In The Black: Vault's Finance Careers Blog

Bill Gates On Wall Street Pay; Morgan Stanley Pays Up

If you still haven’t made a decision as to whether or not investment bankers are overpaid, this might help you come to one: Bill Gates, the wealthiest dude on Earth, believes that Wall Street bankers are rolling in too much dough.

Speaking of which, Morgan Stanley is offering a lot of bread to financial advisors in an attempt to entice them to hop aboard its big Morgan Stanley brokerage ship.

Not Guilty Verdict: Great For Ex- Bear Stearns Execs But Not So Great For Uncle Sam

It’s been a lucky week if you used to work for the firm formerly in business and known as Bear. First, its ex-head of strategy pulled down nearly $2 million in the World Series of Poker, and then yesterday, the two hedge fund managers infamously charged with having touted their investments while knowing full well they were at the bottom of a full toilet bowl were found not guilty by a jury in a federal court in Crooklyn, New York.

The prosecution, which relied heavily on email correspondence, failed to provide a convincing case against the undynamic duo, Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, thus hurting the government’s future prospects of convicting others charged in connection with the subprime crisis as well as those charged in connection with the recent monstrous insider trading probe involving Raj Raj’s Galleon Group.

Due to Pay Constraints, AIG CEO Says, "You Can Take This Job and Shove It"

Bob Benmosche, AIG's third CEO in under a year, is so peeved about pay czar Kenny Feinberg capping his executive employees' pay that last week Bob told the AIG board that he's "done."

Bob hasn't yet handed in an official resignation, and don't forget that he nearly resigned last summer when it was unclear if his $10.5 million compensation package would be approved by Feinberg, so look for Bob to hang in there if not through 2010, at least through the holidays (after which AIG execs affected by Feinberg's cap could start darting for greener hills, depleting Bob's staff and thus his ability to steer the insurance giant in the direction he'd like).

New UBS Wealth Management Chief Hires Old Pals From Merrill

Bob McCann, the new head of wealth management over at the Union Bank of tax Scheming has started mining his old firm, Merrill Lynch, for employees. Recently, Bob tapped four ex-Merrill bigwigs to help him run the unit at UBS. Expect more ex-Merrill/BofA folks to follow.

A Pair of Nines Wins $8 Million; Ex-Bear Stearns Banker Loses on an Ace

Joe Cada, a 21-year old dropout from Michigan's Macomb Community College, became the youngest winner ever at the World Series of Poker. His winning hand, a pair of nines, won him the No-Limit Texas Hold ‘Em world championship as well as $8.55 million in prize money. Second-place went to a self-employed logger from Maryland, Darvin Moon, who pocketed $5.2 million, while sixth place went to a former Bear Stearns banker named Steven Begleiter, who took home $1.59 million. Begleiter's run toward the World Series championship is profiled here by Bloomberg. He worked at Bear for a quarter of a century, most recently as head of corporate strategy.