Lehman's Last Hours Remembered: "It Was Surreal"

By
Ilya Marritz
WNYC News | Jul 12, 2010

New York, NY —

HOST: When Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy exactly one year ago, most of the company's 25,000 employees lost their jobs.

29-year-old Lauren Carson worked at Lehman's headquarters on 49th Street and 7th Avenue for six years.

CARSON: I started there as a mortgage analyst and near the peak of the mortgage financing boom I moved over to interest rate derivative sales.

HOST: Avi Yashchin is also 29, he was a loan manager.

YASHCHIN: At Lehman all day I sat at a computer and I traded credit default swaps, a lot of spreadsheets, a lot of numbers. I really really enjoyed it. I had a great time.

HOST: Now Carson and Yashchin work together at a green energy startup Yashchin founded, Clean Edison.

Both say they didn't believe the company could ever fail. But when in the final days, Yashchin says, work became very, very weird.

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Ilya Marritz

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