Wall Street Folly

It's Official: We've moved! Our new home is www.wallstreetfolly.com

Please join us over at our new Wall Street Folly site.  We're still working out some kinks, but it's up and running! (Note, if for some reason you're not directed to that site, keep trying.  It gonna take a bit for the redirection of our wallstreetfolly.com url to be propogated through the system.)

He's baaaaack! Aleksey Vayner has a new official website shilling a new book which may or may not exist

Did you think he'd ever really go away?: It's official.The now infamous video resume producer ("Impossible is Nothing") and self-proclaimed expert in everything, Aleksey Vayner, is back.  He's got a new website.   He's got a blog (although so far there are only test entries.)  You can hire him to speak to you (although that part of his website is "coming soon").  And his story (and obviously, his legend) just keeps getting bigger.  At least that's what he wants us to believe. He's pushing his new book that you can preorder on Amazon: "Millionaires' Blueprint to Success".  (Well, maybe you could, if it were listed on Amazon, but it's not, at least not yet.  The link he provides leads to Amazon's top page.)  And he tells us about said book.  Or will at some point, according to his website, since the Reviews, Overview, Table of Contents, Introduction and FAQ all say "coming soon.......)

It seems like only yesterday, but one year ago the legend of Aleksey Vayner was born

It's hard to believe that a whole year has passed since the world (literally) was introduced to Yale student Aleksey Vayner, the ballroom dancing, skiing, weight lifting, investment banker wannabe who created what is probably the most viewed and most ridiculed viral internet video resume ever. Here's the video that started it all, "Impossible Is Nothing":

You can also take a walk down memory lane and read all of our other Aleksey posts here.

Aleksey Vayner connection to arrested creepy hedge fund manager Albert Hsu

Aleksey Vayner keeps surfacing in the oddest ways.  This time, an alert reader (thanks!) reminded us that not only did the recently arrested hedge fund manager Albert Hsu work for Atlantic Philanthropies, but so, according to his resume, did investment banker wannabe Aleksey Vayner.  In fact, he worked for Hsu!  Excerpts from his resume are above.

Vault.com's best video resume search: Aleksey Vayner need not apply

After watching the hilariously ridiculous video resume from aspiring investment banker Aleksey Vayner that went viral last summer, it's hard to envision anyone serious who wants a job on Wall Street going the same route.  But Vault.com is looking for the next video resume star:

The infamous video résumé in which Aleksey Vayner shatters bricks with his bare knuckles and boldly refers to himself as a symbol of success made the Yale University student the laughingstock of Wall Street and became an example for young bankers of how not to apply for a job.

But despite the negative attention Mr. Vayner attracted, a large career services network focusing on the financial industry is now challenging aspiring bankers to compete for the crown of Wall Street's best video résumé.

"We're reclaiming the video résumé for the forces of good," a cofounder of Vault.com, Mark Oldman, said. "Clips of bench-pressing and pontificating about life philosophies won't be rewarded."

Morgan Stanley (and other) internships up for grabs

Submit a video resume (a la Aleksey Vayer) and snag an internship: In a contest that's a promotion for the upcoming Will Smith movie "The Pursuit of Happyness", (based on the homeless to riches story of Chicago stockbroker Chris Gardner) internships with many major companies are up for grabs.  The companies include Morgan Stanley, NBC, Yahoo!, Gap, Inc, and the NFL.  Internet voting for the winners is taking place through today.  The four Morgan Stanley candidates are pictured.

Morgan will choose two candidates for an internship in its global wealth management division based on how many votes each applicant’s homemade video receives. If this sounds unusual for a bank, the whole exercise is really a lesson in corporate synergy....

A Morgan Stanley spokeswoman said the firm accepted Sony’s proposal because of the movie’s plot, based on a true story: Mr. Smith’s character turns his life around after accepting an unpaid internship at the retail brokerage firm Dean Witter, which Morgan acquired in 1997.

Personally, we got the biggest kick out of Frances J's "Carpe Diem" video.  She's and engineering student at Columbia and is pretty funny.  She sashays in, vogues, mugs for the camera, and even sings a little. 

Ready for Close-Up and a Bank Job - New York TImes

Aleksey Vayner: Yale Daily News update

What will Yalies be for Halloween this year?  It sounds like dressing up as Aleksey Vayner is going to be popular according to an article in today's Yale Daily News.  Also in the article:

Charity Navigator has asked New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to investigate Vayner and his organization, Charity Navigator spokesperson Sandra Miniutti said Tuesday.

"We did report it to the Attorney General's Office that we believed that a fraud charity was being run by that individual," Miniutti said. "We didn't want anyone being misled that they'd be making a donation to a bogus organization."

A spokesman for Spitzer said the Attorney General's Office does not comment on who it is investigating. But the office will investigate organizations that are reported to it, he said.

Yale officials aren't saying very much about Aleksey, even though it's Academic Integrity Awareness Week at the school.   According to the YDN, they won't comment specificially on him and won't be investigating him unless they receive a formal complaint from a professor or the police specifically charging a violation of Undergraduate Regulations.

"We don't investigate students proactively," Salovey said. "Someone relevant would have to bring a complaint or change to our attention."

On Tuesday, Salovey helped kick off Academic Integrity Awareness Week with a keynote speech on the psychology behind cheating and ways to discourage plagiarism.  [HAHAHAHAHAHA!]

Vayner faces public criticism - Yale Daily News

Aleksey Vayner defends himself (not very well) on "Inside Edition"

Aleksey Vayner on Inside Edition talking to Deborah Norville:  The exchange is pretty funny.   She's all over him when he says he's "almost certain" that the skiier in his "Impossible is Nothing" video is him.   ("YOU DON'T KNOW IF THIS IS YOU?????"..."ALMOST CERTAIN DOESN'T CUT IT!") And he says he'd make the video again, even with the negative attention and mockery he's been subjected to.  He said: "I don't think I would have changed the concept of creating the video.  I might have been much more careful as to whom I sent it out to." (3:04)

More Aleksey Vayner talks

Aleksey Vayner -- the 23 year old butt-of-jokes Yale senior and originator of the now infamous "Impossible Is Nothing" video and resume -- finally broke his silence to the New York Post in a story published yesterday.  And his press rounds are continuing.  Accompanied by his Lawyer, Christian Stueben, and his real estate developer sister Tamara, Aleksey broke bread in his first face-to-face grilling with New York Times reporter Michael J. de la Merced in a fascinating interview where he talks about his new celebrity status, which he's not enjoying.  Feeling like a victim after the job search materials were submitted investment banking firms like UBS and then leaked, he says “This has been an extremely stressful time”.  He's now on a leave of absense from Yale, and is camping out at his mom's place in New York City.  He says he's received thousands of mostly chiding emails, some of which have been threatening.

In the interview he claims:

• Most of the athletics in the video are of him; Questioned about a Craigslist posting where he was said to be looking for skiing videos, Vayner said he was simply looking for cameramen proficient in filming ski jumping.
• He says that The Yale Rumpus interview wasn't a direct interview, but the writer giving his opinion.  The writer disagrees, saying that he was reiterating what Vayner had told him.
• His blamed similarities in passages of his book, "Women's Silent Tears..." to text in other sites found on the web to the book being a "pre-publication copy".  [oy!]
• He had outsourced the design of his Youth Empowerment charity site to companies in India and Pakistan, and he wasn't responsible for putting Charity Navigator's four-star rating banner on it. [The tired "It wasn't me/I didn't know" CEO defense...double oy!]...

Aleksey speaks! He's pissed over the leak

Aleksey Vayner finally broke his silence yesterday, speaking to the New York Post.  He's threatening to sue UBS if it was the source of his leaked video that's made him a laughing stock.

"Institutions like this are expected to maintain complete privacy," Aleksey Vayner told The Post. "If a graduate cannot trust them with the privacy of their resumé, how can people trust them with their money?"...

"I thought it would help me get a job," said the native of Uzbekistan.

Instead, he got thousands of scathing e-mails from people who saw the video.

"It was shocking," he said of the response. "[It has] put me and my family under a great amount of stress and greatly affected future employment in a negative sense."

Apparently he has a real live lawyer now --- prior names he's said to have used in correspondence have turned out to be fake: