Seven tips from Jokariz, banker turned YouTuber and entrepreneur

Jokariz—real name Marc Lesage-Moretti—is an ex-Goldman Sachs banker. Now a YouTuber and influencer, Marc has amassed almost 200,000 subscribers across various platforms. In November, NEOMA students had the opportunity to meet him at a conference and quiz him about his career. 

1. Don’t ever be afraid to ask questions 

“When I walked onto the trading floor the first time, I didn’t have a clue what was going on. All the other interns had much better training than I did, and I ended up asking ridiculous questions. In truth, you always need that intellectual discipline to strive to be a little bit better every day. So, I’d have my little notebook at hand, and I’d jot anything down I didn't understand. You should never be too embarrassed to ask questions.” 

2. Build a smart network

“I developed my network little by little by asking everyone questions. I’d know a really sharp person—an engineer or trader—and I’d go and see them whenever I had a very specific question. I knew some salespeople I got on well with, and they’d explain the different client categories to me: a private bank, for example, would normally buy this kind of product, an insurer another type.”

3. Remember that being hired is all about consensus

“I went through 20 interviews before getting hired at Goldman Sachs. And those 20 interviews, I’m not talking about 20 rounds but 20 different people. And out of those, six said ‘He's no good’, seven said ‘I’m not sure really’, and the seven others said “I think he’s pretty good.” It’s really consensus-based. Americans like having this 360-degree approach. In your interviews, you'll meet salespeople, you'll meet engineers, you'll meet people whose culture is quite different from your own, and they’re going to challenge you.”

4. Know what you're bringing in and take responsibility for it

“When you're a junior, they give you major clients and see how you handle the relationship. And once you move up to associate, you record in the system what you bring in: two million dollars with this or that client. Then, when all your clients are added up, they see you’re generating 10 or 15 million dollars a year for the company. Naturally, at that stage it's much easier to ask to be paid very well.”

5. Leave a job if you’re not interested in it anymore 

“At one point, I suffered from work-related depression and burnout. At first, you ignore it but then it resurfaces. In that situation, the first thing to do is to acknowledge you're going through a rough patch; nobody can be perfectly fine all the time, it's just a phase. As they say, ‘It's okay not to be okay’. It may sound simple, but it helps you break free of denial. Once you’ve acknowledged the problem, you need to reach out for help. I had the support of two coaches. Then I tried to do things I like doing and focused my energy on them. When I played video games, when I played my video games, I was challenged on an intellectual level, I was in my own world, I was making progress, and I felt as though I was learning something new every day. And so, I focused on what I loved as a way to get out of this depression. I set myself up as a content creator. I threw myself into streaming the League of Legends—LoL—video game.” 

6. Be prepared to put in a huge amount of effort… but do it smartly.

“When I started streaming LoL, I practised 12 hours a day, six days a week, for three months. But I was still trying to do too many things at the same time. Someone told me once: ‘If you’ve got two priorities, it means you don’t have any’. So, I dedicated myself to LoL so that I’d become good at it. 

I put my ego to one side, I told myself: ‘I'm useless and I need to get a coach’. The coach saw that I was really bad: ‘I've hardly ever seen a guy as awful as you.’ And I started working on all my weak spots.” 

7. Don't start a business to get rich

“An employee with a solid training earns more than the average entrepreneur. Very few entrepreneurs actually become multimillionaires. Which means it’s really important to go down this route for internal reasons such as enthusiasm, freedom or because you want to make an impact, and not for money. 

The toughest bit is having a product people are willing to pay money for. It's very, very hard to tell people: Give me your money. In a big company, the product-market-fit has already been secured; there are customers and the firm is already selling its products. But when you launch a business, you have to build everything from the ground up. You have to find a product that addresses a real need and pick up your first customers—and that’s an even bigger challenge than doing well in a large company where the product‑market-fit already exists.