David Solomon

I mean, it was really, it was a pretty- Good advice.

It was a pretty simple piece of advice.

But I went to Drexel Burnham.

It was very entrepreneurial.

And the culture, there were good things and bad things about the culture at Drexel.

And some of the bad things are the reason why in 1990, on February 14th, 1990, Drexel Burnham went out of business, as many other Wall Street firms have in the history of Wall Street.

But for the four and a half years that I was there, basically, I was told, go find a way to build relationships and make money.

Go find a way to build, you know, I was 24 years old.

Go bring business into the firm.

We sat at a desk.

Did you golf?

I golfed a little bit, but we sat on a desk and we called people and talked to people.

And it was a time in the world when if you picked up the phone and called someone, you would get them on the phone and you would talk to them.

And if you were an effective salesperson, you could do a lot of business.

One of the great experiences I have, there's an experience I've talked about a little bit, but I haven't talked about a lot, but a seminal experience in my personal development was the summer after my freshman year in college.

I got an internship in a Merrill Lynch office.

That happened to be the office that was, I think it was like 10 Penn Plaza.

It was by Madison Square Garden.

And I got the internship because my high school girlfriend's father ran that Merrill Lynch office.

That always helps.