14. Genesis of a Dream

In the months leading into September 2001, I developed a friendship with a woman named Casey Cannon. She had reached out through e-mail, and I responded, as I typically did to those who took time to write me.

Our connection felt unique from the beginning. She asked the right questions and said the right things. She had been an accomplished player in the entertainment arena, having worked for Industrial Light & Magic with George Lucas before venturing out on her own. Her profile on IMDB (The Internet Movie Database) featured more than 30 films working with the best people in that industry. Casey also knew Jim and his family well—in fact, she produced his retirement video, which caught my attention for the high production quality of the work.

Prior to my Labor Day trip to Maui to see my father, Casey suggested that I stop in Los Angeles so we could meet. She was directing the opening sequence on Cameron Crowe’s Vanilla Sky and asked me if I wanted a cameo role. Having never been in a feature film, I quickly accepted. The split second shot took ten hours to produce, which pushed my flight to the next day and allowed us some time together.

I mused to her that nobody had ever bridged the chasm between finance and entertainment, and that many traders wanted to be famous, and most folks in Hollywood wanted Wall Street’s money. If we could tie education into the mix and create a benevolent experience, it seemed like an intuitive and scalable fit.

I introduced the notion of bringing Hoofy and Boo to life. While the Wall Street bull and bear played globally, nobody had ever put faces or names to them—nobody had ever branded them. Animation was already a generationally accepted genre, as evidenced by the success of Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, and The Simpsons. It felt right.

“If Walt Disney can brand two rodents as cultural icons,” I offered, “we can take the Wall Street bull and bear and effect positive change through financial understanding.”

Once that thought germinated, it was difficult to shake, and I became obsessed with the concept of creating a place where metaphorical representations of financial dynamics could live in harmony, away from the pitfalls and pain in the real world. I wanted to build the platform, and Casey seemingly possessed the skills to facilitate my dream.

“How much do you think it will cost?” I asked as my flight to Maui was announced.

“Thirty grand, tops,” she replied, which sounded reasonable enough. With plenty of money in the bank and fresh pep in my step, my entire perspective shifted. The world suddenly made sense again.

“It’ll be a place where Hoofy and Boo will gather to debate the merits of the financial markets,” I said as I readied to board the plane. “A platform for discussion, a collection of intelligent opinions, and a community of respected thought leaders….” I paused to think and drew a veiled analogy to a quorum necessary for prayer.

“We’ll call it Minyanville.”

Familiar Faces

I had discovered that my father was bipolar and later learned my business partner was as well; I lost my best friend Ruby a few months later, and as my grieving began to subside, I watched aircraft slam into skyscrapers as people jumped from the flames. It was a deeply introspective time in my life. It was a turning point, one way or another.

The specter of Minyanville rose like a phoenix from the scorched earth and rescued me from realities I didn’t want to face. A breath of life was injected into my lungs. It was an escape, a corridor from a very painful place to a bright, animated world without terror or acrimony or politics or agenda.

I attempted to focus on the fund and tried everything I could to recapture the momentum I once took for granted. Gains were elusive and profits were scarce, the mirror image of the profitable scrimmage we had played the previous year. Everyone goes through slumps, I thought at the time. I was sure that we would bounce back, as we always had.

One day in late November, an hour before the close, my phone rang. It was Jim, and it was the first time since I resigned from TheStreet.com that he had reached out to me. My emotions were a mixture of excitement, trepidation, and caution. I clearly didn’t know what to expect, but I was happy to hear from my old friend.

“Hey man!” he began with enthusiasm. “I want you to come on my show tonight.” Jim was beginning his renaissance as a television personality, co-hosting America Now with Larry Kudlow.

“I would love to,” I explained, “but I’m not feeling well.” It was the truth—I was terribly run-down—but it wouldn’t matter. After several circular repetitions of the same conversation, it was obvious that I wasn’t going to wiggle out of the spot. “All right,” I said, “I’ll be at the CNBC midtown studio at 7:00 p.m., and we’ll get it done.”

As the co-hosts on CNBC bantered about tax stimulus and market psychology, I played my part, smiled, and offered whatever insight I could. When the camera turned toward me, I shared, “Fund managers are chasing performance,” in reference to the sharp rally that followed the post-9/11 plunge. “I see it and respect it, but I don’t believe it’s going to last. Bubbles, in my view, don’t end with a V-shaped recovery.”

The Morning After

I settled into my turret at 6:00 a.m. the next morning, powered up my systems, and found six e-mails waiting from Jim. They began early in the morning, and I read them in chronological order.

The first was innocent enough, something along the lines of “Hey man, thanks for doing the show.” As I scrolled through the correspondence, his tenor and tone shifted. He became increasingly agitated, and by the sixth e-mail, outright rude. I read his final note a few times. “I had you on my show, the least you can do is write a column for TheStreet.com. If you don’t want to respond to me, then FINE!”

I wasn’t concerned that his internal fires were ablaze, but I didn’t want to bite his hand. He still had money in the fund, he still had our investors’ ears and, truth be told, I was still indebted to him as a friend.

I told Jeff that I would write a column if it would calm the furor. Maybe it was a legal thing given TheStreet.com had told my readers I was coming back. I don’t know, and I really didn’t care. I just wanted to make peace with Jim, and move on with my career.

I agreed to write a year-end article chronicling what was and what would be. It was a strong and cathartic column, and while I wrote with the intention that it would be my last article, it reminded me of how much I loved to write, how much I missed the forum. After it posted, Dave Morrow called and asked if we could talk. “Sure,” I replied, “swing by tomorrow after the bell.”

When Dave got my office, I left my traders on the desk and ushered him to a conference room. Once there, he expressed his regret over what had happened, apologized with sincerity, and asked me to come back to TheStreet.com. I told him that I needed a few days. I knew why he was there and that it had nothing to do with my best interests.

I contemplated his offer and asked for another meeting, this one at a downtown restaurant. There, over a Grey Goose martini, I laid out my thoughts to the top brass of TheStreet.com. “Why don’t we partner on a professional product, one that’s geared to the hedge fund audience? I’ll provide content, you guys run the back-end, and we’ll whack up the revenue.”

“Great idea!” they exclaimed after conferring. “Let us put our heads together, and we’ll get back to you in a few days.”

Later that week, we again met, and they laid their cards on the table. “Three percent of the gross revenue,” they said. “We’ll give you 3% of the gross revenue.” I’m not sure what I expected to hear, but I was clearly underwhelmed by their opening salvo.

“I don’t think so,” I quickly answered. “That’s not going to work.”

They asked what it would take to get the deal done, and I told them I would get back to them. I returned to my office where 200 positions and an uncertain tape awaited, and tried to focus on the task at hand. While I was surprised by their offer, I knew that was how the game was played.

I spent the rest of the week asking myself some difficult questions and weighing their past transgressions against my desire to again write. When push came to shove, I decided that I was willing to swallow my pride—I wanted to again write my daily column.

I called Dave the next morning and told him that it wasn’t about the money, and I was willing to move forward, but I didn’t want to just target a professional audience. I wanted to write for those who had written the letters to my grandfather, and I wanted to write for myself.

“We can’t do that,” he suddenly said. “We can’t have our best writer on the old site while we’re launching a professional product aimed at hedge funds.”

I was prepared for many things, but I was shocked by that latest twist. “We have nothing left to discuss,” I said as I hung up the phone, disgusted at myself for being so vulnerable.

They knew it was a good idea, and they were going to launch it with or without me.

Full Steam Ahead

As 2001 ended, my relationship with TheStreet.com died with it. They came back a few times with lucrative offers—a lofty six-figure salary and multiple six-figure stock options—but the numbers didn’t register. I knew that if I worked with them again, I would have only myself to blame.

Our fund finished the year slightly above the flat line, and I breathed a heavy sigh of relief that my performance anxiety had a new shelf life. That was the way it worked on Wall Street—the registers were cleared at the end of December 31st and everyone started from scratch.

I was emotionally spent after September 11th, battling the market and discovering the ugly truth behind the digital media landscape. I suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and fought the demon of depression, although I didn’t realize that at the time. Seeing what I saw—the jumpers, the impact, and the fireball—took a heavy, subconscious toll on me.

TheStreet.com gave my position in their new platform to fund manager Doug Kass, a friend of mine who called me before he accepted. I wished him well and turned my attention closer to home. My primary focus was the fund, where I was entering the second year of a two-year deal. The other was Minyanville, which suddenly encapsulated my hopes and dreams. It was more of a mission than a business venture—it was entirely personal, and very much an escape.

On the weekends and during nights, I worked incessantly on building the wire frames that would bring Hoofy and Boo to life. The $30,000 budget that I communicated to Casey quickly proved conservative. My intention wasn’t to build TheStreet.com—my ambition was much larger than that, perhaps grandiose. I envisioned a community that bridged Wall Street and Main Street, a world-class platform that educated, entertained, and engaged. I wanted to change the world, and nothing was going to stop me. Not Jim Cramer, not TheStreet.com, and certainly not money.

I spared no expense. We enlisted the help of John Bell, who was nominated for an Academy Award for visual effects, to illustrate Hoofy and Boo. Casey worked from her Santa Monica home office, and we constructed the Minyanville platform.

Profits at the fund were elusive, due in equal parts to the new market dynamic and the emotions that were competing for our attention within the office. I awoke at 5:00 a.m. each day and navigated the markets before returning home at night to brainstorm on my vision. Dinners and weekends with friends had to wait. I worked 20-hour days, and whenever possible, locked myself in my apartment, turned off the phone, and closed the curtains. I wasn’t aware of the severity of my mental state—I just knew I felt…different.

I hid from it in Minyanville, which was a parallel universe with cartoon critters. I know it sounds crazy, but I truly believe that it saved my life.

The mood within Cramer Berkowitz was tenuous at best as we forged ahead. I wasn’t privy to conversations between Jeff and Jim but assumed they were strained. Jim was reinventing himself as a television personality and writing for TheStreet.com. He knew I was in the throes of creating Minyanville and was entirely displeased. Cramer has always needed an enemy to motivate him and would create one if necessary. In fact, he would tell me years later that he believed I built Minyanville to spite him.

I wasn’t intimidated, which seemed to agitate him even more. That friction took a toll on our management, particularly after experiencing the horrors of 9/11. The freewheeling fun that was the hallmark of our corporate culture was gone, in no small part because we were no longer beating the Street. Our sudden mediocrity had nothing to do with Jim—I would argue that our firm was more functional without his emotional swings—it was simply a new world, and we were in the middle of a confused conduit of emotions, alliances, and geopolitical agendas. Our innocence was gone, and our country was preparing for war.

Internally, I readied for the exact same thing.