'I Didn't Feel Like I Was Doing Something For The World': A Wall Street Analyst Walks Away From It All

Ian Winer, global citizen and former director of equity trading at Wedbush Securities, joined Benzinga's PreMarket Prep trading show last week to discuss why he chose to leave Wall Street behind and devote his life to community service in third-world countries.

Change Of Direction

Winer said dropping everything and committing to serving others was not part of his long-term plan until about one year ago.

“I had been thinking about a lot of different things, and I think I got to that point in life where a lot of other people get to where they start to think about their purpose and why they’re here, and I realized that there were a lot of things that I wanted to do with my life and I didn’t want to wait until I was 70 to do them,” he told the PreMarket Prep hosts. 

After 22 years on Wall Street, Winer said he no longer felt like he was learning much and challenging himself with his work.

“I didn’t feel like I was doing something for the world. So last Christmas my wife and I had a long conversation … and she said, 'why don’t we just go do something else for a while?'” Winer said.

Less than five months later, Winer left his job at Wedbush, and he and his wife have now spent months in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand doing volunteer work such as sea turtle conservation, island conservation and English instruction. 

He joked that his experience in the Wall Street trading pits comes in handy when working with exotic animals.

“Some of the animals were somewhat more civilized, but it was definitely some of the same type of characters one might see in the pits." 

Crypto Scene

The cryptocurrency scene in the region of the world Winer has been visiting has been fairly dead.

“I saw one trading house in Bali where I could go to trade crypto. I walked in there, and it was empty. This was a few months ago before it really took a nosedive, but it seems like fewer and fewer people are talking about it, and not one place I went to in the entire 3 1/2 mentioned cryptocurrency or paying by cryptocurrency at all,” he said.

Wall Street Itch Returns

Finally, Winer said he's certainly noticed the recent volatility in the market. While a part of him misses being a part of the action, the former trader said he's very happy with his new direction in life. His favorite story from his volunteer work: when a Balinese boy of about 5 years old joined him in picking up trash on a beach.

“There’s an element of [Wall Street] that I miss. Certainly the excitement, certainly my ego. Whatever that excitement is that I miss is more than offset when I’m doing things where, even though it might not be in the Wall Street Journal, I can have an impact on people and do something that I feel is helping to make a difference." 

Listen to the full interview in the clip below:

Related Links:

Gene Munster Talks Apple, Amazon-Target, Tesla On PreMarket Prep

Tim Seymour Talks Emerging Markets, Cannabis Stocks On PreMarket Prep