Just Quit Investment Banking
I was one of those high school seniors that posted on WallStreetOasis in the ye olde days when it was known as ibankingoasis.com, and well, despite my earlier enthusiasm for the job, I decided to quit this week.
I wanted to both share my story and get some guidance/perspective from the community.
Me:
Top bucket second year analyst at a large investment bank (RBC, Wells, etc) in one of their best groups. No buyside offer, but was in later stage interviews with a few large, well-known hedge funds. A few older analysts have placed well, and I was not concerned about my exit options.
Why I Quit:
The job wasn't fun and I wasn't happy. It wasn't to the point that it was unbearable, and last week wasn't a particularly bad week, but I felt that the job was beginning to change me as a person. I used to salivate at the thought of working on live deals, particularly deals for large, well-known companies, and well, after closing north of ten deals, you learn that a deal for a $1 billion EBITDA company isn't so different from a deal for a $30 million EBITDA company. It's all the same steps, and the smaller client isn't necessarily less demanding. In fact, they might require more hand-holding due to their lack of financial expertise. I was irritated and stressed. I would wake up and say to myself "F*ck. Another day?"
Speaking to associates at larger funds, their lives weren't much better. Sure, their hours were better and their pay perhaps double mine, but when their MDs said jump, they would still ask how high. It was far from the lifestyle I wanted. Reassessing, I don't need very much money to be happy. Afterall, I'm 23. All I want to do is have fun, meet people, explore the world and try not to become someone's father anytime soon.
Still, I believe that banking is an excellent first job. I've learned a lot, not just how to number crunch, but how to deal with rich, old men (clients, believe it or not, analysts do interact with clients), handle demanding and often times unreasonable bosses, and navigate my way through the corporate jungle.
Post-Banking:
I feel great. My health is returning. The dark circles under my eyes are slowly fading, and it is nice to see the daylight again. I've been catching up with friends and going to the gym for two hours each day. My only "work" nowadays is reading 4 Hour Work Week.
Currently, I am considering startup ideas or perhaps joining a startup. Anyone have any interesting suggestions on what to do? Sorry for the longwinded post. Just trying to figure out life after banking.
sounds like how I feel after four months on the job.
get married and have twins ASAP
Boston Startup School and join a startup
how about the drug trade?
How many savings do you have lined up? How long of a cushion do you have before you have to go back into the 'jungle' again? Or would you say you're just past that part now?
well that was a little demotivating, but congrats
Most analyst stints are two years. My guess is you quit before getting laid off, a good move in general.
I've seen lots of ex-Analysts getting into consulting (Mckinsey, etc)
Congrats....I need to do the same....
Congrats on quitting IB and pursuing something you actually want, lots of ppl don't have the courage to do that. From your description, I sound like you in highschool at the moment (get hard-on for ibanking). I wonder how this will turn out ..
Congrats on your decision, I think you gave a very mature reflection and assessment of your time in banking.
Don't take this question the wrong way, so how does it feel to shatter the goal you've strived to achieve for the past four years?
.
Let me know if I can suggest particular startups for you, I work in vc, which means 30% chance I recommend good ones.
30% chance that one of the startups you suggest is your startup?
job wasn't fun, good reason
So you're jacked now?
just a word of caution as i had done the same thing 4 years ago. sure banking sucks and everything but the startup side is infinitely harder and more stressful. in banking your sleepless nights are rewarded with (generally) a higher bonus, better references, etc. when you do your own startup, your sleepless nights could be rewarded greatly but you can also do everything right and still blowup and have nothing (and an empty bank account) to show for it.
in general successful startups that scale are really difficult. sure you can follow the 4 hour work week and start a small lifestyle service-oriented startup that can be nice but doing a big time startup, raising institutional money, getting customers/users is a real bitch. you can do everything right, execute according to plan, rally together a great team and still fail if you dont get lucky and nail the timing.
not to dissaude you but startups are infinitely more dificult than the coddled land of banking/consulting. but that being said you will learn more in 6 months of a startup that you do i 5+ years of banking. just be prepared for a long, sleepless, extraordinarily stressful grind that will have tons of ups and downs.
Don't neglect to look into the small lifestyle service-oriented business a la Four Hour Work Week. My personal opinion as someone who has been running small businesses since I was 17, if you're not in it for love, you're in the wrong business. If all you want is to have the next Facebook by whichever method works, it ain't going to work. I've been dabbling in three businesses since I quit and one of them just started taking off, the 2-month old fan page is already at 4,500 fans but the most important thing is that I enjoy interaccting with my fans. For me, running the business is so much more fun because of the client engagement not because of the money.
Sleepless nights? I would never. I enjoy sleep and I wouldn't enjoy the business if I was having to work so hard I couldn't sleep. But different strokes for different folks, right? PEACE!
Good for you. But is there a reason why you are choosing the startup path, rather than continuing on with your HF interviews? I mean the lifestyle isn't bad (relative to IBD).
You could always teach math at a prep school.
Good luck to you and keep us posted!
I actually think the sacrifice later sucks more. In your 20s you have the energy, nyc at least allows you to still maintain a social life, and most jobs that won't bore relatively smart people suck pretty hard (fyi, medical residents and to a lesser extent fellows are asked to jump quite a bit as well).
The guy who wrote about start-ups is right, to build anything decent requires you to kill yourself for years, and there is a high chance it simply won't work. Think what "that" MD does for his white whale pipe dream mega-deal and then imagine that is the only way you can be successful and pay off the personal debt you took on to finance your business early on.
Don't understand why you would quit now though? At least finish your interviews, some HF jobs have excellent lifestyle, and you can always leave for AM where lifestyle can be great, especially if you aren't gunning make PM. If you were about to be laid off, take severance. Or if you are on a year-end bonus cycle, let it hit the bank (unless you got a bagel, but your gripe doesn't seem to be comp).
How many other young bankers feel this way? Does it boil down to you wanting to spend the majority of your best years out of that environment?
@Orangutan Do you think you'll regret it?
3rd year analyst, leaving banking in 2 months (Originally Posted: 04/27/2011)
Fellows,
The first time i posted on this site was in 2007, when i was recruiting for internships. 4 years later, i find myself on the last 2 months of my analyst career. I need your help in judging severl exit opportunities that are on the table.
A quick rundown:
I started at Lehman, managed to move to an elite boutique in Oct 2008 (Blackstone M&A, Lazard, Moelis, guess one)
Opportunities / prospects i have right now are:
Truth of the matter is i'm burned out and don't want to work banker's hours anymore. One of the funds told me outright that its gonna be 90 hour weeks, I know if i get it and not take the offer most people prob. think im nuts, but I'm just not that sure if PE is such a promising land. I echo all the things brought up in the recent topic 'is it worth it'
I'm leaning towards this fof. I know it's not viewed as an upward progression of my career being a M&A banker, but guys it sounds so good. 9-7, 8pm, great team, good company events (annual ski trip in Switzerland, etc) and i get 170k the 1st year as an associate and 200k the 2nd year. I'm told that 4 guys on the team are HBS grads so they can guide me towards b school if i want to pursue that route.
I know that transition back to direct PE/ HF would be a challenge after FOF and b school, but I'm at the point where i just don't care and don't want to plan for all that stuff.
As for this corp dev job, pay will be less by nature, but interesting work and a great working environment.
I guess i will stop my rambling, and let anyone who's willing to share some thoughts do so. Also, if anyone needs PE interview guidance, im happy to help, gone through the whole 9 yards with the case studies and what not.
Cheers
You get 170K as an associate at a FoF?!? Please PM me and let me know what shop that is. I need to use that as leverage in my interviews...
(In my experiences, associates are coming in the door at 120K tops)
I was offered a base of 130K at a FoF just last month. All in was coming in around 180K.
Hi manbearpig, would you mind I PM you about your experience?
130K base may be top of the mkt in terms of salary. Not total comp. I wonder if he's talking about 170K total comp or base. If it's base, that's insane.
I got the sense that he was talking about all-in, but who knows.
there was an associate on my team who came back from Harbourvest after a year. He said it was "too boring" compared to the execution environment of IBD.
I guess if you're burned out you'll like it boring for a year.
Go to the FoF, that's definitely much better as far as lifestyle. You won't make as much as in the other areas, but if you value lifestyle more, it's definitely worth it.
Sounds like you've already made a decision. You're tired of the lifestyle, don't want to leave altogether, but don't want to continue burning the candle on both ends. FoF seems like what you're most strongly inclined towards, and at the end of the day, if you aren't happy, you won't be working well which won't curry you any favor at the office. FoF may be a 'downward' progression, but if you're happy and excel, that'll be better for your b-school apps than something better on paper that you stunk up because you hated it.
I will add a bit of cautionary advice to not let any temporary exhaustion guide you towards a decision that will take you down a path that you'll regret later. I'm not trying to knock a job at a FoF but it is certainly less challenging from an intellectual standpoint. Try to spend some time thinking about where you really want to go in life and what would make you happy in the long run. Banking has a way of making you lose touch with yourself, try to take a couple days off if at all possible.
Thank you all for the helpful thoughts. And Macro - thanks for the reminder to sanity check. The firm just upped the offer to 205k (total comp, 120 base, 10k sign-on, 75k target bonus and without me even asking). I will get to spend 2 months in Zurich as well.
While I don't exactly know 100% what i will be doing, I told them that i don't want to lose and want to reinforce my corp fin/accounting skills. they said i will certainly have the option to do lots of secondaries and co-investments.
I think my plan is to take it, at the same time apply for business school in the fall. I know that my work won't be as 'intellectual' as M&A works, but the exposure (meeting with fund managers, DD on portfolio companies, meeting CEO's) do seem to have its merits. Also i think being in Zurich will add to my general life experience which I have been lacking. Hopefully I can get in to a decent MBA program then transition back to whatever that makes better sense.
A good friend (in direct PE) said to me re: my situation is that its more important to try to try my best at my new role and opportunities will present themselves. The fund has one of the best fof platforms in the world and I think its worth a try at least for a year.
So im leaning towards taking it. i have prob. till end of the week to decide..
Welcome any comments/thoughts
One question... you mention bschool a few times. Why do you want to go to bschool? What's your long term goal? Honestly bschool sounds like it would be a step back unless you just want time off for a few years or you want a career change out of finance completely.
seems like a great opportunity. they definitely want you and thats always a sign that you'll have a good working environment (atleast in the beginning). zurich sounds pretty cool as well.
I second the comment that you brought up bschool consistently in your decision making process. A lot of people go to business school for the pay raise or career progression they will otherwise never have the opportunity to make without it. It seems like for you, bschool wouldn't be able to offer substantially much more than what you are making now or other job opportunities that are already presented to you.
Given that you already have a great resume, and lucrative job offers, I would not do business school unless you want to make a substantial career transition. Otherwise, just apply to HBS, Stanford, Wharton, and see if you get into any of them. I think with those 3 schools, the prestige, network, and social experience could make it very worthwhile, depending on how you take advantage of it.
Do what will make you happy in the long term, it sounds like some leisure time will increase your quality of life significantly.
this thread is breathing again!
This thread is an inspiration - what you can achieve with hard work and dedication to M&A.
Leave Finance field? (Originally Posted: 10/30/2017)
Still debating whether to leave finance or not. Currently working at a BB in operations which sucks. However I got offered at a small growing company (another ops but salary is 30% higher than current), job which is basically analyzing corporate actions and doing calculations, etc.
However, I also got offered at a Big 4 for a HR role which has a lot of project management and such. Equal pay as the small company.
Not sure, what to take, Stay in Finance or take a chance and go into HR?
Best of luck to you OP.
HR sounds horrific to me.
Being in ops and HR isn't really finance though. How can you leave without giving it a try? Try to leave ops and network your way into another division at your BB.
Do MBA. That's what a lot of people clueless about the direction of their careers do. It will buy you time and may help you come up with startup ideas, find potential start-up partners, and make useful connections.
Stories of people leaving to do something totally different? (Originally Posted: 12/20/2009)
Just curious if you guys know of any analysts leaving banking (either early or after 2 years) to do something totally different like opening their own business, or even a totally different industry like marketing/non profit/etc. Could be whether they burned out or just realized it wasn't for them - just curious.
My analyst class from what i remember... Hotel industry Corp Dev at tech cos Bschool Non-profit Law school
1 analyst and an associate quit together to open up a winebar together ...
One girl left to become a teacher after a year or so, another joined a non-profit. Those are the only two I know of.
One guy from my group became a day trader for a while, got good, and started a hedge fund. He managed to survive the crisis and is still going at it.
I know a girl that left after 3 months to do pre-med
Female for Culinary Art School. She always liked to cook.
Now I'm hungry! For some Poo!
Ugh... Nothelpful....
just left PE after two years of powerpointing and excelling to join a start-up bizdev role and never felt better... Life is too short for a shitty job (which is any job you do not enjoy going to in the morning)... Good luck!
After Finance (Originally Posted: 12/27/2011)
obviously not every analyst rises to become an MD/partner in banking/any field in finance. where do those that don't make it go (let's say past the VP level)? entrepreneurship? fortune 500 job?
If they don't go to PE, they get into some cushy corporate job that pays the bills and is much less stressful, so that they can go to their kid's baseball games or go fishing. And then they die. Some die right after they leave banking and I can't blame them for that.
they become cynical, jaded bastards. this doesn't have to happen after finance, as exemplified above.
so does it mean that there is no other path but to get an MBA after the analyst stint?
No...there are ton of things that analysts do after their stint.
-PE / HF / VC -Continue as an Associate in IB -Government (i.e. World Bank - IFC, Congress, etc.) - Entrepreneurship (join or start a start-up) - Fortune 500 (Corporate Development, etc...) - Go back to school (not just MBA but other graduate degrees)
Basically what my class and above have done
I know a couple of professors who started off in IBD and then landed pretty sweet gigs teaching corp fin at semi-targets... from what i hear, it's about 150-200k per year, with ~30 hr workweeks. Excellent job security, minimal responsibility, and 150-200k ain't shabby, especially if you already have a few mil saved up!
Thanks Devils Advocate. Seems like there are a lot of options open for ex-analysts, but how about for ex-associates and ex-VPs?
Similar opportunities available to ex-associates except for Private Equity, which tend to be mostly ex-Analysts.
Ex-VPs...it prob gets trickier...options narrow even further from what I've seen...former VPs have left for Corp Dev and Entrepreneurship.
I think the real risk is that with finance, the chance of being derailed halfway through (VP) is much higher. Physicians are unlikely to not be recertified by their accreditation board at 32, and law firms (historically) have kept their partner-track associate insulated from most market risk (firm specific risk - name partner being caught with a call girl - was probably the larger concern).
Rewards are higher too, and just like everything else, its an individual call.
Anaswer to OP, in addition to PE/Bschool and F500 Corp Dev, there's also Dep.Treasury and State that I know have hired ex-BB analysts and traditional asset management isn't a bad lifestyle tradeoff either, especially when you compare Fido to the HF alternatives.
I swear the guy that manages my fathers money just about makes market level returns (maybe beat it by a % here or there) and my dads always telling me about how big of a book he manages / how much he probably makes on commission and it seems like a sweet gig. Dude fucking long / short equities there is no way he works more than 40 hour weeks.
Most of his clients are people like my father, they own their own company / multiple small businesses and just don't have the time to run them and invest their money / keep up with markets all the time. Dude probably managing 75MM or so bringing in like 300-400k.
I’ve been seeing a kind of random trend of A LOT of colleagues at my bank and a few others I know at other Wall Street banks going into advertising.
Seems cool and interesting but not sure how much of the skills are transferable. I’m positive it would be damn near impossible to go from advertising to banking without rebranding yourself with an MBA or something, so not sure what this trend is all about.
A lot of people in finance tend to go into tech these days too which makes a little more sense I suppose.
Best of luck! Glad you're finally doing what you enjoy...hopefully.
Congrats on your decision. Best of luck to you
Hey man! I can totally relate myself to you. I turned down my offer recently at one of the well known financial firm for a start-up. Co-incidently I am 23 years old and have taken a path to follow etrepreneurship/start-up. I am working on a start-up and would love to talk to you. People like you inspire me and love to be surrounded by. Shoot me an email.
Wait I'm confused, are you working on a start-up?
Yes sir!
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Feel free to PM me if you're interested in joining a very interesting start-up. We're going to need someone on the finance side, especially considering we will be approaching VC very soon. Could be a good opp for you to use your excel, ppt and doc skills to build a career as a CFO. Our CEO is currently an MD in private banking, I'm in PE, and the rest are tech and marketing. Let me know.
Puts on red shiny shoes in cubicle, closes eyes, clicks heels together "There's no place like PE, there's no place like PE, there's no place like PE..."
Contact incubators. Do a bit of pro bono work, you'll quickly get a sense of which startups have potential. Knowing when they'll raise their next round, you'll be well placed to be the next hire post-raise.
Have you thought about getting a "real job"--going into corporate finance in a company that makes stuff, like PepsiCo, Microsoft, ConEd? Or joining Teach For America and trying to make the world a better place by joining a nonprofit? How about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau or IRS, both hiring. You won't make as much money, but if you consider the hourly rate, you'll be earning more, and will have job security and probably more fulfilling work and nicer people to work with.
I've done it for 5-6 years now, and I think I'm about done. The money isn't there any more, and more importantly, the interesting deals aren't either (around here). I think I know enough about the M&A process to branch out into the corporate world now, no interest really in PE or IB any more.
Firstly, very well done to you! I quit in April after 7 years and quitting is not easy. It is even tougher if you have a good boss. Ever since I quit, I get odd panic moments when I think that my business may not do well in the long run. But other than that, I have never been so fulfilled in my life as a whole.
Banking does start to change you at some point but I think it's a great training ground for "life". Everyone should do a year or two!!
:)
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