Sep 21, 2026 · 42 min · 13 segments
Alex Sujong Laughlin interviews Defector's very own Jasper Wang about the choice he made to step off the achievement treadmill in his early 30s — and how that led to the creation of Defector Media…
Jasper WangGuest
Alex Sujong LaughlinHostOkay, so you are straddling a couple of different worlds because you spent so long in the like consultancy fancy world.
Like you have friends, you have professional networks still where like you find yourself in very fancy places where we're often like, oh wow, where's Jasper today? And he's like, you know, you're like at Soho house or something.
I wonder, do you ever have to code switch between these worlds? Are you ever like, oh shit, I need to make sure to have my fancy hat on right now?
It's funny you ask me this because I just got back from my 10-year business school reunion last weekend.
And A thing that is a misconception that oftentimes, you know, lefty people, media people have is, like, people who work in investment banking or management consulting or private equity are, like, all hardcore capitalists, Republicans who want their taxes to go down, right? I think there's lots and lots of people who...
There are lots of people, maybe not even ambivalent, they compartmentalize of like, this is who I am at work where I make my money and this is what I stand for otherwise.
And yeah, in a lot of cases, there are lots of people like me where it's just like, you're on a treadmill, you're feeling inertia and you just wake up and you're a managing director at a bank.
And it's not bad, but like, it's not exactly where you thought you were going to be at age 22.
At my business school reunion, talk to lots of people who, you know, the editorial gist of defector would be very adversarial against the And I think a lot of those people would agree.
They're like, yeah, no, this company that I work at is not doing good for the world.
I want so badly to just like be a fly on the wall at one of these events and just like eavesdrop on all these conversations.
Okay, so you are straddling a couple of different worlds because you spent so long in the like consultancy fancy world.
Like you have friends, you have professional networks still where like you find yourself in very fancy places where we're often like, oh wow, where's Jasper today? And he's like, you know, you're like at Soho house or something.
I wonder, do you ever have to code switch between these worlds? Are you ever like, oh shit, I need to make sure to have my fancy hat on right now?
It's funny you ask me this because I just got back from my 10-year business school reunion last weekend.
And A thing that is a misconception that oftentimes, you know, lefty people, media people have is, like, people who work in investment banking or management consulting or private equity are, like, all hardcore capitalists, Republicans who want their taxes to go down, right? I think there's lots and lots of people who...
There are lots of people, maybe not even ambivalent, they compartmentalize of like, this is who I am at work where I make my money and this is what I stand for otherwise.
And yeah, in a lot of cases, there are lots of people like me where it's just like, you're on a treadmill, you're feeling inertia and you just wake up and you're a managing director at a bank.
And it's not bad, but like, it's not exactly where you thought you were going to be at age 22.
At my business school reunion, talk to lots of people who, you know, the editorial gist of defector would be very adversarial against the And I think a lot of those people would agree.
They're like, yeah, no, this company that I work at is not doing good for the world.
I want so badly to just like be a fly on the wall at one of these events and just like eavesdrop on all these conversations.
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