
He reports that investment banks “posted record profits during much of the pandemic,” a time when bankers were working exclusively from home. But Gura has already picked apart Knee’s my-way-or-the-highway claim that in-person meetings reign supreme. Knee argues further that there is nothing more effective than in-person negotiation.

“And they didn’t want wimps working for them.”

“Even during the pandemic, if your clients were in Texas, if you didn’t go down and see them, they knew you were a wimp,” Jonathan Knee, a senior advisor at the investment firm Evercore, told Gura. On NPR’s Morning Edition, David Gura reported today that not only are Wall Street bankers back to their IRL shenanigans, but that some prominent dealmakers believe “only ‘wimps’ phone it in.” Apparently, hyper-efficient Zoom calls and Slack communication are once again insufficient tools for peacocking in front of prospective clients, and staying safe at home is pussy shit.

Despite Delta still raging and roughly 45% of the population refusing to get vaccinated, some industries are returning to in-person work and weekly business trips as if nothing ever happened.
