A real zinger from the NYT
Guys -
Enjoy this rather scathing review of banking and consulting from Guy Kawasaki. Your choice to believe or disbelieve.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/business/21corne...
Q. Why did you carve out investment banking and consulting?
A. With investment banking, you make a lot of money, and you get a distorted feeling of how wonderful you are. You’ll be flying around in corporate jets and you’ll be attending board meetings, but you don’t really add value.
The issue with consulting is that if you go straight to work for a consultant, you develop this perspective that the hard part is the analysis and the decision. In reality, that’s not the hard part. The hard part is implementing the decision, not making it.
So the problem with consulting is you get paid $400 an hour, you do your beautiful charts, you make your PowerPoint presentation, you tell the client what they should do, and you go on to the next project. Meanwhile, you’re building up this belief that you’re a genius: you know how to analyze; you know how to make a decision; and, worst of all, you know how to implement — but all without implementing.
You can develop an absolutely incorrect perception of yourself as a great manager when, in fact, you haven’t implemented anything. You haven’t fired anybody. You haven’t introduced a product. You haven’t supported a customer. All you’ve done is make spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations.
You can also throw venture capital into this pile. Going into venture capital straight out of school is a big mistake because entrepreneurs start sucking up to you and ask you stuff you know nothing about — like how to run a company.
Jobs for college graduates should make them gain knowledge in at least one of these three areas: how to make something, how to sell something or how to support something.
How to sell something... Like
How to sell something...
Like how to sell consulting or investment banking services?
Makes some good points
Makes some good points
Nicely put. I've been
Nicely put.
I've been speculating for a while, though, that deep down their hearts investment bankers and consultants actually know all this stuff and still pursue their careers because they secretly(or openly) think that working on spreadsheets and analyzing comps are superior to implementing the real tasks.
it's a question of expected
it's a question of expected return. my chances of working at the next google are pretty low, so my expected return on that 50 mil ain't good. but, my mbb pays me pretty damn well for a recent college grad, and I have a 100% chance of continuing to make that salary while i work here.
after i sock away some money, i'm more willing to take a risk. but kawasaki is trying to apply his career path generally across college grads.
Also, what I think is bullshit - someone with an ivy degree who goes and works at P&G, or Abercrombie, or Pepsi, is not highly regarded by the majority of employers, the logic being "well, why the fuck didn't you work at morgan stanley/bcg? must be something wrong with you." for ivies, there's a reason not many people deviate from the path...
This guy is clearly an
This guy is clearly an idiot.
The biggest flaw in his argument is that he clearly has absolutely no idea what banking, consulting or VC actually are.
#1- VERY few investment bankers are flying around in corporate jets and attending board of director meetings. And if they are attending BOD meetings, it has less to do with being a banker and more to do with the level of respect given to them as a businessman by their peers. And of those very few, probably a dozen or two, NONE are fresh college graduates... I'd actually be very surprised if any are under 50.
#2- There is a reason they are called STRATEGY consultants and not IMPLEMENTATION consultants. This argument is about as valid as saying you shouldn't go into the dental profession because you learn nothing about the limbic system. You're not supposed to know anything about the limbic system, you're a dentist you fix teeth.
#3- No entrepreneur is sucking up to a 20-something year old VC jizz mopper. They're likely sucking up to the actual decision makers, and if that entrepreneur IS sucking up to the analysts, then it has nothing to do with the kid working in VC as that buffoon entrepreneur is just as likely to start sucking up to the crossing-guard outside the local elementary school for funding.
What Guy Suzuki doesn't understand is that at a junior level, its not what you do with your clients that teaches you in these professions, or any profession really. Its working with your managers and seniors. An investment banker is making markets and creating value. You may think thats a crock of shit. But ask an accountant or a lawyer or a writer how you can take two companies glue them together and make them worth more than they are worth individually... they cant. A senior banker has seen CEO/CFO's and Wall Street BSD's essentially create and destroy value every time the tide comes in and recedes. These are the people you're working with day in and day out and learning from.
Its a similar situation with consulting. Your managers/seniors teach you how to think in a way superior to insiders clouded with all other times of influences. Your firm is hired to come up with a strategy, which likely your seniors are doing, not the kid 6 months out of college. This is what you're learning. The value you add is theoretical, in that its just a plan of action. But the consultants that are worth their weight in donkey semen are the ones that come up with strategies that ARE easily implemented for their clients. Anyone can come up with a great strategy thats impossible to implement, the all-stars are the ones that come up with rock star strategies that seem effortless to implement. Its being able to do the former that not many people are capable of doing, thats why they pay $400+ /hr to people who can. Thats what you're learning.
I read the whole article and there are parts that are good. People are different. Some find success one way and other find it another. And some people don't view themselves as successful while the same person three-notches down from them view themselves as enormously successful. Thats the way it goes.
I agree with him on some points, like the importance of sales...
As for what he believes a college student should look for in a job (obviously a bit egotistical as he seems to believe they should follow his formula since he's been so enormously successful (not!)... so according to him:
1- learn how to make something-- create financial instruments that distributes risk and return profiles of an asset to parties willing to take on such risk according to their appetite... a la CDO's
2- learn how to sell-- sell a security that previously wouldn't have even passed the smell test to boat loads of investors managing pensions and futures of anyone making above the poverty line.
3- learn to support-- learn to support the CDO machine by encouraging more mortgage origination to more borrowers... just keep lending money to anyone with enough fingers to sign the closing documents
So Guy Suzuki says fresh college graduates should originate mortgages, structure them into CDO's and then sell them to investors.
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+1.
+1.
This Kawasaki guy is a
This Kawasaki guy is a hypocritical piece of crap.
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I've had dinner with Guy
I've had dinner with Guy Kawasaki. At the very least, he definitely knows what venture capitalists do.
To be fair, I don't think particularly highly of consultants. None of my friends in the field have ever been able to intelligently defend their business. Most openly admit that their only real skills are making PowerPoint slides look pretty. The whole idea of consulting is MASSIVEY egotistical. You go into a company to deal with a problem that 'management' can't handle. Somehow, without ever having worked in the space, you're going to solve their problems. How? Because they're dumb, and you're smart. That's what consultants sell anyway (especially at the junior level).
Now, his comments on banking are a little off-base. How many of us analysts and associates are legitimate jet-setters? I have flown a few places on the company's dime, but they weren't glamorous trips, and I was sent only because no one else wanted to go. The actual business of investment banking for juniors kind of sucks. We all know it. If you're in IBD, you work WAY too much. If you're a trader, you're going to be someone's bitch for a few years (getting coffee and lunch even after you have some real trading responsibilities). In sales, you're not going to have any clients for awhile. You're also going to be getting lunches and coffees. And you're not going to learn much about the business of markets, so you're going to have to be pretty good at selling nothing to advance.
Anyway, I think Kawasaki was being a bit populist here. There is some merit in smart college kids learning to make something, but none of us want to. Where is the incentive? Why should I go work for P&G or Unilever? Are they going to give me any responsibility as a young person? Are they going to pay me so poorly that I have to live like a pauper in a major city? Or worse yet, are they going to take me out of a major city, and place me in some bumble-fuck-nowheresville?
That's why the best college grads generally don't want to work for those companies. No responsibility + bad location + shitty money = bad job...I don't care how you try to sell it.
Haha this guy is a
Haha this guy is a hypocritical idiot. Thank god his garbage website and VC firm adds so much value to make up for us bankers....
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brotherbear wrote: To be
To be fair, I don't think particularly highly of consultants. None of my friends in the field have ever been able to intelligently defend their business. Most openly admit that their only real skills are making PowerPoint slides look pretty. The whole idea of consulting is MASSIVEY egotistical. You go into a company to deal with a problem that 'management' can't handle. Somehow, without ever having worked in the space, you're going to solve their problems. How? Because they're dumb, and you're smart. That's what consultants sell anyway (especially at the junior level).
This is a well peddled argument against consulting. Always falls down because you can't explain why firms hire consultants.
Guy Kawasaki is a failed VC;
Guy Kawasaki is a failed VC; anyone in the industry will tell you that directly with few caveats. However he does make some good points. Banking/consulting as your first job does fuck with your head a little bit as he says, and it does have some of the drawbacks listed. However, it's better than the other shitty alternatives. If he had his way, all the smart engineers would go into some shitty start up, fail and then go on to become successful VCs.
The problem is he falls into the trap that most older advice-givers, namely that the game isn't about maximizing every single opportunity, it's about minimizing your risk and getting the most bang for your buck. Even run of the mill bankers and consultants will make great money in great jobs (relatively speaking for the population). However, there are lots of failed engineers who muddle around for years without doing anything meaningful or making any $$$.
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My main issue is how full of
My main issue is how full of himself he is. As if anything other than what he's doing and how he got there is not worth it. IMO, he not even successful. Who the hell aspires to be the next Guy Kawasaki? Its one thing to give nuggets of knowledge from his experiences, its another to try to tell people that what they're doing isn't going to get them where he is... its a bit presumptuous.
Second, wtf is he talking about "you should strive to be dispensable?" Thats the shittiest piece of advice I've ever heard. "The greatest compliment is your company running perfectly without you" You're not raising kids where its a source of pride is if they venture out on their own and exceed your accomplishments. Your running a company. If you're not doing it better than anyone else is capable of, than you don't deserve to be there. His own statements about consulting contradict his advice(offering strategy without implementation, i.e. theory without practicality). Since the above stated advice is ENTIRELY too theoretical and not practical at all. No one strives to be dispensable, nor should they. Apple stock dropped when Steve Jobs was sick. Warren Buffet is absolutely indispensable at Berkshire. Henry Kravis at KKR. The legends are indispensable. For Kawasaki to say you should strive to be dispensable is basically telling everyone they should strive to be mildly accomplished.
The one thing I will give him is that he's good at selling. I mean he's sold people on his own brand value as some sort of business guru.
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brotherbear wrote: To be
To be fair, I don't think particularly highly of consultants. None of my friends in the field have ever been able to intelligently defend their business. Most openly admit that their only real skills are making PowerPoint slides look pretty. The whole idea of consulting is MASSIVEY egotistical. You go into a company to deal with a problem that 'management' can't handle. Somehow, without ever having worked in the space, you're going to solve their problems. How? Because they're dumb, and you're smart. That's what consultants sell anyway (especially at the junior level).
Now, his comments on banking are a little off-base.
Dude - when you make arguments like this, you sound like a joke from leveraged sellout. "Oh, consultants are useless, but bankers are hot shit." You don't have to prove anything to me - I don't mind if you went to Harvard, Dartmouth, or some shitty state school in the middle of nowhere, and I certainly don't care whether you work at Goldman or Piper.
If you're going to mount a defense of one profession, don't take the opportunity to knock the other down with a pointless argument - I can speak to many occasions when a firm didn't have the resources and expertise to develop strategies that a consulting team did. They weren't stupid - just confined in their experience to their industry and the tried & true.
I'm not looking to get into a mud-slinging contest with you, because you have legit opinions you've expressed in other posts, but just consider what I said.
Clients are actually pretty
Clients are actually pretty incompetent in many cases in consulting.
Marcus_Halberstram wrote: My
My main issue is how full of himself he is. As if anything other than what he's doing and how he got there is not worth it. IMO, he not even successful. Who the hell aspires to be the next Guy Kawasaki? Its one thing to give nuggets of knowledge from his experiences, its another to try to tell people that what they're doing isn't going to get them where he is... its a bit presumptuous.
Second, wtf is he talking about "you should strive to be dispensable?" Thats the shittiest piece of advice I've ever heard. "The greatest compliment is your company running perfectly without you" You're not raising kids where its a source of pride is if they venture out on their own and exceed your accomplishments. Your running a company. If you're not doing it better than anyone else is capable of, than you don't deserve to be there. His own statements about consulting contradict his advice(offering strategy without implementation, i.e. theory without practicality). Since the above stated advice is ENTIRELY too theoretical and not practical at all. No one strives to be dispensable, nor should they. Apple stock dropped when Steve Jobs was sick. Warren Buffet is absolutely indispensable at Berkshire. Henry Kravis at KKR. The legends are indispensable. For Kawasaki to say you should strive to be dispensable is basically telling everyone they should strive to be mildly accomplished.
The one thing I will give him is that he's good at selling. I mean he's sold people on his own brand value as some sort of business guru.
I think you're missing his point. No sane person would agree that it's good to strive to be a dispensable employee, but he is talking about being the head of a new company or organization. If you run it well, structure it well, and pick the right people, then the organization should still be able to survive without you. That means you've built a great organization and you have all these amazing people under you, and you are dispensable in the sense that what you've created is a self-sufficient being that doesn't rely on you anymore in order to survive.
Now if you're an entry-level analyst or being hired by someone for some middle-management position, hell no you don't want to "strive to be dispensable to the organization". In that case, you do want people to think that the organization is much better because of you. But again, if you are a leader in charge of overseeing some project, then a metric of your success is whether the project can survive after you leave onto something better.
Wall Street leaders now understand that they made a mistake, one born of their innocent and trusting nature. They trusted ordinary Americans to behave more responsibly than they themselves ever would, and these ordinary Americans betrayed their trust.
I understood the point
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bleedblue82
*edit double post
Marcus_Halberstram wrote:
Kawasaki's self-righteousness
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yung_gekko
surferdude867
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Bleedblue Unfortunately, you
I agree with him that
Marcus_Halberstram
Well shit, M&I is run by a 25
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eiffeltowered
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Neither consultants nor
non-target wrote: Neither
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ideating][quote=non-target
Either way, Kawasaki touches
yung_gekko
^--- exactly. If there is no
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he really sounds like someone
Marcus_Halberstram
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Read the article. He isn't
nope. they just pay better.
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