Yes, there are people on wall street that hate their jobs. Yes, there are people obsessed with money. That's easy to point out. But there are also some people that are there because they like working with their friends and making big bets, and getting proven wrong or right. It's actually similar to the culture of being a contrarian that I see in SV. And as to the point where the guy felt shorted by a million dollar bonus, wouldn't you feel shorted if you made the company 10x that in profit on your trades, and all your friends at other firms that made 10x got a bigger check than you? That's human nature, not something specific to wall street, even if it's easy to throw up your hands and say how shocking it is because of the amounts involved.
Anyway, I don't mean to be overly harsh on the article. It's possible my additional time there put some blinders on, and I still have a lot of friends that work on the street (a good percentage of whom actually like their jobs). It was really interesting to get Nick's perspective, and it's especially awesome that it's from someone else who has jumped over to startups from wall street. Just throwing my 2 cents in.