On Wall Street, traders work hard, play hard — and fight hard. At a certain point, I developed my own motto: If you screw me, I'll screw you harder.
Tired of being screamed at daily and living in fear of being fired, I finally left the Galleon Group in 2001 to help a co-worker start the hedge fund Argus Partners. Not surprisingly, one of my former bosses tried to put every single road block he possibly could in front of us to impede the launch of our new fund. He called every sales trader I know and told them if they do business with me, they can't do business with Galleon.