This essay is said to be based on a conversation with Varun Agarwal, a founding associate of OffDeal, an investment bank focused on artificial intelligence. The following has been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider confirmed his work and academic history.
For a college graduate who wants to work in finance, pursuing a career in investment banking is usually a no-brainer.
What a career as an investment banker prepares you for is very tempting. You earn a high salary while working closely with executives at large public companies. You'll be able to brush up on your soft skills while gaining technical skills such as financial modeling.
The biggest lesson I learned during my time in investment banking was how to effectively perform a wide range of tasks. It also taught me how to ask the right questions when evaluating a business. Working on deals sharpened my intellectual curiosity and sharpened my judgment when making investment decisions.
Joining OffDeal was a calculated risk.
Instead, I considered starting a career at a tech startup. It was my own aversion to risk that held me back. I attended the University of Minnesota, where few people ventured into entrepreneurship. Investment banking was a safer and more prestigious route.
I decided that I didn't have any real skills to offer if I wanted to start or join a startup. Investment banking seemed like a good way to develop my skills in case the right startup opportunity came along.
I ended up working as an investment banker for three years, first at Piper Sandler and then at JPMorgan. By the way, both positions were based in the Bay Area, which gave me exposure to the startup culture of Silicon Valley.
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It was exciting to see 21-year-olds starting companies and raising millions of dollars. Then I thought to myself, “Hey, why can’t I do the same? Why don’t I join a startup and take the risk myself?”
That's when I started talking to founders and investors to map out the next steps for my career. One day, while scrolling through LinkedIn, I came across a post by Ori Eldarov, the founder of the artificial investment bank OffDeal.
I was drawn to OffDeal's mission and its use of artificial intelligence and software to solve exactly the problems I faced as a junior banker at JPMorgan.
Their focus on small businesses resonated with me on a personal level. My mom runs her own dental practice and owns a small business. Growing up, I saw that most business brokers were unable to provide Wall Street level of due process when processing transactions for small businesses. I knew I had to be a part of OffDeal.
OffDeal is like Jane Street, but for investment banking.
What makes OffDeal unique is that every deal we handle is processed by a team of two, including one banker and one engineer. So far, I've been working on deals with OffDeal's founder, software engineer Luis Ruiz Morel. We both get a cut of the deals we do.
We also work much faster. At banks like JPMorgan, valuing a company can take weeks or even months.
In OffDeal this can be done in a maximum of one or two days. I just need to work with Luis to do an assessment using our proprietary software. Gone are the days when I had to painstakingly insert numbers into an Excel spreadsheet.
This is not just modeling. Artificial intelligence and technology have completely changed my workflow as a banker.
I used to have to take notes manually when I was on Zoom calls. AI can now transcribe these calls for us.
And when it comes to writing pitch books, I don't have to spend hours going back and forth with my Managing Director and clients to polish them. Instead, our AI agent automatically makes these changes, saving us a lot of time.
The upside to all this is that our bankers will be able to close more deals and, more importantly, spend less time doing the drudgery.
When I worked at JPMorgan, I typically worked on two or three real deals at a time. Here at OffDeal, I can work on 10-11 deals at a time. I also spend a lot of time on the road meeting with potential buyers and sellers.
Now is the best time to join an artificial intelligence startup
When it comes to starting a career, you can't go wrong with a job in the traditional investment banking sector. It's still a great industry.
But I think joining an AI company like OffDeal has become less risky. This may have been a bigger risk in the past, but it is becoming increasingly clear that AI will have a huge impact on our lives.
There is a very short window of time in which you can actually be successful and advance your career in AI before it becomes a more mature industry. Becoming an AI native and learning how to incorporate it into your workflow will pay huge dividends in the future.
Do you have a story to share about your career in AI? Contact this reporter at [email protected].
