Is Industry Based on a True Story? Here’s How the Creators Brought the Cutthroat Finance World to TV

Industry tells the make-or-break story of international finance.

After the HBO drama premiered in November 2020, it began reaching new heights of popularity during its third season in August 2024. Now, Industry is back for more, with season 4 premiering on Jan. 11.

With its intricate power dynamics and relentless pressure, the show’s intense portrayal of the banking world has led audiences to wonder about the real-life experiences that may have inspired it.

Creators Konrad Kay and Mickey Down, both former bankers, have spoken candidly about how their personal exposure to the finance world influenced the series.

“Coming from that world [of banking], we wanted people who watched in that world to be like, ‘OK, they are getting a lot of it right,’ ” Kay told the Radio Times in November 2020.

From the culture of long hours and cutthroat competition to the depiction of modern banking practices, Industry has struck a chord with viewers familiar with the finance world, making it all the more compelling to explore just how closely the series parallels real life.

So, is Industry based on a true story? Here’s everything to know about the HBO drama and the real-life inspiration of its creators.

Is Industry a true story? 

While Industry isn’t directly based on a true story, it draws heavily from the personal experiences of its creators, Kay and Down. Both spent time working in investment banking, which strongly influenced the show’s conception.

Although some elements are more generalized to their experiences, others are close to home. Down, for example, had firsthand experience in the same department where Gus (David Jonsson) is depicted in the first episode of the series, the co-creator told Newsweek in November 2020, adding that it is “the quieter, nocturnal culture, mergers, and acquisitions part of the business.”

Pooling their experiences, Kay and Down aimed to present a realistic depiction of the world they knew, getting as much of the day-to-day nuances correct as possible.

“Me and Mickey were adamant that we wanted to get 100 percent of everything right that we could texturally about the world, you know, the production design, the jargon, the cadence of the language, the way people speak to each other,” Kay told the Radio Times.

However, he also acknowledged that the industry has evolved since their time, blending authentic details from their experiences in the early 2010s with more modern elements to reflect current practices and challenges.

“Me and Mickey were in the city almost seven or eight years ago, and obviously … there’s been a lot of modernisation,” he said.

When it came to the inspiration for writing the show, Down told the Los Angeles Times in July 2022 that they were always “suckers” for books and movies set in the cutthroat world of investment banking.

“We thought, ‘Why isn’t there a modern version of this?’ But it was only when we started writing from the perspective of the people at the bottom that we thought, ‘OK, this actually has a lot to it,’ “ Down said.

He continued, “It’s allowed us to do what we wanted to do, which is an ambitious young person show set in London that’s [also] an inside baseball look at [an] industry we were comfortable writing.”

What bank is Pierpoint based on? 

The fictional bank Pierpoint & Co. isn’t directly modeled after a specific real-life firm but instead serves as an amalgamation of various prestigious banks in London.

While viewers have speculated about connections to major financial institutions, the creators have left Pierpoint’s exact inspiration intentionally vague, allowing the show to stand independently while evoking the general atmosphere of high finance.

“It was very important to me and Mickey that a finance person could watch this show,” Kay told Newsweek in November 2020. “Even if it is like a tiny percentage of the audience they can be like, ‘Oh wow, slightly sensationalized, a little bit heightened, but the essence of the world is almost totally correct.’ ”

How realistic is Industry? 

Industry has been praised for its authenticity, particularly in its portrayal of the intense work environment, the cutthroat culture and the personal tolls associated with the finance industry. 

Real-life bankers have weighed in, with some finding the show uncomfortably close to their own observations, while others note that certain aspects, like the depiction of drug use, are exaggerated for dramatic effect.

The show’s creators have also addressed the balance between realism and fiction, emphasizing that in such an intense line of work, each end of the spectrum is bound to exist somewhere.

“There are definitely people who are drug- and sex-obsessed in the City,” Down told the Los Angeles Times. “There are also very ‘boring’ family people who put their head down, are obsessed with their work and nerdy.”

Although Kay and Down have their own narrative experiences to call on, they strive to keep it as realistic as possible and relevant to the times, bringing in those on the ground with crucial insight.

They have had three consultants integrated into both the writers’ room and the production process, who meticulously review the dialogue and storylines to ensure that everything depicted in the series seems plausible for the modern banking industry.

“Me and Konrad, we understand how these places work and the cadence of the dialogue — the soundscape and what it looks like and how people behave and their motivations,” Down told the newspaper. “But we haven’t been in banking for a decade, so it was good to speak to people who were really in the trenches, from the top end and bottom end.”

Kay told Newsweek that he and Down were “obsessed” with replicating the chaotic atmosphere where much of the show takes place: the trading floor.

“Trading floors are very dirty places with very busy desks, food everywhere and the bins are always full,” he said. “We have friends in the business and a couple of them did a couple of set visits and they just could not believe how real it looked because I mean, we effectively did build an almost fully functional trading floor.”