A GED, a phone, and thirty years of proving people wrong.
The short version of a long road, from a bucket shop on John Street to Morgan Stanley, and then Miami.
David didn't take the usual road. He got a GED, skipped college, and talked his way onto Wall Street in 1995 because he outworked everyone in the room. He studied for his Series 7 at his father's kitchen table, passed it, and finished a training program that was built to take a year in about ninety days.
From there it was Oppenheimer, then Payne Webber, Smith Barney, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, and Morgan Stanley. He learned how the biggest institutions price, position, and win, and exactly where everyone else quietly loses leverage. Then he moved to Miami and bet on himself.
In Miami he built SugarTime. He started out managing money for artists and athletes, signed acts like New Edition, and earned a name, "Sugar", one handshake at a time. Today the work is capital: raises, mergers, and acquisitions, run for the founder and never the counterparty. His own line for it is the honest one, his business is to help people get money.