From Wall Street to wordsmith: Alok Sama’s serendipitous journey to writing ‘The Money Trap’

By Soumoshree Mukherjee

Alok Sama’s journey is a compelling blend of chance, resilience, and reinvention. A former investment banker turned writer, Sama’s life took many unexpected turns which he attributes not to meticulous planning but to serendipity.

Sama says on the “Indianness” podcast that success is 70% luck, reflecting on his decades-long career in finance, culminating in senior roles at Morgan Stanley and SoftBank. But his new chapter, as the author of “The Money Trap,” reveals a shift in his philosophy: from chasing wealth to chasing meaning.

Sama grew up in India, surrounded by books and music, with limited access to western media. His first brush with American culture came through LP records of Simon & Garfunkel, The Beatles, and The Who. That early exposure shaped his aspirations, nudging him toward a life he never envisioned. He recalled that he didn’t have a five-year career plan and his path was not planned but that things just “happened” for him.

The child of accomplished doctors, Sama chose a different trajectory, eventually studying at IIT and later pursuing an MBA at Wharton. He credits much of this path to fortuitous moments like being recommended to a school by an influential family friend, or landing at Morgan Stanley after a chance interview. “I’m a huge believer in serendipity and the impact that it has on people’s lives,” he reiterates.

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But Sama is quick to underline that humility and failure are just as important. Sports, he notes, taught him how to lose, an experience that shaped his approach to business and life. “If you’re an entrepreneur, failure is a badge of honor. If you’ve learned, if you’ve failed, then you’ve learned a little bit of humility.” he emphasizes.

After decades in high finance, Sama made a radical decision at 58: he enrolled in an MFA program at NYU. In classrooms filled with twenty-something aspiring writers, he redefined himself yet again, not as a banker with stories, but as a storyteller. He didn’t want to write a business book, he wanted to create something authentic.

His upcoming fiction delves into the Indian immigrant experience particularly the isolation and duality faced by those in powerful positions. “I want to dig a little bit deeper in terms of identity and other issues with Indians in the United States, in positions of power in the world of in Wall Street, in Silicon Valley,” he said.

Reflecting on his transformation, Sama doesn’t romanticize money. He believes that the pursuit of wealth can be a trap. “In that world, certainly success is measured in terms of money and money gives you power and that becomes your definition,” he warns. “It’s a very unhealthy competitive dynamic relationship and I’m so happy to get away from it. That’s a little bit of what I mean by the money trap.”

What grounds him, he says, “It’s my wife. She’s just kept me grounded literally,” whose quiet strength kept him from being consumed by ambition.

Sama’s story isn’t just one of reinvention; it’s a reminder that sometimes, the most meaningful journeys begin when we stop chasing and start listening to chance, to failure, and to ourselves.