Failed “Finance Bros” Find Success with HBO’s “Industry”

Summary

Podcast Summary: The New Yorker Radio Hour Episode: Failed “Finance Bros” Find Success with HBO’s “Industry” Host: David Remnick Guests: Mickey Down and Conrad Kay (Creators of HBO’s "Industry") Date: March 1, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour, hosted by David Remnick, explores the creation and success of HBO’s acclaimed drama "Industry." The conversation profiles its co-creators, Mickey Down and Conrad Kay – former Oxford friends whose floundering finance careers inspired them to write the hit show. Topics include their personal experiences in finance, the evolution of the show's distinct characters, its critique of capitalism, the authenticity behind its sharp writing, and the nature of their creative partnership. The interview provides insight into how personal failure and skepticism toward institutional power can fuel credible, compelling storytelling.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origin Stories: Failing Up in Finance (02:30–06:06)

• Background: Both Down and Kay studied at Oxford and tried their hands at finance, but quickly realized they were ill-suited to the industry.
• Conrad’s Experience:
  • Kay humorously recounts being fired from Morgan Stanley:

    “My boss, when he fired me, said I was the worst ever salesman that graced the doors of Morgan Stanley.” (03:27)

  • He admits he hated having to "bullshit" seasoned investors about stocks.
• Mickey’s Motivation:
  • Down labels his entry into finance as an effort to please his immigrant mother, who was disappointed he didn't become a lawyer:

    "If you’re not a lawyer, basically you don’t have a job." (04:10)

  • He describes the numbing monotony of banking:

    "It's literally just staring in front of a computer screen and doing PowerPoint presentations and Excel spreadsheets... an exercise in, do you have the ability to stay up 100 hours a week?" (04:57)

• First Foray into Writing:
  • Down’s first script, Not an Exit, was a comedy about hating banking and wanting to be a DJ, drawn directly from their own experiences.

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2. Developing "Industry": From Personal Angst to High-Drama TV (06:06–07:50)

• Conceptual Shift: Initially, their script included top-of-the-ladder financiers but producer Jane Tranter advised focusing on those with "the least amount of power"–junior analysts.
  • Down explains this makes the drama more compelling, as these powerless characters’ behaviors are “somewhat more excusable when you’re young." (06:33)
• Challenge: Down notes that creating active, powerless characters is dramatically difficult but ultimately led the show in a distinctive direction.

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3. Pathologizing Finance: Characters Under Pressure (07:50–09:29)

• Perception of Sociopathy:
  • Kay references David Milch, paraphrasing:

    “What you see and categorize as pathology... I’m saying it’s people vibrating against the coercions of their present environment and their past.” (07:53)

• The Character of Harper:
  • Why make a marginalized Black American woman the lead? Down says it was to maximize outsider status and show how power structures really work.

    "Let's try to figure out the person who has the least amount of power and is most marginalized." (08:44)

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4. Exploding the Myth of Meritocracy (09:29–10:15)

• Kay on Institutional “Lies”:
  • Finance markets itself as a meritocracy:

    "...one of the great lies that any institution ever sells anybody... everyone, of course...hits their own glass ceilings, which are functions of where they come from." (09:49)

  • Luck and background matter more than the industry admits.

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5. Style, Language & Influences (12:02–14:42)

Memorable Scene Deconstruction (12:02–13:19)

• Remnick plays a scene from season three highlighting the emotionally explosive, "operatic" confrontations between leads Harper and Yasmin.

  Remnick: "You have... an operatic scene where two people step to the front of the stage and spell out in very distinct terms their anger... and the show does that more than many other shows." (12:44)

Writing Philosophy

• Down calls this “aspirational cruelty.”

  "That's the sort of thing that, if you went away for five minutes and could write down your feelings, you might say to someone you want to hurt... not something you'd probably say in the moment." (13:19)

• Kay says their literary and TV influences (Sorkin, Fincher, Mad Men, Sopranos) make dialogue as dramatic as action:

  "Language is action." (13:55)

• Budget constraints led them to focus on “electric” two-person scenes instead of car chases (13:59).

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6. Critique of Capitalism, from the Inside (14:45–16:47)

• Ambivalence: Down acknowledges their own attraction to finance’s rewards:

  "Look, we left university. There's only one real reason you go into finance at the age of 21... you want to make way more money than your peers." (15:32)

  • He reflects on youthful naiveté and the allure of money and status.
• On Critique: The show is seen not as anti-capitalist, but critical of its “dark heart.” Finance stories, like war stories, by necessity "seduce" before they critique:

  "Any piece of literature, art about finance... the first act is always, Look how great this is, and the third act was like, This is how bad this is." (15:17)

• Down notes that they still feel driven by competition and status, which animates the series.

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7. The Writing Partnership: "It's Like a Marriage" (16:47–18:38)

• Creative Harmony:
  • Down wants to work with Kay “forever,” citing rare compatibility and trust.

    "It's very difficult or hard or rare... to have a partnership with someone that you can stand to that level." (17:48)

• Conflict: Biggest fight was after a stag party hangover during season one writing (17:13).
• Fraternal Bond: Kay analogizes it to marriage—a blend of friendship, creative partnership, and mutual support–"understanding each other's weaknesses, strengths... giving each other space to flourish." (18:01, 18:38)
• Remnick calls their relationship "the most uplifting" he’s encountered lately (18:38).

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Notable Quotes

• Conrad Kay:

  "My boss, when he fired me, said I was the worst ever salesman that graced the doors of Morgan Stanley." (03:27)

• Mickey Down:

  "If you’re not a lawyer, basically you don’t have a job." (04:10)

  "It's literally just staring in front of a computer screen and doing PowerPoint presentations and Excel spreadsheets... 100 hours a week." (04:57)

• Conrad Kay on ‘Meritocracy’:

  "...one of the great lies that any institution ever sells anybody." (09:31)

• Mickey Down on Industry’s Critique:

  "It's a kind of critique of unchecked capitalism. It's a critique of the sort of the dark heart of capitalism... you have to make the thing feel kind of seductive in the first act." (15:01)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:30] – Introduction to Mickey Down and Conrad Kay; their failures in finance
• [06:06] – Evolution of "Industry"’s premise and characters
• [07:53] – On pathologizing finance and character psychology
• [08:44] – Why Harper is an outsider protagonist
• [09:29] – The myth of meritocracy in finance
• [12:02] – Clip from Season 3; character confrontation dissected
• [13:19] – Writing style: "Aspirational cruelty"
• [13:55] – Influences: Sorkin, Fincher, Mad Men, Sopranos
• [15:01] – Ambivalent critique of capitalism and the seductive arc of finance stories
• [16:47] – The partnership: friendship, fights, and fraternal creative work

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Memorable Moments

• Conrad quoting his firing at Morgan Stanley with dry humor (03:27).
• Down lampooning the "prestigious" work of finance and institutional ideas of success (04:57, 15:32).
• The show’s confrontational language highlighted as "aspirational cruelty" (13:19).
• The partnership between Down and Kay compared to marriage, described as “fraternal” and rare in creative industries (16:59–18:38).

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Tone & Style

The episode is witty, candid, and insightful. Both Down and Kay deploy self-deprecating humor about their shortcomings in finance and adopt a reflective, analytical tone about their creative process. They are unafraid to dissect both their personal ambitions and the seductive, toxic culture of the financial world.

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Final Thoughts

This episode pulls back the curtain both on the making of "Industry" and on the creative and existential dilemmas at the heart of finance drama. Listeners get a sense of how the show’s authenticity comes from processing personal defeat and questioning social myths, all shaped by a rare, enduring creative partnership.

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(Summary excludes advertisements and non-content transitions.)

Transcript

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[David Remnick]

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. For my money, Forgive the pun, One of the best things on television is a show about making money, making as much of it as possible. Industry on HBO is a financial drama centered on a group of junior employees at a fictional investment bank in London. Industry is currently finishing its fourth season and the show was created by Mickey down and Conrad K, two old Oxford friends, both of whom did stints in the financial world. In fact, they say if they'd been any good at finance, they probably wouldn't have created a TV show about it in the first place. Mickey Down, Conrad Kay, welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I have to say, I'm a huge fan of this show. Conrad, tell me how this show came about. You both worked in finance, you knew each other from university.

[Conrad K]

Yeah, I mean, we were spat out pretty unceremoniously by the financial industry. My boss, when he fired me, said I was the worst ever salesman that graced the doors of Morgan Stanley. What were you selling us? Equities. But selling is a very strong version of what I was doing. I think you're supposed to make about 40 outgoing calls a day for a year. So the metrics didn't really stack up. So they picked me up on my collar and threw me out onto the street. I'm very happy bullshitting in all areas of my life, apart from the area where when I have to pick up the phone to a Dutch pension fund manager who's looked at Apple stock for 20 years and I have to pretend to tell him something about the stock that he doesn't know. That was really tough for me, to be honest.

[David Remnick]

Mickey, did you get into finance too for the obvious reason you wanted to make some money and please your parents?

[Mickey Down]

That's exactly right. Well, my mom thought that finance was too much of a spivvy career, even though she's an architect, which I think blows my mind because she's you. She's one of those immigrant mothers who just says, if you're not a lawyer, basically you don't have a job, even

[David Remnick]

though, you know, doctor doesn't count.

[Mickey Down]

No doctor. But that was never going to happen for me, David. So it was a. It was a lawyer or nothing. And I had no interest in being in finance at all. When I got to Oxford, I really had no interest in anything other than just like partying and having a lot of fun. And it was around us that suddenly in the second year, everyone started getting these jobs or internships. I looked around and said, God, what am I going to do with the rest of my life? So I applied to all those jobs, didn't get any of them. Ended up working for the home office, the civil service service, and then I went to work for Rothschild, which is a kind of, you know, old blue blooded institution. I mean, I have like kind of quite fond memories of it because I like the people I worked with, but the job itself was just not for me at all. I was like incredibly ill suited to it at that level. It's literally just staring in front of a computer screen and doing PowerPoint presentations and Excel spreadsheets and literally it's just an exercise. And do you have the ability to stay up 100 hours a week?

[David Remnick]

So from there, what's the origin story of industry?

[Mickey Down]

I'd sold this thing to NBCUniversal, which was a kind of comedy short about a young guy who didn't want to be a banker and wanted to be a dj with some sort of autobiographical elements. But it really felt like a sort of hobbyist vocation. It didn't really feel like something that I could sell my parents on, quite frankly. But then when I made this thing and it was bought and I got an agent, suddenly it felt like a job. And I could then take that to Conrad and say, look, we should try and actually make a career out of this. So we started writing a scri that we called not an Exit, which was essentially, it was a kind of cathartic exercise. It was about two guys who were in banking who absolutely hated it. And it was a bag of ideas, was a mess. There was like 10 page scenes of characters called Mickey and Conrad. The whole first episode it was a guy basically like working off a hangover, which was kind of what. I mean, the same DNA as industry.

[David Remnick]

What seems to me key to the show is not just the milieu that you, you've created these characters who are all so deeply, deeply damaged.

[Mickey Down]

Thank. Thank you.

[David Remnick]

You're welcome. Look, you know, you could say the same with Dostoevsky. So it's, it's, it's high praise. That seems to me even harder, the conception of the, of the main characters.

[Mickey Down]

Well, I think the thing that really unlocked the show for us and there was a bit of this in Northern Exit, because it was. Yeah, it was, that was a little bit more Upstairs Downstairs in terms of its lens, because we were dealing with people at the very top of the industry as well as the sort of Mickey and Conrad's of the industry, but it was Jane Tranter who produces the show with us through her company Bad Wolf, who when she found out she had two bankers working with her on another project, said, have you thought about writing this World? And we said we had written it. Is this thing not an Exit? And she read It. And then she said you should really focus on the prism of people with the least amount of power because all the things you discuss, well, you know, Wall street succession or the literature in this world, it's all through the top down lens. It's all about people who have power rather than the people who are trying to accrue it. And that kind of unlocked it for us. And it also, it allows the characters to be damaged, to behave sort of like free of easy explanation and to like be sort of heinous because they are young and those behaviors are somewhat more excusable when you're young. And that kind of opened up for us. And also it was a dramatic challenge because it's quite difficult to make characters who have no power active, which is the reason the show is sort of moved in the direction it has because it's just dramatically inert and it feels like it's actually quite hard to move story on when no one knows has an ability to do it.

[Conrad K]

Everybody really loves, especially in the first two seasons, writing about the characters and pathologizing their behavior and saying they were all kind of dead eyed sociopaths. And there was this quote that me and Mickey kept thinking about when people put that exact thing to David Milch when he was writing his shows for HBO and especially with Deadwood. And he said, well, what you see and categorize as pathology and pathologized behavior and sociopathic behavior, I'm saying it's people vibrating against the coercions of their present environment and their past.

[David Remnick]

Let's be specific about that. You have a character named Harper who in some sense couldn't be more marginalized in this world. She's a woman, she's black, she's American, so she's a real outsider and she fakes her resume. This doesn't seem like necessarily a typical person in the finance world, at least as I know it from way outside. Why did you make her your main character?

[Mickey Down]

Well, I mean we actually had a few different permutations of the main character and we had, you know, all the characters that surround Harper are kind of analogs of people we know. They're people who went to university with school, the people we worked with. But Harper felt like, yeah, competence. But like firstly we realized we were writing for an American audience, even though the show is sort of UK based. So we wanted to kind of lend America lens into it. And then we thought if we're doing a show about people with least amount of power trying to accrue it, let's just like actually try to figure out the person who has the least amount of power and is the most marginalized. And that's not necessarily to say that we're gonna write her towards that, and she's gonna be, you know, she's gonna make excuses because she's marginalized, but we're gonna create a character who would feel like the whole world against her in this world.

[Conrad K]

Me and Mickey were really interested. I mean, like, when I was at Morgan Stanley, the word in all the literature and all was this word meritocracy. And so the first season for us, in terms of how we built the characters, what was interesting to us, it became a sort of dramatic social experiment of, like, nominally, all of these characters are coming into the institution, and the institution is telling them you are all equal, and you're going to start on the same start position, and then it's going to be a race to the finish line. And some of you will get jobs and some of you won't. But effectively, it will be a level playing field, which is one of the great lies that any institution ever sells anybody. Because everybody, of course, in their interactions with their bosses, in the hierarchy they find themselves with, they hit their own glass ceilings, which are functions of where they come from. And honestly, in the first season, me and Mickey were just really interested in the idea of luck.

[David Remnick]

I'm speaking with Conrad K. And Mickey down, who created HBO's show Industry. More in a moment.

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[David Remnick]

This is Ira Glass on this American Life. One thing we like is a good mystery sometimes about really big things, things you hear in the news. But most times, the little mysteries are the best.

[Conrad K]

Our lost and found is currently filled with pants.

[David Remnick]

I don't know. I've never seen this happen. I've got skirts.

[Conrad K]

I've got shorts.

[David Remnick]

Is this true?

[Mickey Down]

This is true.

[David Remnick]

Mysteries of every size. Each week, this American Life. Wherever you get your podcasts, I want to play a clip from season three. And this is Harper arguing with the other really main character, Yasmin. Let's listen.

[Actor reading Harper's lines]

You revel in my disgrace. You revel in other people's pain. It fucking nourishes you. Okay, yes, I did everything in my power to try and stop Petra.

[Quince Advertiser]

I did.

[David Remnick]

Mm.

[Actor reading Harper's lines]

But this is the business. Sorry. The world is showing you what it is without any of the protections that you are so clearly used to. And I am genuinely sorry that you think I am so sick that I could somehow get off on your unhappiness now. Oh, so you don't. You didn't.

[David Remnick]

Today. I needed my friend today, Harper. I needed my friend.

[BILT Advertiser]

And you.

[David Remnick]

You used me. Now. It's a great scene, and to some extent, it violates what they teach you in, you know, writing school, which is to always show, never tell. And you have. It's almost like an operatic scene where two people step to the front of the stage and they spell out in very distinct terms their anger with each other. Underneath it, maybe their love for each other, their resentments and who they are. And the show does that more than many other shows. The language of the show is front and center.

[Mickey Down]

That's the aspirational cruelty. That's the sort of thing that if you went away for five minutes and could write down your feelings that you might say to someone that you want to hurt, that's not something you'd probably say in the moment.

[Conrad K]

We're also just writing towards our references as well. For us, the stuff we grew up loving and watching, the language and what was coming out of people's mouths could be as dramatic as what was actually happening in the scenes. I mean, you know, there's that great truism or, like, cliche even, about, like, Sorkin and Fincher, like, Social Network stuff, where those scenes of two people talking can have as much drama as a car chase. Like, I mean, then that's kind of industry's mo. Like, people talking is violence, Language is violence. Language is action.

[Mickey Down]

So, yeah, we had to do that as well because, you know, we wear a lot of.

[Conrad K]

We'd have the budget for car chases.

[Mickey Down]

Exactly. We write a lot of dense two handers, so we have to make them feel like they're electric and we're pretty bold.

[Conrad K]

And obvious about what we wear on our sleeves. I think you can really see a lot of these sort of disparate influences all over the. We like to leave the fingerprints on it. Like we draw from Mad Men. We draw from the Sopranos. A lot of the needle drops this season are direct lifts from Mad Men. We almost feel like those two shows are kind of in conversation with each other.

[Mickey Down]

Mad Men has always been influential to the show, but like peep Show Girls, obviously in the first season, we wanted to write a show about ambitious people who are really quite hard to like sometimes. I always said that my favorite genre is Michael Douglas. Michael Douglas with his ass out and

[Conrad K]

his hair up and his hair up

[Mickey Down]

with a suit and doing something shady, sexy. That's what I love.

[David Remnick]

You guys don't seem averse to the rewards of capitalism, and yet you're making a show that in some ways not to be, you know, over self serious, but is a critique of capitalism to some extent. How do you circle that square?

[Mickey Down]

It's interesting. I mean, it's a kind of critique of unchecked capitalism. It's a critique of the sort of the dark heart of capitalism. I'm not saying I don't think capitalism by its very nature is a bad thing, but I think honestly, when you write a show about finance in the same way you write a show or a film about war, you have to kind of make the thing feel kind of seductive in the first act. And that's always kind of what we've done. I mean, you see any single piece of literature, art about finance, and the first act is always, look how great this is. And the third act was like this, how bad this is. And that's, you know, sometimes people just ignore the second and third acts. And that's why you have a lot of, you know, sort of finance meme Bros. Loving American Psycho and Wall street and not really seeing the sort of. The cost of that kind of living. Look, we left university. There's only one real reason you go into finance at the age of 21. And in an interview you would tart it up and you would say, I want to see my deals on the front page of the Financial Times. And I really care about macroeconomics, all that stuff. The real reason you go into finance, because you want to make way more money than your peers. When you're 21, you want to go to a job that gives you a prestigious sounding title. And that's what we were like before we could formulate our own identities. We allowed the institution to make Them for us. And that's, you know, I look back on that person, I kind of cringe because I was just such a sort of weird and it's kind of juvenile approach to identity in life and money and my job. But I still have some of that in me. I still feel like I want to make money. I still feel like I want to be successful. I do have this sort of attitude which is like, I'm never content in my career. The reason our show feels like it's constantly, you know, changing and vibrating of electricity is because me and Conrad are, in terms of our careers and, you know, we want to be successful. We were finance bros in the first instance.

[David Remnick]

Partnerships are not easy to sustain, no matter what they are. Marriages, creative partnerships. What are your ambitions going forward after this? Either together or separately?

[Mickey Down]

Oh, I want to work with Conrad forever. I mean, it's very difficult to find someone you want to. You don't want to tear apart having spent every day with them. I mean, obviously there are moments, there are very few moments of tension between us.

[David Remnick]

What's the biggest fight you've ever had?

[Mickey Down]

No, I think maybe when we were writing season one and I went to a stag do and came back really hungover and didn't want to work.

[Conrad K]

Yeah, that's what we had. We had a proper set. We didn't enjoy fighting so much that we never did it again.

[Mickey Down]

Yeah, it was horrible. There was no green light then. So we actually, I think it was a frustration that we were in development hell. I don't know. It's, you know, it works for us. We feel, honestly, we have amazing collaborators. We love working with the people we work with. But there's a moment that at the end of the long day when you've been shooting, you get in the car. It's me and Connor. We lived together as well during the shoot, which is crazy.

[David Remnick]

You live together, we live together.

[Mickey Down]

We live together during the shoot. When we're in production, I spend more time with Conrad than I spend with my wife and my children. And it's just like, it's very difficult or hard or rare, I think, to, like, have a partnership with someone that you can stand to that level.

[Conrad K]

But, David, it's a commitment. I mean, you said marriage. It's like. It is a marriage. And like anything in life that's worth doing and is good is a commitment. I think we know we've been best friends. It predates our work relationship. I think if you're thrust together and the work relationship is the basis, then the idea of a kind of, of created divorce is sort of, is more easy to see. But like we're enmeshed in each other's lives. We love each other. It's a very fraternal relationship. It's not to say it's always perfect. I mean, I'm a very complicated person. He's a very complicated person. But it's kind of like understanding each other's weaknesses, strengths, pushing each other to be the best version of ourselves, giving each other space within the relationship to flourish.

[David Remnick]

I have to say by way of thanks, this is in such a grim world that we're living in lately. This is the most uplifting relationship I've encountered in quite a while.

[Quince Advertiser]

Oh, no.

[David Remnick]

Okay, Mickey down. Thanks so much.

[Mickey Down]

Thank you so much.

[Conrad K]

Thanks for having us. David.

[Mickey Down]

Privilege.

[Conrad K]

It's an honor.

[David Remnick]

Industry is on HBO Max, finishing its fourth season. You can find our TV critic Ingoo Kang's review of the show@New Yorker.com and of course, you can subscribe to the New Yorker there as well. New yorker.com this is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. See you next time.

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[Mickey Down]

And we had assistance this week from Richie O2 in London.

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[David Remnick]

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[Actor reading Harper's lines]

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