This week on the podcast we had Jonathan Knee, a Senior Advisor at Evercore in the firm’s Corporate Advisory Business and Co-Director of the Media and Technology Program at Columbia Business School.

Before joining Evercore as a Senior Managing Director in 2003, Professor Knee was a Managing Director and Co-head of Morgan Stanley's Media Group. He was previously Publishing Sector Head in the Communications, Media and Entertainment Group at Goldman Sachs. Prior to becoming an investment banker, he was Director of International Affairs at United Airlines and served as Adjunct Professor of Law at Northwestern University. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, the Atlantic, and Jonathan is the author of The Accidental Investment Banker, The Curse of the Mogul, and The Platform Delusion.

Episode Segments

00:00 - Intro

06:20 - Jonathan’s Journey to Finance

09:10 - “What I liked about Banking”

10:20 - Jonathan’s role at Morgan Stanley

12:15 - Role at Columbia University

14:20 - Work with CEO of United Airlines

17:51 - What led to be being an “accidental banker”

22:57 - How to build transparent relationships 

31:50 - What Teaching is really about in finance

33:56 - Platform business delusions

40:00 - Rapid Fire Questions