I read this article a while back, that said that Microsoft employs more millionaire secretary's that any other company in the world. They took stock options over Christmas bonuses. It was a good move. I remember there was this picture, of one of the groundskeepers next to his Ferrari. Blew my mind. you see shit like that, and it just plants seeds, makes you think its possible, even easy. And then you turn on the TV, and there's just more of it. The $87 Million lottery winner, that kid actor that just made 20 million o his last movie, that internet stock that shot through the roof, you could have made millions if you had just gotten in early, and that's exactly what I wanted to do: get in. I didn't want to be an innovator any more, i just wanted to make the quick and easy buck, i just wanted in. The Notorious BIG said it best: "Either you're slangin' crack-rock, or you've got a wicked jump-shot." Nobody wants to work for it anymore. There's no honor in taking that after school job at Mickey Dee's, honor's in the dollar, kid. So I went the white boy way of slanging crack-rock: I became a stock broker.
Mike Rowe's TED talk from 2008 hits on some of the same points, as well as how much he thinks we under-value hard work. Agree with him or not, it's definitely worth taking a look at.
I meant it as a tongue-in-cheek reference. The mentality of the character in the movie boiler room gets involved with stock trading because he equates it to the young white male version of "slangin' crack rocks". I found it interesting that stock traders/programmers are literally "slang-in'".
The mentality in the movie also leads one to question the value of what is being created in the world of stock trading. So, to me, the comment had multiple levels of irony and coincidence. But having to explain it makes it lose some of the luster.
> Nobody wants to work for it anymore. There's no honor in taking that after school job at Mickey Dee's, honor's in the dollar, kid. So I went the white boy way of slanging crack-rock: I became a stock broker.
- Seth Davis, Boiler Room