Manish / March 2008

It’s 2000. I am at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, a second year undergraduate student sitting in the opulent Pierson College dining hall with a group of friends. Politics was a frequent topic of conversation at Yale not unusual when the past three Presidents (George W. Bush. George H. Bush and Bill Clinton) were alumni. It was common for governors, senators and celebrities to walk through Yale’s dining halls. But neither politics nor Hollywood dominated conversation in those days. It was all about the tech boom. Google and Napster were already recognized by college kids as being the coolest technologies, but we were less interested in great technology and more interested in how to get rich quick. Ideas were tossed about on a daily basis and we dreamed like many young people across the world of getting rich and retiring by the age of 22.

Two years later, in the fall of my senior year, the mood was very different. The tech bubble-related dreams seemed like distant memories as we prepared for interviews with investment banks (or “i-banks”, as they were known). We studied for the coveted bulge-bracket (large i-banks) jobs in a way that we hadn’t even for our most important college exams. The market had turned sour, jobs were scarce and the i-banks were hiring 50% fewer new employees than they had the year before. For hot shot ivy leaguers, investment banking seemed to be the only show in town. The big banks, Goldman, Morgan Stanly, Citigroup and JP Morgan promised big deals and great prestige. Work really hard for 2 years, make more money than any other just out-of-college job and you can write your own ticket. Doors would be opened to private equity, hedge funds, the corporate world and even start-ups. This was the promise.

After two years at the world’s largest investment bank, Citigroup, I was 20 pounds heavier and had near-permanent circles under my eyes. I could build a financial model in 7 minutes and format a board presentation in 5. Working 48 straight hours or going months without a single weekend day off was the norm. This was not a lifestyle that most young people wanted and besides the market was flush and Wall Street firms were calling. Lured away by private equity firms, real estate investment firms and hedge funds, no more than 10 out of the 100 investment banking analysts who started with me stuck around after the analyst program. A few peers went off and did something completely different, like firefighting in the Northwest, law school or medical school, but for the most part the prospect of half the hours and double the pay made leaving a no brainer.

At this stage, I thought this was my time to take a risk and do something completely different. I had friends telling me Hollywood should be my calling. Move to LA, they said, and within a few years, with your brains and personality, you could be an executive producer living in Beverly Hills. I racked my brain and spent 2 months avoiding taking a job. Offers came in from hedge funds and private equity firms and I talked to Hollywood executives through the Yale alumni network about starting on the Los Angeles path.

No matter who I talked to I could not get comfortable with myself and what I wanted to do. I felt completely lost. It was years later that I realized that after just 2 years of 100 hour weeks, I had lost my sense of identity. Caught up in the “work hard, play hard” mentality of NYC, I could not remember what interested me and had seemingly lost my ability to dream.

Over the next three years, I rose the ranks of a Wall Street research firm and started to reclaim my identity. Getting paid more and working less certainly helped, but the first step was living healthier, eating right and getting serious about fitness. I took baby steps at first, but soon I was taking big leaps. My interests and personality lost or institutionalized by New York finance started reappearing. Pretty soon, my relationships, interests and attitude had changed and I started dreaming again.

Growing up, I was fortunate that my parents worked hard, but always put the family ahead of everything. They were determined to make every sacrifice to have their children experience international culture. Every trip to India or every vacation we had was an opportunity for the family to discover a new place and a new culture. Though we would never purchase art and lived a fairly middle class Indian-American life, I was exposed to some of the greatest art collections and architectural wonders of the world at an early age. Buckingham Palace, Versailles, the Grand Palace in Bangkok, the Taj Mahal, the Pyramids of Giza and the Alhambra in Spain were just some of the artistic monuments that I visited. Powering through museums and castles at an early age, I fantasized about building palaces filled with the world’s finest art. Though it was fun to fantasize, there was always a barrier to the art both physically and intellectually. It was not until inspiring teachers in high school and college engaged me intellectually and culturally with the study of art that I learned to appreciate it as more than a symbol of wealth, privilege and elitism.

In recent years in New York, as I rediscovered my dormant interests, I started to actively seek out art. Even though I was an educated, resourceful and relatively successful individual, I was lost in the New York art world. Without my friends with art history degrees by my side, I never obtained enough information when I visited museums. Audio guides and museum guides occasionally did the job when time was abundant, but more often that not I left unsatisfied. When walking into certain galleries, I felt intimidated and even unwelcome. With my budget, Chelsea galleries were not the place to buy art and I had no idea where to find affordable work. I began to wonder how many other people felt the same way and I contemplated how I would experience art if I had more information, content and personal connections.

After months of searching for resources on the web and talking to friends in the art world, a partner and I began to formulate a list of what we wanted to access in the arts. That was the foundation of Artlog. In 8 months, we built Artlog.com and this is just the beginning. Just two months into Artlog’s beta launch, I am no closer to fortune, but I wake up every morning excited about what I do. I hope that the resources and services that Artlog and its community can produce will open up the art market and allow more people to experience art in a meaningful way.