Were you doing anything different from other salesmen at international firms?
I began thinking about the business that Lehman - and for that matter all the other investment banks - was doing in Asia and whether or not that was really the business that should be done. Maybe as a 29 year old bond salesman I wasn't supposed to be doing that, but I did, and the conclusion I came to became evident to me one day when I was in Tokyo. I was having drinks with our US government bond trader and he was saying: "Why don't Asian customers buy more US government bonds and why don¹t they buy other products that we sell?" These were all Western products. I looked at him and said: "Well maybe they don't want to buy it, maybe they are buying a lot of other things that are Asian, maybe there's a better return there." That really cemented my thinking that within Asia itself, how Asian money was being invested was not something that the major investment banks understood well, or for that matter really wanted to understand well.
Did you see this as a general failing or as a business opportunity?
As an opportunity for business and a chance to make a business in Asia.