NYC Industry Jargon Decoder
Paste a phrase, acronym, or job description sentence. Get the literal meaning and what the interviewer is actually screening for. NYC-specific: covers Wall Street, Silicon Alley, Madison Avenue, and NYC healthcare.
Quick-reference glossary
🏦 Finance / Banking
EBITDA — Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, Amortization. The "real" profit metric in PE/LBO models.
Walk me through a DCF — Discounted Cash Flow valuation. They want you to state assumptions, not the formula.
BPS / bps — Basis points (1/100th of a percent). Used in rates, FX, credit.
2&20 / 1.5&15 — Hedge fund / PE fee structure. 2% management, 20% carry.
Side-by-side — Comp benchmarking analysis you're often asked to "walk through".
💻 Tech / Silicon Alley
PMF — Product-Market Fit. Signal: retention curves flatten, organic growth.
PLG — Product-Led Growth. Self-serve signups, no sales touch.
Build vs. buy — Engineering decision they want your framework for (cost, time, moat).
Series A / B / C — Funding round stages. NYC has 200+ Series A rounds/yr.
SoHo / Flatiron tech scene — Distinct from Midtown. Casual, founder-led.
📺 Media / Madison Ave
CPM — Cost per thousand impressions.
CPV / CPC / CTR — Cost per view / click, click-through rate.
Brand vs. performance — Upper-funnel vs. measurable ROAS split.
Cross-platform — Linear TV + CTV + social + OOH. NYC adland talks about this constantly.
Holdout strategy — Test/control setup for measuring campaign lift.
🏥 NYC Healthcare
ACO / VBC — Accountable Care Organization / Value-Based Care. How providers get paid.
EHR / EMR — Electronic Health / Medical Record system (Epic, Cerner).
FQHC — Federally Qualified Health Center. NYC has dozens.
CMS — Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Sets reimbursement rules.
Social determinants of health (SDOH) — Non-clinical factors NYC public health uses heavily.
Why decoding matters
A "fast-paced environment" at Goldman means something different than at a startup. "Wear many hats" at a 12-person Brooklyn agency is literal; at a 5,000-person Midtown bank it's euphemism for matrix chaos. Knowing which industry is using a phrase tells you which answer register to match.