I Took a Calculated Risk and Left JPMorgan for an AI Investment Bank

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Varun Agarwal, a founding employee at OffDeal, an AI investment bank. The following has been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider has verified his employment and academic history.
For a college graduate looking to work in finance, it’s typically a no-brainer to pursue a career in investment banking.
What a career as an investment banker prepares you for is very enticing. You get great pay while working closely with executives from large public companies. You get to brush up on your soft skills while picking up technical skills like financial modeling.
The biggest lesson I learned from my time in investment banking was how to perform a wide variety of tasks efficiently. It also taught me how to ask the right questions when evaluating businesses. Working on deals honed my intellectual curiosity and sharpened my judgment when making investment decisions.
Joining OffDeal was a calculated risk
I considered starting my career at a tech startup instead. What held me back was my own aversion to risk. I studied at the University of Minnesota, where few people would take the plunge into entrepreneurship. Investment banking was the safer and prestigious path to take.
I figured that I didn’t have any tangible skills to offer if I wanted to build or join a startup. Investment banking felt like a good way for me to build up my skills in the event that the right startup opportunity emerged.
I ended up working as an investment banker for three years, first at Piper Sandler and then at JPMorgan. Incidentally, both roles were based in the Bay Area, which helped expose me to the startup culture in Silicon Valley.
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Seeing 21-year-olds start companies and raise millions of dollars was exhilarating. I thought to myself then,