Yes. That’s right. Not quant-type modellers, but real, actual, commercial, fashion-type models.
In case you’ve missed it ex- Goldman Sachs investment banker-turned-male model David Webb has hit the headlines in recent weeks.
First the banker was sympathetically profiled in the New York Observer. Here’s a sample of the piece: “Beautiful Banker Yields Interest: Life After Goldman is a Catwalk!”:
… Not one to be left out of pocket or out of a lark, a few weeks before packing up his desk at Goldman [Webb had] pushed his way into an interview at Wilhelmina Models. He recounted his side of the initial phone conversation, which had started off with him making the mistake of telling a woman at Wilhelmina he was 6-foot-4—he’s actually 6-foot-3 and a half—thinking such impressive altitude would work in his favor, when actually the industry likes male models to top out at 6-foot-2.
“Dana, Dana, Dana, Dana, Dana, Dana, listen, Dana, I’m not six-four,” said Mr. Webb, trying to recover. “Dana, I’m not six-four, I’m six-two. I have a long neck. Dana, Dana, let me just come in, let me in.” …
Then Rob Fishman of the Huffington Post launched an attack on the profile:
… “Beautiful Banker Yields Interest,” headlines the New York Observer (to whom, they don’t say), in a profile of former banker David Webb, “a model citizen of the post-crash era.” Webb’s story, if you read between the aggrandized lines, is typical i-banker: Ivy League education, job at Goldman Sachs, promoted to associate, canned after financial crisis, travels to Buenos Aires for soul-searching, returns jobless.
But for the Observer’s Spencer Morgan, it’s a veritable bildungsroman: the callow youth deflowered twice — first at boarding school, and then again after graduating Dartmouth, by a tattooed seductrix in New York (“When it was done she got dressed,” Morgan writes. “He had never done anything like that). From there, Webb gets mixed up in a Polish tennis league in Brooklyn (think O’Neill’s Netherland with hair gel), only to be banned for playing “half-drunk.” Then there’s the Merlin-like encounter with a Columbia prof at Whole Foods, something about philosophy…
Curiously, although it’s admitted that Webb was unceremoniously laid off by Goldman, by the end of the article, it’s made to seem as if Webb has quit. “He’s sort of the one black sheep,” says a friend. “He beat the system — he made a lot of money and got out.” As Morgan bafflingly concludes: “Last summer, Mr. Webb was promoted to an associate position at Goldman. This, it seems, was as far as Mr. Webb had intended to climb.” All evidence to the contrary, it was as far as Goldman had intended Mr. Webb to climb. …
Then financial blog Clusterstock noted that Rob Fishman actually has his own links to the banking industry, in a David Webb-sympathetic recount of the above:
All bankers are villians, is the message of Rob Fishman’s response in the Huffington Post. An associate at Goldman Sachs is more or less equivalent to Bernie Madoff, in his view. …
Ironically, Fishman, a journalism student, is also a “Research Analyst at the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.” Pete Peterson, of course, is the former Lehman Brothers investment banker who went on to found the private equity firm Blackstone. So Fishman’s job is basically paid for with evil investment banking profits.
And now Webb himself has hit back at Fisherman’s critiques in a letter to the Huffington Post that is curiously reminiscent of the above Clusterstock entry:
Hi Rob, it’s David. I read your post last week, “The Media Drops to Its Knees for Ex-Bankers,” and I was flattered that you mentioned me. I was compelled to respond because I think you touched on many poignant issues for our times.
There is a lot of heat for the people of Wall Street right now. Some of it is more than due. Even as a former Johnny Banker, I have frequently been appalled reading the news over the past few months. So I guess I’m saying I hear you.
This being said, I think you of all people should know that the banking system isn’t just all shifty mortgages and Ponzi schemes. After all, according to your biography, I see that you are a “Research Analyst at the Peter G. Peterson Foundation” in addition to being a Columbia journalism student. I did a little research on this Peterson fellow and he’s apparently “an American businessman, investment banker, fiscal conservative, author, and politician whose most prominent political position was as United States Secretary of Commerce from February 29, 1972 to February 1, 1973.” He was also the former chairman of Lehman Brothers (RIP) and co-founder of The Blackstone Group. Baller! Let’s hope he doesn’t read HuffPo. …
Meoww.
But it’s more than a banker-blogger-journalist scrap, it’s potential proof that male models read financial blogs, albeit ex-investment banker ones.
In the words of Derek Zoolander, cool.
Related links:
Sympathetic profile of former investment banker yields outrage – Clusterstock
Beautiful Banker Yields Interest: Life After Goldman Is a Catwalk! – New York Observer
The Media Drops to Its Knees for Ex-Bankers - Rob Fishman, Huffington Post
A letter to Rob – David Webb’s letter to the Huffington Post
Zoolander in under nine minutes – YouTube