For decades, I have bet on New York City.
Not abstractly. Not politically. I have done so financially, emotionally, professionally and personally.
My family built businesses here. We raised families here. We employed New Yorkers here. We paid taxes here. We endured the hard years here. And despite every challenge New York has faced over the last forty years, from 9/11 to the financial crisis to COVID, I never stopped believing that New York City was the greatest economic engine in the world.
Today, for the first time in my life, I genuinely worry that we are approaching a dangerous tipping point.
That concern is what led me to launch Operation Boomerang and commit my own capital to it.
Operation Boomerang is a private-sector initiative designed to remind business leaders, entrepreneurs and investors why New York remains one of the greatest economic ecosystems in the world and to push back against the growing narrative that successful people and companies are no longer welcome here.
I am personally committing $1 million as immediate seed capital, with the goal of ultimately building a $20–30 million effort supported by other business leaders and private citizens who care deeply about New York’s future.
The immediate catalyst was the increasingly aggressive anti-business rhetoric coming out of City Hall and Albany – particularly Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Tax Day video filmed outside Ken Griffin’s $238 million penthouse promoting his new pied-à-terre tax targeting luxury second homes.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani filmed a video outside of hedge-fund boss Ken Griffin’s $238 million penthouse promoting his new pied-à-terre tax targeting luxury second homes
Mamdani signaled out Griffin as an example of the city’s absentee elite as he reiterated his campaign promise ‘to tax the rich’
Whether one agrees with Griffin politically or not is beside the point. When political leaders publicly single out major taxpayers and employers as symbolic villains, markets and executives notice
Whether one agrees with Griffin politically or not is beside the point. When political leaders publicly single out major taxpayers and employers as symbolic villains, markets and executives notice.
And the consequences are not theoretical.
Griffin’s firm, the massive hedge fund Citadel, is expanding aggressively in Miami. Goldman Sachs has shifted thousands of jobs and major operations to Texas and Florida while other firms quietly explore similar moves. That should concern every New Yorker because cities run on confidence as much as capital. Once business leaders begin to feel they are being targeted rather than valued, the erosion starts slowly, and then accelerates quickly.
Operation Boomerang is intended to be action-oriented, not just rhetorical. We have already begun outreach to executives and firms that have reduced their New York footprints. The longer-term plan includes high-level networking events, pro-growth civic initiatives and a sustained effort to reconnect business leaders with the talent, energy, and economic advantages that still make New York unlike anywhere else in the world.
This is not about party politics. It is not about Democrat versus Republican. In fact, New York only succeeds when pragmatic people from both sides work together. This is about something far more fundamental: whether New York City remains a place where ambitious people, businesses, investors and employers actually want to stay, grow and build.
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Because once that confidence breaks, it becomes very hard to restore.
I lived in London in 1985 and loved it. Over the past decade I’ve watched what has happened there with enormous concern. A city once viewed as untouchable economically slowly began pushing away portions of the very tax base and business community that helped sustain it.
At first, the changes sounded manageable. A few tax increases here. More regulation there. More rhetoric targeting wealth creation and financial firms. But over time, a dangerous message started to form: success was no longer appreciated, it was viewed with suspicion.
The result was not immediate collapse. Cities like London and New York are too resilient for that. The result was something more subtle and more dangerous: erosion.
Talent erosion. Capital erosion. Corporate erosion. Confidence erosion.
People who once would have automatically stayed began quietly exploring alternatives. Companies started expanding elsewhere. Families reconsidered residency. Investment slowed. And eventually, those small decisions compounded into structural challenges that became much harder to reverse.
New York now risks entering a similar cycle.
When firms like Citadel, Apollo, and Goldman Sachs openly discuss moving jobs, reducing footprints, or expanding aggressively outside New York, that should concern every New Yorker, regardless of political affiliation.
Not because large companies are always right. They are not.
But because cities function on confidence.
When employers begin signaling uncertainty, others follow. First comes hiring elsewhere. Then satellite offices. Then executive relocations. Then tax migration. Then reduced investment in the city itself. Eventually restaurants suffer, retail suffers, commercial real estate suffers and the city’s tax base weakens. Ironically, the people hurt most are often working- and middle-class residents who depend on a vibrant economic ecosystem.
That is the cycle I fear. And frankly, I think too many people underestimate how quickly sentiment can shift.
I believe New York needs a counteroffensive — not based on anger, but on optimism and realism.
The mission is simple: keep talent, capital, jobs and innovation in New York City while helping bring back people and businesses that may already be drifting away.
Goldman Sachs has shifted thousands of jobs and major operations to Texas and Florida while other firms quietly explore similar moves. That should concern every New Yorker because cities run on confidence as much as capital
Griffin’s firm, the massive hedge fund Citadel, is expanding aggressively in Miami, where they are constructing a new global headquarters on Brickell Avenue
Author Andrew Murstein: Once business leaders begin to feel they are being targeted rather than valued, the erosion starts slowly, and then accelerates quickly
New York cannot shrink its way to prosperity. We cannot regulate our way into remaining the world’s economic capital. And we cannot continuously portray business leaders, entrepreneurs, investors and employers as adversaries while simultaneously depending on them to fund the city’s future.
The answer is balance.
We need public safety. We need affordability. We need mass transit that works. We need reasonable housing policies. We need opportunities for working-class New Yorkers to rise economically.
But we also need thriving businesses.
We need people willing to invest billions into New York office buildings, technology companies, housing developments, restaurants, and financial firms.
We need entrepreneurs who believe this city rewards risk-taking rather than punishes it.
And we need political leadership that understands an uncomfortable truth: wealthy residents, major employers and successful businesses are not an endless resource. They are mobile.
In today’s economy, capital moves fast, companies expand where they feel welcome, and high earners increasingly have choices about where they live and invest. If New York develops a reputation as hostile to growth and success, the city will not feel the consequences overnight — but eventually it will absolutely feel them.
Miami. Palm Beach. Nashville. Austin. Dallas. Greenwich. Even London itself learned this lesson the hard way.
New York’s competitive advantage has always been that nowhere else in the world matches its collective energy, density of talent, cultural importance and economic opportunities.
But advantages can erode if taken for granted.
I refuse to sit back and watch that happen passively.
I am investing my own money because I believe people pay attention when you have real skin in the game.
And I believe many New Yorkers — including lifelong Democrats, independents and Republicans alike — quietly share the same concern: they love this city deeply but fear that ideological extremes and anti-growth policies could weaken the very foundation that made New York exceptional.
Success will not be measured by headlines or politics. Success will mean companies deciding to expand in New York instead of leaving.
It will mean talented young people continuing to believe New York is the best place in the world to build a career. It will mean restoring confidence that the city values both economic growth and social progress simultaneously. And it will mean reminding people that New York’s greatness was never built on punishing success. It was built on attracting it.
I still believe New York can remain the greatest city in the world.
But greatness is not permanent.
Cities rise. Cities fall. And history shows they often do so gradually — until suddenly everyone realizes the momentum has shifted.
My goal is to help ensure New York’s momentum shifts in the right direction before it is too late.
Andrew Murstein is CEO and President of Medallion Financial Corp.
