“When I was a research analyst, I often had to wait and incubate my interest in a new business sector or a new company until it was properly investable. In investment banking, watchful waiting is often the key to transformational transactions. “Making the numbers work” is one of the chief duties of bankers. Unfortunately, fundamentals and markets sometimes mean that the numbers cannot “work” the way a client might desire. Often one has to wait for the moment when markets, fundamentals, and “the numbers” all coalesce. Many of the transactions I highlight here required such watchful waiting. This is a major theme in my life and in the life of a vigilant banker.”

“A Philosopher on Wall Street is also a cautionary tale—or, rather, two tales—as both banking and biotech, for different reasons, have faced cycles of boom and bust in recent years. For biotech, the challenge has been to fund the precipitous rise in the cost of developing new drugs, particularly in an industry that experiences rises and falls in fortune—and stock prices—with a breathtaking regularity. For banking, the latest crisis came in 2008 when bubbles and high-risk gambits nearly brought down the global economy and numerous industries, including biotech. They did bring down Lehman Brothers that September, a story that Frank knows from the inside.”