Quote from mingsphinx:
Financial markets actually favor the loner over the club loving socialite. People who would spend their time joining clubs will probably not get down and dirty to do the things that they need to do in order to understsand the market. In order to climb that steep learning curve the one thing people must do is read. Kids who are reading the financial section of the newspaper or the Journal will get a leg up. Walk into the library and pick up any number of books on the market and you will benefit far more than joining any club. Go the distance and actually start reading financial statements and you are already starting to be an investment banker.
The point is that there is absolutely no need for hard working and driven individuals to join these clubs. None of the people whom we would respect as greats in the financial world would ever have joined one of these clubs for the simple reason that almost all of them were simply not popular in school. A guy like Warren Buffett probably could not have gotten in even if he wanted to.
The smartest move I ever made was to start hiring Ivy League grads as analysts. I dropped out of the Unv of Iowa when I started making decent money from my site and trading, but my best friend from HS graduated with honors from Cornell and recently from Harvard Law so I had a way to contact some people there. It worked out well for me in building connections, but really anything you can do to expand your social/business network is going to help you out if you want AUM. Here's an example, I'm a poor farm hick from Iowa, a guy who was reading my blogs here on ET about four years ago really identified with me. He was worth about $50 million and lived down in Naples. I drove down, golfed with him we had a great time. He lives in a very exclusive community in Naples, $250,0000 buy in, $10million plus Houses. Chairman of SAP has a house there, former chairman of BAC etc. So, I befriend him and from him I meet a guy an older guy who's been on the board of directors of American Express for years. He grew up in South Dakota, lost an arm as a teenager and scraped his way to the top. Another connection even though I'm just a stupid hick. If your serious about this business, any way you can get em you should. I'm hoping that I have only one more surgery left, then i will give myself a month or so to recover and start again with managing larger amounts of money. It should be a hell of a lot easier this time than it was last time.