In 1959, three classmates in their mid-thirties from Harvard Business School decided to leave their respective firms and create a new one. This was a bold move, because they decided not to create a specialty research boutique but a full-scale institutional equity sales organization. In 1969, Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette ("DLJ"), already a New York Stock Exchange member, broke new ground by deciding to go public. Since only First Boston had any public ownership, Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette decided to appoint them as manager of its offering, which was brought to market in April 1970. Prior to that time, no Exchange member firms were allowed to be publicly held, the reason why First Boston did not have its own seat until 1971. Donaldson, Lufkin's pioneering efforts, which the Exchange viewed with little enthusiasm at the time, are largely responsible for the tide of equity capital raised subsequently by Merrill Lynch, Reynolds & Co., Paine Webber, Dean Witter and others during the early 1970s. Until the early 1980s, DLJ, as the firm is known, was highly dependent on equities-related businesses, stemming in large part from its excellence in research, institutional sales and venture capital. Since then, however, the firm has expanded its franchise aggressively, particularly in the investment banking area. The firm currently ranks #1 on Wall Street in the origination of high yield bonds, in the top five in mergers and acquisitions and has more than $8 billion in private equity capital available to support its clients in merchant banking transactions. In these businesses and others, DLJ has developed a reputation for the creativity, flexibility and personal attention that has become the hallmark of what is DLJ's most remarkable accomplishment-the establishment, from a standing start in the mid-1980s, of what is now Wall Street's fourth largest underwriting business. Having experienced tremendous growth in the mid-1990s, DLJ today has a reputation that rests solidly on six bases: imaginative corporate finance (including a leadership position in high yield bonds), what is now Wall Street's largest merchant banking operation, venture capital (Sprout Group), excellent research, asset management (Wood Struthers & Winthrop), and correspondent brokerage (Pershing). Headquartered in midtown Manhattan amid the industry's most extraordinary collection of early American art, DLJ employs about 7,700 people worldwide and has offices in 14 cities in the United States and 11 cities in Europe, Latin America and Asia. In the fast lanes of today's financial markets, the personal satisfaction of a firm's employees is often overlooked. DLJ takes the opposite approach and encourages "having fun" as one of its corporate objectives.