Work/Life Balance at a Hedgefund or VC firm
On this board there is constant talk about IB and private equity work/life balance (or lack thereof) but I don't see much about other spaces.
What type of hours do entry and mid-level employees generally work in these other spaces? Are the hours comparable to IB and PE? Or is there some sense of balance?
I work about 60 hours a week on average but that increases a bit during deals and decreases during slower months/holiday weeks. I have plenty of time to pursue other activities outside work especially during the weekends.
Are you at Insight/GA/TA?
Smaller AUM/fund than those guys (think Level, SGE, Mainsail)
Our PE unit is a combined one with VC. Depending on team you can expect 60-70hrs for mid level staff, again, depending on coverage or team. there is zero travel atm so there is a ton of free time available on top of that. no f2f meetings, no flights, no trips abroad etc
I've worked at both a HF and in PE. I probably worked fewer hours at the hedge fund but it was MUCH more stressful. I'm sure a lot of people thrive seeing their positions move with the markets but the constant background stress was way worse than the deal-related stress in PE for me. Some people might feel the opposite way, but I certaintly wouldn't think about switching to the HF route if you're looking for a better work/life balance. No clue for VC but the industry is so small and top heavy it's kind of hard to generalize.
Working at a SM HF, put in about 60 hours a week.
HF hour is deceptive because ppl love the job, for example me. I read a lot on my free time to improve pattern recognition because I choose to and those don't count toward actual work hour.
Would you say that HF work might be less hours but has more substance than sell side work with long hours and little substance?
Way more substance
If you don't mind sharing - what do you read, and what techniques do you use while reading, to improve your pattern recognition?
twitter, tiktok, and 4chan, mainly.
I work at a HF and live, eat, breathe, sleep my job because I love it and am hypercompetitive. You might ask, "what about your SO/family life?" Well, she also works at a fund and lives, eats, breathes, and sleeps it because she also loves it and is hypercompetitive.
I think the best thing about the HF industry is that, at least at the funds I've been at, you get to choose when and how much you want to work (within reason). You're generally evaluated on two things at the end of the year: 1) How much P&L did you make? and; 2) Did you commit any compliance violations? You'll be amazed at how much latitude you get to live your life how you want if you make a lot of P&L, but the caveat is there are a ton of smart, hard working, and borderline obsessive people in the industry that make it very hard to generate a lot of P&L without you yourself being hard working and borderline obsessive.
That's amazing that you found your passion and your significant other shares that passion with you!
I'm always the first to admit I got lucky.
The real funny part happens if we find out we're on opposite sides of a trade.
This is the ultimate irony. you can have freedom if you generate P&L, but the only way to generate P&L in the hyper-competitive world of investing is to be obsessive. Mike Mauboussin has talked about this a lot.
Seems people in this industry care less about work-life balance because there's less of a delta between the enjoyment they get out of each. This is probably exacerbated by survivorship bias -- I'd bet a lot of the people that end up sticking around feel this way.
While spitballing here, I'd also venture a guess that a couple reasons you see more work-life discussion in IB/PE is 1) there's more process work that is not interesting that you do not want to think about when you're away from your desk and 2) youth bias towards IB on these forums, and young people seem more focused on counting the hours they work each week and calculating how much free time they will have for the bars, meeting girls/guys, hobbies, etc.
Generally curious, do you think it would be difficult to maintain a relationship like that if your SO wasn’t the hyper competitive type (not necessarily finance but any high achieving profession)? Just cuz it seems there are a lot less females like that vs males, at least in finance
Speaking just for myself, I think I would find it a bit boring to not have this type of set-up at this point. And I'm sure other people who are not hypercompetitive would find me boring too since I tend to gravitate toward wanting to talk about a narrow set of things I'm passionate about.
This.
VC is so fucking chill
Work at a HF and hours depending on a bunch of factors - time sensitive opportunities I'm looking at, fund's performance, etc. I work from 8am or 9am-4pm maybe 5pm during first half of the week and then maybe put in a couple of hours at night if I have work remaining. Towards the end of the week it's usually 9 or maybe 10am to 4-5pm maybe earlier. Of course this is when the fund is doing well, work is light and there is no fire drill to get that extra PnL. I have worked 8am-10pm or 8am-1am before or unfortunately even 7am-3am sometimes and found out that was mostly due to me not being efficient at work (never due to the work load). I'd say on an average I put in ~50-60 hours a week (includes some weekend work) when it's easy. On normal times I was putting in ~70, maybe touching 80. During fire drill weeks I was putting in 90+ easily (but this was when I just started and wasn't working efficiently, I see no reason to work 90+ hours when you're working efficiently).
I'm fortunate to have a good boss who values health and stuff over work so he is understanding with work life balance / when I want to take time off so I get plenty of time to do sports, etc. Of course this would all be different if we were down YTD and struggling to get PnL.
Work at a HF and hours typically range from 50-60hrs per week with time on the weekends. Weekly routine is quite consistent, hitting the desk at 7am, leaving at 7pm. Often do a few hours over the weekend but usually its just reading so don't class it as work.
Is your strategy event driven/distressed credit or event driven equities (merger arb, etc)?
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