IB MD is a job for LOSERS, not BSD’s

Bro’s talking like he is a neurosurgeon.

Guys we got “inb4’d” now we can’t respond :(

Banking does fr suck tho

Natixis mentioned, this thread is getting censored soon.

Overly aggressive post, maybe, but I really can’t think of a job I’d want to do less than anything in banking above associate. The page-pushing kings of finance

I think this is highly dependent on the bank you’re at. I’m at an EB, and although some of the MDs fit the description you’ve described, the majority (>50%) are worth looking up to.

Look if you sell a commoditized service, you have to compete on availability. If you don’t sell a commoditized service, you still have to be available, but you can set more boundaries. Some banking MDs sell a commoditized service, though many do not. 
 

Eh the only MD I know is kind of a socially awkward guy

I would agree that most - though not all - MDs were middle of the pack kind of guys in their early / mid senior years. They just survived (i.e. kissed the right ass for years) to make MD and are now slaving away for clients. They probably missed out on great exits to stay in banking and be the client's bitches but at the end of the day IB is just a job, even for MDs.

it's just a job bro...

LOOOOOOL didnt read

You’re talking to the wrong guys. Got off the one with some MDs in SF.

They’ve got huge egos, do whatever tf they want. Have yachts and shit.
Fr cool ass guys

A good MD knows the industry- all companies in it and last couple decades of transactions- like the back of their hand. This is extremely valuable to clients who just don't have that. Not sure who you work for, but in my group we land multibillion dollar deals without pitches or going into pitches knowing we will win because our MDs are so well known across the industry.

Your point about PE makes little sense as well, if these firms are full of the best of banking, then why do they need to hire bankers for advice. And yes, part of hiring bankers is to run a process, but good senior bankers deliver great insights to clients and that's why some banks get paid so well. Sure, there are a number of MDs who are scrubs, but a good IB MD is worth a lot to clients. As with any overarching statement there is some truth and some untruth. Sorry that your MDs suck, hope you feel better about your bosses at the PE firm where you exit.

Of all of my friends and colleagues who left banking…. None of them have regretted it.

In all seriousness, I agree to an extent. A lot of MDs are dweebs and almost none of them are people I aspire to be. Everyone in the corporate world needs to answer to someone, but these guys are on another level in terms of being a slave to their clients.

I would admit that a lot of them are intelligent, speak very well, and know their space though. They all just seem very neurotic and unhappy.

Until you realize that as an PE MD you have to kiss ass of the target's founder / executive management for a year or two to win a deal.

Look, the point of banking isn't personal satisfaction or changing the world. The point is you have a good, predictable paycheck if you're good at what you do, so you can spend it on strippers and bottle service. You guys got your priorities all wrong. Kids these days.

fuck being a Goldman Sachs MD aka a slave to clients, trucker is the way to go

if a lot of banking MDs are socially strange - with which I agree - that just creates a lot of white space for the charming MDs to crush it.

I hear you. My experience in IB was quite different. I would say there was a pretty strong 50/50 split between the socially awkward MD and the more charismatic, salesy MD. The majority of the MD’s were highly competent and thoroughly enjoyed the process of advising a client and the long-term relationships that came along with it. Another thing I observed was that you do not need to be super extroverted or gregarious in order to be an effective MD. That stereotype is just played up in Hollywood. Some of the highest producing MD’s at my firm were on the more introverted/reserved side of the spectrum. 

I don’t know. For example, of the six banks I have worked with in the past year, exactly two MDs come to mind in terms of being actual BSDs that don’t just bend over and spread them for the client. That is in line with what I’d expect.

I would expect most senior bankers are mid. Think of what it takes to get to that level. You don’t need to be Bruce Wasserstein or anything like that. I would expect most MDs to just be a warm body and for a small number of MDs to actually be genuinely insightful and good at managing the client

Any job in 'sales' where you are competing over selling something is going to be this way. IB, advisory, services, IR, wherever. Directors bend over backwards for any and every client because 1: THEY are responsible for it, 2: THEY get paid the best for getting the client, and 3: YOU do all the work anyway.

Just a lowly SA going in FT next summer here. Call me crazy but this seems so bank/group dependent.

I'm not gonna so far as to say any MD in my group was a BSD (not because they aren't or are, but because why would you call another grown man by that term) but they weren't losers by any stretch and were very chill given the circumstances and stress around their job. From their work ethic to their personality, I definitely respect the senior ppl in my group but that's just me. Can't really generalize.

sounds like someone’s title got deferred again

maybe next year buddy

How many banking MDs do you know that are actually charisma chads?

This made me LOL. But yeah dude, most people working $1M+ jobs are dorks, not tik tok swag lords with broccoli haircuts who use terms like "charisma chad". High end lawyers, bankers, hedge funders, equity researchers, tech developers, etc. are in many cases extremely nerdy dudes. I'd argue Bankers are honestly the less socially awkward of the lot because at the end of the day it still takes good salesmanship. 

You also fundamentally don't understand how the world works. If you think IB MDs are bitches for clients you've never seen a CEO bend over and take it up the ass from his board / majority shareholder and then still get fired after a transaction closes. Or a PE Fund manager have to suck ESG dick to impress potential LPs. Everyone is someone's bitch. 

largely agree but come on, we can't conflate broccoli heads with having any worthy charisma at all, on god

Acting like most of these MF buyout PE principals aren’t soulless robots for the most part 

I can't think of a single white-collar career path where you don't need to kiss someone's ass

If you want to be a sigma male, go be a pro athelete or a social media influencer

skill issue

The real BSDs are the S&T MDs

As one of those dweebs, I’ll tell you that being a top person in PE vs IB, and coverage/product/S+T in IB require very different skill sets. And working for an A-hole or a great mentor is just as likely in IB as PE. But if you don’t respect the people you work for then find somewhere else to work. Build a career working with good people. Doesn’t matter the sector. 

File this post away and take a look at it in 10 years.

Ehhh, I think at the highest level some MDs are BSDs.

I'm at a bank that is co-advisor with Goldman on a deal and they definitely walk around with a bigger dick than us / our MDs. This is an enormous deal and they basically said "we are getting this for our fee - you can either pay it or fuck off, we'll find other deals".

Once they're live and in agreement, sure, I imagine they do what they can to serve their client, but only after they've accepted a fee they are happy with (which is substantial... trust me).

Hey man don’t knock on IB just bc it wasn’t for you - I would recommend the job to most students in undergrad, but I also think IB is not for me 

Analysts 5 seconds after signing their PE offer:

What is bro yapping about

Can't tell if this is a troll post or not. Real talk, buy side has always been venerated on this forum but as I have moved up in my career it has been illuminating to see the difference between how the kids on WSO think it is and how it really is.

For every first quartile GP out there, there is one other who is not killing it and two others who are really not killing it. I don't think people understand how PE actually works so let me break some of it down since I feel generous today:

1) Your entire net worth is tied up in carry that you had to buy with your W2 income, which is substantially less than your analogue in banking

2) If the fund you're managing is shit, you spend 5-10 years finding that out and another 3+ living in that reality, and the carry you bought in step 1 is *poof*

3) Every ~2 years+ you get to find out whether your employer will exist in the future when you go on the road to raise your funds. Nowadays it takes about 18 months to do that and for most managers, subscription numbers today are down, down, down. For some they are so existentially down that those managers won't get another fund, period. For those that do, the comp they earn for this fund (which is almost exclusively correlated with fund size), and which will take 10+ years to earn, will also be down.

4)  Welp, just held final close on your fund which is down 50% from the last one you just finished investing, and now that the investment period is ticking it's time to put money out the door ASAP before the LPs start chewing your ass out (they just don't know you're a chad). Better hope you have some good personal connections that others don't so you can get you some of that legendary, non-intermediated, proprietary deal flow that clears hurdle and catch-up EZPZ. Otherwise, you'll have to grind through the week and weekend to finesse an LBO before submitting a binding offer alongside 20 competitor firms for this company being sold by this little advisor runt. "He's not even a charisma chad like me, but I have to maintain a good relationship with him so that I can get a credible shot at the auction process..."

5) Turns out you had to overpay for the company in the agented process after all, and deep down under it all you know it's because the vast majority of you and your brethren on the buy side are just glorified toll booth guards manning the gate to private capitalism. The notion of alpha is laughable, because most of you are just crabs in a bucket trying unimaginatively to lever the same widget co with the same bank debt and roll it up into the same uninspired investment platform. You enjoy exiting the platform a decade later at a 1.2x, which pisses off your LPs and also fails to clear your waterfall. It's an even bigger problem, because with this being done it's now definite that you owe clawback under the American waterfall that financed your condo a few years back. Time to have fun haggling with your pissed off LPs, to whom you owe money, and deadbeat former partners who refuse to pay back their share gross of tax.

6) Day in day out, you get to do chad things like getting reamed in the ass at investment committee in full view of your peers by the boomer founder trio, whose antiquated notions about investing, unchecked personal failings and murky succession plan are a daily reminder of what a charisma chad you are.