She Was Sitting on the Filing Cabinet.
Jean Said: Get Up.
You Belong at This Table.

The Vivian Tu Story

The Person Who Believed In Me  ·  Hosted by David Begnaud

"Vivian Tu grew up an overachieving immigrant kid outside of Baltimore - valedictorian, startup founder, University of Chicago graduate - who made it to the JP Morgan trading desk and got told she was 'too girly for finance.' Her mentor, Jean Ma, was the first rich Asian woman she had ever seen win. Jean gave her a seat at a table she'd been kept off of and taught her the rules that rich people actually play by. Vivian left on her own terms, picked up her phone on January 1st, 2021, and posted her first TikTok. Three million views by the end of the week."

- David Begnaud

The First Rich Asian Woman She Had Ever Seen Win. The Manager Who Gave Her Something to Want.

Vivian grew up in an immigrant Chinese family outside of Baltimore where money conversations were all about budgeting, frugality, and saving - but never about asking for more, demanding her worth, or growing wealth. "That never happened until I met Jean." Jean Ma was her very first manager at JP Morgan. And she was the first rich - really rich - Asian woman Vivian had ever met. For the first time, she could see a lived reality where someone who looked like her got to win.

Jean would come into the office and fling a new designer bag onto the desk every single day. Limited edition Chanels. Gucci stilettos with the good buckles, click-clacking on the marble floor. "I wanted to be just like her for all of the wrong reasons, obviously, all the visual ones." But Jean ended up being the person to take her under her wing. There were no other women on the team, no other Asian people, certainly no other Asian women. Jean was it. And she taught Vivian everything she knew about finance.

Vivian dedicated her first book to Jean. What Jean represented wasn't just a closet full of beautiful things - it was a proof of concept. "I grew up in an immigrant Chinese family, and there was so much emphasis placed on budgeting, frugality, saving, but we never got to have conversations about asking for more, demanding my worth, growing my wealth." Jean was the first person to show her that those conversations were possible. That someone who looked like her was allowed to have them.

▶ Watch on YouTube: Vivian introduces Jean Ma - the person who believed in her - ~2:42

She Was Twenty-Two. She Was Sitting on the Filing Cabinet. Jean Said: You Belong at That Table.

On the JP Morgan trading desk, the setup was clear. Boardroom table with chairs for the senior people - all over 40. Analysts and junior staff sat on the filing cabinets around the perimeter. Vivian was 22, the youngest person on the desk. Every Monday morning standup meeting, she sat where she "belonged" - on the filing cabinet. Until Jean walked in after one of those meetings and grabbed her.

"You deserve a seat at the table. You belong there. Don't sit on a filing cabinet like you are some lackey." That changed Vivian's entire sense of who she got to be, what she felt like she deserved, what it was okay to want. From that Monday forward, she started showing up two minutes early to every meeting - before anyone else got the calendar notification - and claimed a seat. Every single week. And from that seat, she could raise her hand when she didn't understand something. She was seen when tasks needed volunteers. The perimeter people were invisible. She wasn't.

"It showed me that if I wanted something out of my life, out of my career, I was gonna have to take it. No one was going to give it to me." Jean's lesson wasn't just about a chair. It was about the difference between waiting to be noticed and deciding to be seen. Jean also told her something that became a north star for the whole career that followed: "You can't act like a junior employee if you eventually want to be seen like a senior one."

▶ Watch on YouTube: The Monday morning moment Jean told Vivian to get off the filing cabinet - ~4:50

She Took Her Boss to a Glorified Frat Bar. Jean Pulled Out $40. And Taught Her That Time Is Worth Money.

Vivian was 22 and her brain, by her own admission, was "not fully developed." She and Jean were friends outside of work - real friends. So when Vivian wanted a drink one evening, she invited her boss. Jean probably expected a hotel bar. Instead, Vivian dragged her to the Brass Monkey in the Meatpacking District - described charitably as "a glorified frat house" where the floors were sticky and the crowd was young. There was a line out front. Vivian started walking toward it.

Jean looked at the line, looked at Vivian like she had lost her mind, and asked for her ID. She took $20 each - $40 total - wrapped both IDs in the cash, walked up to the bouncer, and said: "Excuse me, sir, can me and my friend enter?" The bouncer took the $40. They walked right in. And Jean's lesson arrived immediately: "How many free hours do you have out of your week when you're working as much as you're working? How many hours do you plan on being out tonight? Four or five? Do you want to spend forty-five minutes in this line? Or would you rather spend twenty dollars?"

The rules Vivian thought she had to play by - wait your turn, nose to the grindstone, work hard and eventually someone will notice - were not the rules everyone else was playing by. "Life is not a meritocracy. You get what you ask for. You get what you demand. It has never been about who works harder or who's smarter. It's about what are you willing to actually ask for?" Every experience with Jean was another version of the same lesson: the people who already had access were playing by an entirely different rulebook. Now Vivian had a copy.

▶ Watch on YouTube: Vivian takes Jean to the Brass Monkey and learns that time has value - ~10:04

He Said She Was Too Girly for Finance. Jean Said: Sit Down. You Don't Have Another Job Yet.

A year and a half into Vivian's time at JP Morgan, the head of the desk got let go - common on Wall Street - and a new one came in, brought his own people, and fired half the team. The culture she'd signed up for was gone. She got reassigned to work for the new head's incoming right-hand man because she was good at Excel. When the head of the desk offers you that opportunity, it's not really an offer. She said yes and thanked him. Then she met the new manager.

Jean's old boss used to call Vivian "superstar." This new manager couldn't get a thing right with her. Didn't like how her nails clicked on the keyboard. Didn't like her makeup. Said she was too girly for finance. Then one day she walked in wearing a long cardigan, and he looked at her, put his hands together, bowed, and said: "Is that a kimono?" Vivian is Chinese. He knew that. It didn't matter. "What an incredibly disrespectful racist comment to make to your junior, who is responsible for determining whether or not I get a raise or a promotion. This guy has my career in his hands."

She ran straight to Jean. "I'm quitting today." Jean's answer was immediate: "No, you're not. You don't have another job lined up. Sit down." Jean took her to dinner that night, listened, and helped her plot a landing. She introduced Vivian to a friend who had gone from Goldman Sachs to BuzzFeed - someone who had probably left for similar reasons. Jean vouched for her: this is a girl who can learn anything, willing to put in twice as much to be number one. Vivian was hired on a flyer. Three years later, she was the number one seller at BuzzFeed. She quit JP Morgan the day after she returned from a paid two-week vacation. Wore her best shoes. Click-clacked out the door. Start date for the next job: the following week.

▶ Watch on YouTube: The kimono incident and Jean's advice not to quit without a plan - ~30:11

She Said Nobody Wants to Learn About Their 401k. She Was Dead Wrong. Three Million Views by End of Week.

At BuzzFeed, Vivian made a best friend - Allison Kimchi, who had 10,000 Instagram followers and a small food blog on the side. They went to lunch one day at an Italian place with good garlic bread and meatball subs. Vivian waited for the bill at the end. Allison said: let's go. Vivian wasn't about to get arrested for dining and dashing. Allison explained: she'd posted photos of the meal to her food blog. The restaurant had comped it. Vivian's mind was blown. Jean's lesson about other people's rules was playing out in an entirely different industry.

Allison had been the recipient of a lot of Vivian's financial knowledge - Vivian had helped her rebalance her 401k, pick her health insurance plan, understand her stock options. Allison kept pushing her to make finance content on social media. Vivian resisted every time: "People love to see you make sesame tahini cookies. Nobody wants to learn about their 401k. That's so boring." She was wrong. January 1st, 2021 - middle of the pandemic. Vivian is shaking. She's reading off a script. You can see her eyes darting in the video. She posts her very first TikTok.

The video was simple: there's a lot of bad financial guidance out there, don't put your stimulus check into a meme coin, I can't make you rich overnight, but if you want to learn about money, I can teach you - it's not that complicated. Three million views. One hundred thousand followers by end of week. She has posted every single day since. That first viral video wasn't the achievement. The discipline after it was. As she puts it: "My pain tolerance is higher than other people. I can run it out longer than you can. I am a Duracell battery."

▶ Watch on YouTube: Allison's encouragement and the first TikTok that got 3 million views - ~50:07

A Woman Crashed Her Talk. Said: You Made a Video About Medical Bills. I Called the Hospital. They Wiped Five Thousand Dollars.

Vivian was speaking at the University of Delaware on financial wellness strategies for college students. At the end of her presentation, a young woman came up to her. She said: I don't actually go to the University of Delaware. My friend who goes here snuck me in. But I had to come see you - because you made a video about how to negotiate medical bills and how charity care works. She had taken that video, called the hospital where she had a five-thousand dollar bill, and given them all her information. They wiped the entire bill. Five thousand dollars, gone. "You have single-handedly changed my life." She started crying. Vivian started crying.

"I have worked in a job where I made rich people richer. I traded on behalf of hedge funds and asset managers. I've worked in a job where I made advertisers richer, helping them get sales at BuzzFeed. And to now be in a position where I get to make the everyday person who can take sixty seconds out of their day to watch a video of mine richer - it's a gift." That's the through-line from Jean to the girl in Delaware. Jean had given Vivian a seat at a table she'd been kept off of, taught her the rules the other side actually played by. And rather than keeping those rules to herself, Vivian went and made sixty-second videos about them every single day.

There have been more stories since. DMs from domestic violence survivors who saved enough money to leave because of what Vivian taught them. Messages from people who asked for raises using her strategy and got them. People who discovered their Roth IRA contributions were sitting uninvested - fixed it, now on track for retirement. "So many of these stories are a reminder of why I do what I do every day. And man, does it feel good." At the end of the conversation, Vivian said: "I want to see all of the young women who came from immigrant backgrounds - all the young people who never felt like this was a world they were allowed to belong to - belong." Jean gave that to Vivian. Vivian gives it to everyone else.

▶ Watch on YouTube: The University of Delaware student who wiped $5,000 in medical bills - ~1:20:08

"I'm Vivian Tu and the person who believed in me is Jean Ma."