Bertrand Jost

Bubble Boys Bertrand Jost

What happens when you can suddenly sell for $20 what you barely paid $1 two years before? And imagine furthermore that you have a lot of it to sell too. Surely, it will give you a new prospective on your self-worth and your future. Bubble Boys is my first novel, loosely based on my experience as an investment banker in London during the tech bubble outburst of 2000. Similarly to the so-called bubble boys forced to live isolated behind protective plastic sheets due to a deficient immunity system, the boys of the tech bubble quickly grew detached from the realities of the world that eventually triggered the collapse of the global economy. The story opens on New Year's Eve 1999. The Nasdaq just broke through 4000 points as Jerold Sandwick, a young, ambitious investment banker, is about to leave New York to take a position in London to finance early stage telecom companies. The opportunity ahead rests in the booming growth of European telecom, a gigantic gold mine about to break open. In his empty apartment, one thought occupies his mind, getting rich, filthy rich, as fast as possible. In London, Jerold will meet the beautiful Emily Allenby, a seasoned analyst from Kendall Bank who sacrificed everything to be a top star in the City. In January 2000, Emily is chosen to bring to market Metrotel, a telecom startup that will rise overnight from 260 million to 3.5bn in value. Money appears to be so cheap, then. But it will take a market collapse and the encounter with a strange adventurer for Emily to realize that there is more to life than career and money. Jerold will also meet Julien, the ever optimistic banker who stops at nothing to get his deals done. It was one thing when the market broke record after record, but when he moves to a client startup and the market tumbles, Julien finds himself backed against a wall holding a ticking bomb: one month to find 600 million or go broke. For him and his wife Victoria, things will get complicated and eventually desperate. And then there is Emily's colleague and friend, Richard Bennington, a rich disillusioned aristocrat that is in the market just for the game, the adrenaline of finding the next star and pulling out before getting burnt. The bubble had started under the motto "get big or get lost" but in the crisis to come the feast will turn into a massive hangover and eventually into a frantic race for self-preservation.