In 2006, a Yale undergraduate named Aleksey Vayner was looking for a finance job after college. So he made a video about his rules for success, featuring footage of assorted athletic achievements. He then sent the video, along with his resume, to UBS. A copy-paste later, and the video was on its way to bankers across Wall Street. Days later, it landed on YouTube, and turned Vayner’s over-the-top vanity film into a meme, “Impossible Is Nothing.” Coupled with Vayner’s Wall Street ambitions and his dry, studied delivery, the video and Aleksey’s koan became a cultural marker for male braggadocio, a symbol for the gladiatorial hunger of America’s best and brightest, and, well, unintentional hilarity.
Continue reading over at Motherboard: Aleksey Vayner, Whose Tale the Internet Mocked, Has Died at 29
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