A lot of people always ask me where the name K$ (K Money) comes from and it’s actually a fun answer.
During my career on Wall Street, I worked at multiple firms but my favorite firm which I was at happened to be with people I was closest to throughout my career.
At this one particular firm, the entire space was split up into different sections - first you had the reception desk, which then led to a hallway containing our conference room, small offices for tech support, payroll, our CMT, our CFA, and a bunch of empty cubicles; in the main space, it was divided up with the majority of area called “the pit” which was surrounded by several small offices which belonged to the owners, Vice Presidents, compliance managers, and the back office; beside the pit, was a small glass encased office which contained the trading desk; adjacent to the trading desk was the elite crowd surrounded by several other offices which also belonged to owners, Vice Presidents, investment bankers, and more compliance managers.
Every area of the space, each had a white board with everyone’s name within that group and their performance. Within the elites, we always kept things fun. We used to have our names up on the board but one guy within our group ended finding a gangster name generator so everyone ended up having their name replaced by these made up names. However, some of us already had nicknames like my buddy Kirt, we nicknamed him the Predator because of his dreads. My buddy Ron actually would call me by various nicknames such as K Tizzy, Money, and K Money. Eventually, the nicknames Money and K Money were used the most and just stuck with me among my friends.
A few times, whenever I would meet new people, they always heard others referring to me by one of my many nicknames so new people that I would meet, would also refer to me as K Money. Eventually, it just became second nature to be called K Money but to make it easier, I shortened it to K$ and that’s how the origin came to be!
People always wonder what the inside of the office looks like and every financial institution that I have ever worked at, seems to look almost exactly the same.
I think I took this random picture back in 2008. A typical traders desk always had various snacks, bottle caps (to flick at one another), and stress balls from Merrill Lynch which were shaped like bulls.
