YOUNG ANALYSTS DYING FROM STRESS OF WORK
A string of recent suicides is forcing Wall Street firms to reconsider their approach to balanced lifestyles in the high-stakes banking industry
Earlier this year, a 24-year-old firstyear analyst at the Goldman Sachs office in San Francisco was feeling overwhelmed by the all-nighters and 100-hour working weeks. The analyst, Sarvshreshth Gupta, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania who was born in New Delhi, told his father, Sunil, “This job is not for me. Too much work and too little time.”
In March, against his father’s wishes, Gupta quit. However, a week later, “By a quirk of fate, he was asked by his company to reconsider his resignation and under pressure from me, he rejoined,” his father wrote in an essay. Others at Goldman said he asked for his job back.
When Gupta returned, he was originally put on a reduced schedule, and the firm had Gupta meet with its employee assistance counsellors about dealing with work-life balance issues and the stress of the job.
Soon, however, Gupta, who worked in Goldman’s telecommunications, media and technology group, was working flat-out again as the firm’s deal business became busier and busier.
Just a little after midnight on April 16, Gupta called his father in India.
“He calls us and says, ‘It is too much. I have not slept for two days, have a client meeting tomorrow morning, have to complete a presentation, my VP is annoyed and I am working alone in my office’, ” his father wrote. “I got furious. ‘Take 15 days leave and come home,’ I said. He quipped, ‘They will not allow’. I said, ‘Tell them to consider this as your resignation letter’. ”
Gupta told his father that he would work for another hour, then head to his home less than a kilometre from the office, and return in the morning.
The next morning, at 6.40am, Gupta was found in the parking lot next to his apartment building and was declared dead, according to police officials. He apparently fell from the building. The San Francisco medical examiner’s office is conducting an investigation and has yet to officially declare a cause of death.
Gupta’s death, one of numerous unexpected deaths or suicides of young bankers over the last year, has caused a new round of reflection and re-evaluation by Goldman and other Wall Street firms about their work policies just two weeks before a new class of college interns descend on the industry for the summer.
Just last week, Thomas Hughes, a 29-yearold banker at Moeis & Co, was found dead with drugs in his system after falling from a building in Manhattan.
“The only explanation is that I know he’s been working very hard and has been under a lot of pressure,” Hughes’ father told The Daily Mail. “His work did not leave much time for enjoyment, but that’s the nature of the assignment that he chose.” An investigation is pending to determine the official cause of death.
For more than a month, Gupta’s death has largely remained held in confidence among a small group of his colleagues and family. After Gupta’s death, David Solomon, Goldman’s cohead of investment banking, and John Weinberg, a vice chairman, flew to San Francisco to speak with a small group of the bank’s employees and discuss the firm’s approach to work-life balance.
The firm held a small memorial service for Gupta, who was universally liked by his colleagues and whom several said was so good at his job that he had become one of the “goto” analysts. Indeed, his proficiency and work ethic appear to have led to him taking on a large workload.
“We are saddened by Sav’s death and feel deeply for his family,” Goldman said in a statement. “We hope that people will respect the family’s expressed desire for privacy during this difficult time.”
Gupta’s father wrote an essay about his son’s death, which he posted on Medium and later removed. In an email, Gupta’s father said, “At this time, the grieving family does not wish to speak to the press.” He said his essay about his son was intended for “the grieving family and a means of dealing with my deep anguish and catharsis”.
Of course, it is always difficult to directly link a death or possible suicide to work conditions. Other factors can be in play, like family problems, medical issues or a history of depression. And in Gupta’s case, the cause of his death remains undetermined.
Still, the string of deaths on Wall Street appears to rise above the level of simple coincidence. Last February, Fortune ran an article titled: “Is there a suicide contagion on Wall Street?”
Studies have suggested that financial service employees are at higher risk than those in many other industries. According to the National Occupational Mortality Surveillance, individuals who work in financial services are 1.5 times more likely to commit suicide than the national average. The highest suicide rates in the United States are among doctors, dentists and veterinarians.
It is possible that the finance industry attracts more people with depression, just as it is possible that the pressure-cooker work environment overwhelms some people who have been high achievers their entire lives. It could be a tragic combination of multiple factors. Wall Street has always thrived, in part, on its eat-or-be-eaten culture. Would curbing its competitive nature cut into its success?
Most top Wall Street firms have sought to change their work policies for young investment bankers in recent years, in part to combat some of the problems and because they are increasingly in heated competition with Silicon Valley for top talent and are seeking to make themselves more attractive.
Goldman, for example, has required that analysts take Saturdays off. Credit Suisse, too, has made employees take Saturdays off, with employees instructed to avoid even email. Bank of America has instituted a policy that requires analysts to “take four days off a month” on the weekends. And JPMorgan Chase has said that one weekend a month should be protected.
Many of those steps were taken after a 21-year-old intern died at Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s London office in summer 2013 after reports indicated he had pulled three consecutive all-nighters. The official cause of death was epilepsy.
As the economy has heated up and the dealmaking market has improved, however, young bankers are once again working long hours. Perversely, young analysts now say that having Saturdays off has often added to their stress because late nights on Sundays have become the norm. Some banks, like Goldman, are also taking new steps, like introducing more efficient technology to help analysts do their work more quickly. And investment banks say they are hiring more analysts to help balance the workload.
That may help. But as long as young analysts are expected to work 80-100 hours a week, invariably some run the risk of finding themselves in a situation they cannot handle. With new classes of such analysts arriving each year, it is incumbent on the industry to make sure it is doing everything possible to make sure that no one is too overwhelmed.