything you do. So, I can do the big macro, "The world needs money, we figure out ways to create money, and it finds its way eventually, or some portion of it, to people who need it." What really is, I think, the important thing to recognize is especially in our era – the one you're about to enter and the one I'm near the backend of – is that these firms truly do have a social responsibility that is much different from what's been in the past. Every one of the major firms in financial service has a huge philanthropic effort, and everyone has a huge foundation, and everyone is trying to create a mindset around volunteerism that is much different from the very self-interested '80s, and then before that, '60s culture.
In every office we have around the world, we have a tremendous amount of philanthropic activity that boils down to volunteerism. In New York City, our main office is between 49th and 50th Street at 7th Avenue. Seventy-five blocks north of that is something called the Harlem Children's Zone. And the Harlem Children's Zone is this very unbelievably cool social educational experiment, and it's led by a unique and wonderful man named Geoff Canada. What he's trying do is carve out a zone in central Harlem where basically the educational standard right up through and including the families, he's changed and altered and so they're basically charter schools, and with those charter schools, his programs start with something called Baby College. And so moms and dads who are now expecting children go to Baby College to learn issues about nutrition, about what phase people should be in, when a kid should start to learn how to use numbers when they should be getting to speak, when they should be able to start walking certain ways so parents have some idea and some sensitivity about what appropriate development is. So he's starting pre-cradle and taking those kids through their entire educational environment and then hopefully after that, those kids will become involved in other programs we're involved in, such as Prep for Prep and Posse – two great organizations that identify and develop young leaders from urban communities.
But the point of these programs is that we've got people who're working at 7th Avenue headquarters who can get in a car or get in a subway train and, in 75 blocks, be right in the middle of the Children's Zone teaching a technology or math course. They love it. They're giving their money, which is really important, but they're also giving their time. They're connecting with the community and we're providing a vehicle for them to use their philanthropic, community service side of their brain that's within the context of a work environment that we are promoting that they do. We're promoting that they take time from their busy schedules. We do believe in this work-life balance thing. That's a work-life balance thing. You know, you just can't do these businesses 24/7 and still be, at the end of that, be a person who can create value in a complete way that we think about value.
DP: Where do you see Lehman in 20 years?
JG: You know I think for us we have nothing by opportunity; our business model is growing hand over fist. We're a growth company. We have huge opportunities every place on the globe. We're a very formed company in a North American environment; we're a pretty formed company in a European environment. In an Asian environment we're kind of more at the middle, not in the heavier of our development part, so our development dollars are very heavily weighted towards Asia, as is the case with most firms in our space.
DP: Why should someone pick Lehman over Goldman or JP Morgan?
JG: They should pick Lehman over Goldman or JP Morgan because they've done the diligence, and they understand the difference between all the companies, because these are all great companies. So in the end of it, it's really, what's the right company for the individual? So when you do your diligence and you do that by your interviews and your summer programs, and you do the work to really understand what's the difference between these companies, you'll line yourself up with the right one. They're all good companies.
DP: A lot of people say that they would not go to a large college because they don't want to get lost in it. How do you advise someone on not getting lost in a big firm?
JG: When you join a firm like Lehman, yes, there are 25,000 people globally. Six-thousand of those people do mortgage origination business for us that is spread all over the world. It's a big business. When you take a job at Lehman – let's say you're a capital markets analyst – you're going to be picked by the mortgage business, or you're going to be picked by the government bond business, or you're going to be picked by the derivative business, and you're going to work with a group of people that, in total, is 25 or 30 people. So you know, once you get into your pod, it's a very recognizable, really small part of a very big company, so you have every chance. There's the macro-Lehman Brothers, or macro-whatever firm, then there's divisional, then there's specific businesses within divisions. There are departments within those businesses, and so you're always going to end up with a group of people that feels like 10 to 20 who are your closest peers and closest associates – no matter what firm.
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