The year was 2006. Lex had just graduated from his undergraduate degree in economics. It was still cool to work in finance. He joined the Lehman Brothers’ analyst program alongside 40-50 people when the brand was very strong.

Suresh ventured into angel investing around four years ago, driven in part because his employer UBS, a large investment bank dominant in Asia, decided to ban staff from investing in listed stocks anywhere in the world, at any time.

About four years ago, Jen had built the perfect life for herself. She was a new single mom, was ghostwriting for an amazing client that she had had for a few years and worked one day a week. She would go hiking with her dog and had a great home on a lake.

Douglas says his story was not as much a terrible investment as it was memorable. It was 1988 and he was in his late 20s and a bond trader for a mid-sized US bank. He sat on a desk with other bond traders, and bought and sold United States Treasury securities during the trading day hoping to speculate on price movements, which are relatively random on any given day.

This is the story is of an error made by a financial professional that Darryl was advising, so this is someone who should have known better. Darryl was based in Tokyo, dealing with the expat community there and many of his clients were also financial professionals.