Q&A - Woman Senior Analyst at HF

How did you progress from research analyst to senior analyst managing your own sleeve? Do you still have someone above you that gets a say on your sleeve?

Are you at a SM or MM? How would you describe your relationships with your PM / CIO?

I would encourage women on this forum (to the extent you have questions) to post them here. Would like to be helpful where I can.

Any advice you’d give to younger women in the HF industry? 

Thoughts on the SM vs MM space today and where you’d recommend a younger version of yourself go?

Thanks!

deleted, I'm not going to bother arguing about this

Other aspects of the career path that younger women may not appreciate - (1) prestige of the fund is likely more important to you than it is to a guy. For a woman, you are assumed to be incompetent until you prove it over again and again. For a man, often they are given benefit of doubt esp if they are not minorities. You need the shield to stay in the game. (2) try to pick a strategy that has clear pnl and people can’t steal your credit as easily- that’s why when younger women ask me whether they should do public or private versions of an asset class, I always suggest public IF they have no preference. (3) sellside ER at reputable places are an overlooked path in terms of becoming MD. (4) you will face the up hill battle till you are pm and it doesn’t stop there, bc even there it involves a perceptions game. You can only really last if you truly love investing - the path is harder for women so those who are only lukewarm about the path likely gets washed out after PE sr associate level. If that’s the case, can always try cap markets / corp dev etc 

You should also network with a group of women in your investment strategy - generally, they can tell you which funds are good to join vs problematic 

Thanks for making this - helpful to get more clarity, especially given the other thread. For context, I'm currently an associate at a top MFPE program and the decision is slowly creeping on whether to exit to a SMHF (base case from previous cohorts), stay for the promotion (likely not attractive for reasons I won't get into), go downmarket into LMM/MMPE, or pivot towards something in AI/late-stage growth equity/crossover funds.

A few things I'd love your thoughts on.

1. How do you gain conviction in your own investment acumen/know when you're good enough to "hack it"? This is something everyone grapples with, but obviously skews harder for women given imposter syndrome and systemic barriers. I've done well in stock pitch competitions in college, get strong feedback in my current role, and feel that I know what "good investing" looks like, but I'm still unsure how to rate my own abilities. Generally I feel too risk-averse to make the jump to public markets without first building this conviction.
2. I was never in love with investing and am not someone who lives and breathes it - but I believe I can get there with enough effort. A) Let me know if that's a bad take. B) What daily systems/habits/resources would you recommend I incorporate into my routine to be able to live and breathe it?
3. Any thoughts on crossover funds/private vehicles in HFs (D1/Dragoneer/Altimeter/Addition)? Work-life balance, culture, etc. especially as a woman.
4. Why would you recommend making the jump to MM at the mid-senior level vs. right out of the gate? Know there is a bunch of debate on this (I've read some takes that investors who've cut their teeth in an SM environment have trouble adjusting to the MM risk model which is completely different). Don't think MM is really in the cards for me but would love to get your perspective either way
5. What degree of politics/gender bias have you personally experienced (or anecdotally heard about) in HFs? One reason I'm considering making the jump to publics is the whole idea of "meritocracy, eat what you kill" instead of the endless slog of politics, bureaucracy, general "boys club" environment that you get in PE. But that other thread made me realize it's not all green pastures in the publics world - especially in SMs, seems like a lot of it still comes down to a perception game...
6. Do you see this career path as long-term sustainable for women who want to have a family and generally not be a completely absentee parent? What do you see as your long-term trajectory (feel free to skip if too personal) and what have you seen happen with other senior women in the industry?
7. Most important/surprising lessons you've learned in terms of surviving this industry? Both as a woman and also just as a person?

Let me take your questions one by one:

1. I think that one is hard to say but at the beginning / first step after PE associate you are really looking to be a good analyst first, not a good investor yet. As to some pre cursors - do you generally feel like you are good at making decisions with facts to point to - like when there was uncertainty, you figured it out before the outcome happened 

2. I think this one is a harder question to answer - I think you will generally know if the process of investing is interesting to you. Passion is importantly in a public markets seat - the markets are too well covered for a career to work with out passion. You need to have both passion and discipline I think 

   
   
   Questions reproduced below :
   How do you gain conviction in your own investment acumen/know when you're good enough to "hack it"? This is something everyone grapples with, but obviously skews harder for women given imposter syndrome and systemic barriers. I've done well in stock pitch competitions in college, get strong feedback in my current role, and feel that I know what "good investing" looks like, but I'm still unsure how to rate my own abilities. Generally I feel too risk-averse to make the jump to public markets without first building this conviction.

3. I was never in love with investing and am not someone who lives and breathes it - but I believe I can get there with enough effort. A) Let me know if that's a bad take. B) What daily systems/habits/resources would you recommend I incorporate into my routine to be able to live and breathe it?

3. I’m not informed enough to answer that. Name’s James’ Bond, can reasonably assume I came from the FICC world :)

4. SM and MM are different risk models, true. I think MM is generally more volatile though . No one is a great investor from day one. For a young investor who’s a woman, you are learning to be a good investor while fighting a perception battle that we discussed above. Everyone needs a few years to become a solid investor. During those period, ideally you are not switching jobs all the time. It’s like a baby animal - if they have a solid/stable environment when they are young and vulnerable, they are more likely to survive. If you build yourself up as a good investor through this period of stability, you can fend for yourself better in a higher vol environment after you’ve grown hardened enough 

Questions reproduced below:

Any thoughts on crossover funds/private vehicles in HFs (D1/Dragoneer/Altimeter/Addition)? Work-life balance, culture, etc. especially as a woman.

1. Why would you recommend making the jump to MM at the mid-senior level vs. right out of the gate? Know there is a bunch of debate on this (I've read some takes that investors who've cut their teeth in an SM environment have trouble adjusting to the MM risk model which is completely different). Don't think MM is really in the cards for me but would love to get your perspective either way

Q- What degree of politics/gender bias have you personally experienced (or anecdotally heard about) in HFs? One reason I'm considering making the jump to publics is the whole idea of "meritocracy, eat what you kill" instead of the endless slog of politics, bureaucracy, general "boys club" environment that you get in PE. But that other thread made me realize it's not all green pastures in the publics world - especially in SMs, seems like a lot of it still comes down to a perception game...

A- I would say politics is different from gender bias. Politics is a skill one needs to master to command AUM / become senior in almost any job. Gender bias can be mitigated to some extent but ultimately is not controlled by you. I think I have decent political skill but I’m not a political animal - I use it to reach my goal, but don’t get obsessed with it. That’s a learnable skill over 2-3 years. Just observe how the more politically savvy people at your job do it and understand the mechanics and the why. Gender bias is different in my opinion. I would say I experienced a decent amount of that, so have my peers in the same “vintage”. Beyond a certain age, you’ll start to find that 50%+ of your female friends have consulted with / used a gender discrimination/ employment lawyer. 

I think publics is better than pure privates in terms of gender discrimination, but it’s not a 0%. The reason is that your PM is still a human not an AI… in publics, gender discrimination looks like this - you can have the best pnl and still many of your male coworkers will put in man made barriers to slow you down - be it gossips, back stabbing, harrasment, lying, I’ve experienced all of that. A successful man will attract much less hate from peers than a successful woman, and it’s up to you to navigate it. A guy who consistently loses money may still be given a second chance - I’ve found that even in public’s, when a guy failed people are prone to find excuses for him. Whereas the opposite exists for woman - when a woman succeeds, people will automatically start to find reasons why this is a coincident / just luck. 

In one of my years I manned the largest sectors for my fund with great pnl - one of my peers told me and others all I do is pick strategic sectors and don’t know anything aside from that / am not old enough to be a senior analyst. That’s what bias look like on the public’s side - we have underperforming men that he is never paying attention to. I needed to expend my own energy to fight for what I deserve and even then guys are always happy to discredit you, esp those who lack skills and are insecure. 

Anecdotally I’ve found that Jewish guys and guys from minority back grounds to be less biased than wasps, but I don’t have science to back this up

Q-Do you see this career path as long-term sustainable for women who want to have a family and generally not be a completely absentee parent? What do you see as your long-term trajectory (feel free to skip if too personal) and what have you seen happen with other senior women in the industry?

A- I have seen it happen but you need to start thinking about how to plan your career paths and pick the right partner. I plan to be a good parent - happen to be product of absent parents myself so don’t want to do the same. You need to pick your companies/ plan your tenure carefully and find a partner who truly likes you as a human being, not just a tool to enable a life style for him. The better you are at your job and the earlier you know what you want to do, and the more pedigreed your CV, the better you can optimize for your life. 

Q- Most important/surprising lessons you've learned in terms of surviving this industry? Both as a woman and also just as a person?

A- this is a great question and one always worth thinking about. I think the following are a few that I care about 

1) learn for the sake of learning- some people try to learn enough to make money in the market, that will almost never work. It’s like trying to study just enough to cover the questions that might come up on an exam 

2) know what you are great at and lean into that. Fix your weakness so it’s not stopping you but it will never become your strength 

3) ability and skills are what gives you the option of being kind. If you can’t win, you can’t choose. My goal is to be both great at my job and a good person, but without ability you simply won’t survive, much less being able to choose how you survive

4) when a bird shits on you, don’t waste time chase the bird, bc it might shit on you again. - this is for women when they encounter assholes - document and hire a good lawyer but don’t waste your heart and soul on it too much

5) there is no free lunch in this world when it comes to investing. Every thing is paid for, you just may or may not know it yet 

Hi, thanks for doing this. Disregard title, I'm analyst at top credit shop (primarily private with some public distressed sprinkled in). Still deciding whether I want to go into HF recruiting. I have spoken to a couple people, analysts/PM's, all men. 

Was hoping to get your perspective on a couple things:

1. Previous comment; regarding your response re: conviction/investor mindset. The shop I'm at trains strong fundamentals and business acumen. What skillsets/experiences bridge the analyst --> investor mindset? I wanted to get your viewpoint on how much can be learned vs. a "risk-aversion ceiling" stopping me from making necessary decisions and judgement calls.
2. In your experience, how do women balance parenting and career in HF? The PM's I've spoken to have young children but had a strong PnL in place before having kids so they weren't fighting for their career and parenting at the same time (+ had supportive wife who is predominant caretaker). If I have offers for a analyst role at a SM or MM at age ~27 and options for a more relaxed route (corp dev/allocator/endowment), what are some major factors you'd weigh before deciding? 

Not sure why my comments are deleted by mod…

Hi, could you share some great resources for people to keep in touch with markets/ investing. Use the usual FT, WSJ but any nicher recommendations will be appreciated! Thanks in advance

Hey you sound like someone who I have worked with before in person as colleagues and the like. Just popping in to say thanks for doing this and good luck with your stuff. Or as my 1st year female banking staffer told me “keep doing what you’re doing” best wishes 

🫡🙂🙏🏼🙂

Not a woman but curious how women in high finance in general view men in the industry? Do these women seek to date/marry men in the same field or do you guys tend to prefer men outside of the industry?

Q- Previous comment; regarding your response re: conviction/investor mindset. The shop I'm at trains strong fundamentals and business acumen. What skillsets/experiences bridge the analyst --> investor mindset? I wanted to get your viewpoint on how much can be learned vs. a "risk-aversion ceiling" stopping me from making necessary decisions and judgement calls.

A- I think you are probably counting yourself short here. The worst risk takers are the ones who don’t think they can lose money. While there are no right answers and this is more like art than science, one thing that helps is to think probabilistically and know what’s the downside. The up / down ratio so to speak, and how much control you have of catalysts. I actually think it’s harder to form conviction on what’s happening with a business and what might happen next. I think reading history about the business or industry is helpful. In addition , personally I like to monitor my projections a few quarters to see where my projections differ from actual before I put something on. Not all firms can do that from an investment style perspective but I think it’s helpful to me. 

Q- In your experience, how do women balance parenting and career in HF? The PM's I've spoken to have young children but had a strong PnL in place before having kids so they weren't fighting for their career and parenting at the same time (+ had supportive wife who is predominant caretaker). If I have offers for a analyst role at a SM or MM at age ~27 and options for a more relaxed route (corp dev/allocator/endowment), what are some major factors you'd weigh before deciding? 

A- to be honest, I think it’s very hard. You probably need to have some good will at your firm (goodwill = pnl) before you can do that, is my realistic answer regardless of what the law says. I’ve seen people do it in a variety of way, including: rich spouse/ combined income with a lot of help; grandparents stay with the couple; be at a startup fund where each person is too indispensable (but this can back fire if they just fire you and get someone new to avoid the hassle); be at a fund with good culture (rare); have spouses that have wfh arrangements (tech, entrepreneurship, etc).  

What you must understand is that at most funds, HR is not your friend. Don’t let them know until you have to. 

Q- could you share some great resources for people to keep in touch with markets/ investing. Use the usual FT, WSJ but any nicher recommendations will be appreciated! Thanks in advance

A- I like pari passu newsletter and many firms cover it in continued education. I also like some niche substacks for my industry - I can’t mention what they are as it can be identifying, but I use X / twitter to source key opinion leaders I like and then I find their sub stacks to read. Investor letters of funds you gravitate toward (to the extent they publish) are also good. Some all weather investment firms with good contents - Blackstone, Apollo, Ruane cuniff. Less source able ones - h&f, new mountain. This is a matter of taste though, to each their own 

Lily is that u

Q-Not a woman but curious how women in high finance in general view men in the industry? Do these women seek to date/marry men in the same field or do you guys tend to prefer men outside of the industry?

A- this is not an unreasonable question for a young person to worry about (your profile lists you as intern). But the more important question that underlies all of that is how does a woman (or a man) related to their careers when they work in “high finance”. I always chuckle at this term as “high finance” is really not as high as people think - AI folks, business owners, doctors etc can make much more esp these days. 

How does a man or a woman relate to their jobs in this industry? You asked about woman so I’ll opine on that first. Everyone is different. Some believe career is a part of their identity but not all , then whether they date someone within this industry is completely unaffected. Some take it as a more all-encompassing part of their identity, then they sometimes prefer someone who can be richer/ better/ more suitable. It’s hard to generalize but if you want to understand how someone might be approaching this, you should first understand how they relate to their jobs, how you want to relate to your jobs, and most importantly how you want to relate to your partner 

Also, there are some funds that one should just structurally avoid - happy to expand on how to sift through funds later 

Do you feel like your paid commiserate with your peers at your firm? With others in the industry?   Do you feel that its harder to get names in the book under your portfolio manager versus peers? Do you think you are at a firm with a supportive culture?

No related to gender, but curious how did you go about expanding your coverage? I currently work under a senior analyst who is a great guy that I learn a ton from, but I am coming to believe that I am never going to cover his sector as long as he stays at the firm (I think he will and I hope he will). Sounds like you were in a similar spot and broke out.

I will also write a reply on how to assess fund quality / longevity in general, overlaying some aspects specific to females but can be used for all 

Three quick questions - 

1. In my junior year of college right now going into RX banking. Goal is to hopefully work at SM or MM one day with a flexible mandate. Saw that you suggested learning about businesses in PE a dying industry? Scared that by the time I finish my 2 year stint the following 2 years are gonna be barren. Would you think it's better to pursue PE or HF straight out of undergrad at some place or take it slow and easy to get as much knowledge exposure as possible?
2. Were you always passionate about the markets? I don't find myself obsessing over it like the guys at my school do constantly doing pitch competitions, following things on X, and always obsessed with some stock at any given time. Obviously I plan on spending a lot of time dedicating myself to my career but I also am not obsessed and have other interests outside of work that I would like to spend more time on. Is that even possible in this type of career?
3. Are you scared of AI taking your job? Things like Hebbia and what not these days can do deep research. I find it hard to believe that there will be so many analysts and funds out there in the upcoming years....any advice? Any other careers I should be considering?

How to assess fund quality:

Here is a post on how to assess fund quality for both men / women, assuming that your goal is to become a good investor. You can have many jobs in this industry with the "investor" title, but some of them don't entail actual investing any more other than putting stuff into a fund structure and sell them.

For example, I would call many funds in the market (across industries) "beta wrappers" - these are funds, across strategies, that have no intention of really understanding the underlying investment b/c the goal is really to be "not bad enough" to keep selling it. They are offering their clients a way to access a market, and instead of trying to generate real risk adjusted return, they will try to make the outcome numbers look good enough through: where they mark assets (if private), allocating to beta, become a ETF like strategy, taking leverage. These are valid as well, but in general, investment professionals in "beta wrapper" funds have very limited professional leverage, as these instruments have long become more of a distribution play (this is a generalization, but largely true).

A career as an investment professional requires political skills and investment skills. In "beta wrapper" strategies, investment skills are not useful. 

You may ask - how can I tell what's a "beta wrapper"? Am I safe if I choose to go to a "hedge fund"? Well, unfortunately, many "hedge funds" are actually beta wrappers too. Take the following illustrative examples:

• A "hf" charges 2/20, and basically hires pretty poor analysts who can only react to / execute on others' ideas. There's no alpha - they are just buying tech index, CCC index, whatever index, trading desk index, etc. - Is this a viable strategy on which to run a continuous business?
  • You would be surprised, but it actually is
  • The reason is as follows - in HF world, esp many funds that allow private instruments, your mark is controlled by you. A firm can have an actual realizable return of x%, but easily show projected / marked return of 2X%.
  • That, combined with footnotes that discuss certain inclusions / exclusions / methods that all are technically compliant, but highly selected, makes it very easy to "juice" returns by a good amount
  • Hence, for many LPs who have options, over time, they will only start to trust DPI / actual return of capital
  • However, you are unlikely to be able to access this number. A fund might tell you during recruiting / marketing that their return is 2X, where as their LP is seeing x%. Better funds will actually be more realistic in their marks, hence, from the outside, you will not really be able to tell the difference when you recruit especially if you are young
  • That being said, it is still a viable strategy to run a business on poor actual returns, because (1) there are many small LPs (even institutional ones) who don't have great knowledge / access to market to begin with. Some rely on small consultants who can be persuaded by "relationships", (2) LPs are sticky by their career design - do you want to go against your own recommendation to invest in Fund 2 if you recommended to invest in Fund 1 yourself 2 years ago? (3) you can make a sustainable medium sized fund (let's say 1bn) by continuously keeping 60-70% of your previous capital (re-up rate), while replenish the next 30% with the next group of "small LPs". It would just require a lot of new blood in the IR / consultant / LP pipeline on a constant basis, (4) LPs themselves have job turnover; if you have 1-2 bad vintages, you can technically rename your fund and start a new one (while doing basically the same things but describe them differently)

So, how can you tell, if you are an associate / VP looking for your next role, whether a fund is actually good or not? Here are some methods:

• Golden rules (always do this):
  • Do not believe marketed numbers, esp. those with footnotes on how its calculated. IRRs are simple cash flow calculations - any footnote is pure window dressing
  • Get a few friends who have access to Pitchbook and look at real actualized returns of previous vintages
  • Make a few friends in LP world, ask them what numbers they see (be nice to your IB friends who want to stay in finance but don't want to work intense hours!)
• Observational rules - a fund that's a "beta wrapper" will almost always display the following symptoms; you as a "doctor" can fairly easily detect the underlying issue if you see the following
  • Where do their previous senior people go, if they left the firm?
    • Beta wrapper funds - their senior people almost always don't work out after they leave current role. These exists would include - MD at much smaller places, family offices, odd exists (become a sales, advisor, etc.).
      • At a senior level, things sometimes don't work out and that's not uncommon. Politics, environment, lots of things can change. But, PM / MDs from real funds (not beta wrappers) can usually land at a better place / equal place. For eg - Ted Goldthorpe (might be getting his name wrong) was at APO when they got wiped by the energy crisis in 2015, but he's now leading BC Partners, which is an equal switch. Tons of exits from GSO are now leading / launching great funds.
      • By contrast, just using the power of Linkedin and ChatGPT and WSO, you can easily find the last 3 head of [xyz strategy] at fund abc and see where they land - many are now running random family offices or some unheard of advisory firms
      • This is because at beta wrapper funds, even if a senior person was successful there, their funds' underlying product return is often weak, and those can be checked when it's about landing the next PM job. Although in their existing seat, they can claim great marketed return, a fund looking to hire a next PM will obviously have access to real, long-term, multi-vintage returns. And at a beta wrapper fund, no matter how much they market themselves,  the realized numbers can't lie and nor can the fate of their senior folks (don't use projected numbers...)
    • Pay significantly below street
      • You can only underpay people if you don't need to generate better risk adjusted returns. Self explanatory in this bullet. Just because you pay more, doesn't mean your people are good. But if you pay much worse, then your people are definitely not good
    • Frequent blow ups
      • Beta wrappers across investment strategies still need to generate commiserate returns to their strategies; so how do they do that?
      • Recall that good investments are above market risk adjusted returns....so beta wrapper funds that can't find these opportunities (or can't find them early enough) will often need to just take more risk. And that's why blow ups happen - because you are taking the wrong risk and you are taking risk to juice up returns
    • Stagnant / lower AUMs
      • If a firm has only grown at LSD % in the last few years (below inflation..), it is probably a beta wrapper fund.
      • As discussed, LPs are sticky by design. A growth of only LSD % (or lower some times) means that their re-up rate is probably quite low - in general, a reup of 80% or lower is considered quite bad. New investors look at re-up rates too when they commit. So anyone who's losing a lot of existing LP AUMs despite how sticky they are by design are essentially bleeding market share and continuously replacing their AUM base with new entries who will be lost again in the future
      • If a fund was actually delivering, growth should be much higher
      • Be very wary of how funds define AUM - sometimes, they define AUM without SMA in earlier vintages, but define AUM with SMAs in later vintages, causing an artificial growth that didn't exist - always read the footnote! The good thing is, as a regulated industry, most things are footnoted so you just need to be diligent yourself
    • Significant turn over in IR - gotta bring in the new pipelines!
      • You know you can find these information on LinkedIn? I use it as a diligence tool for investment too!
    • High turnover in investment professionals - guess don't really matter who types the memo (AI can probably do it) if all it's doing is recreating someone else's idea from some place
    • Frequent rename of funds / broken vintage years
      • If a fund is known to have been involved in (I'm making this up) software small caps for 30 years, but only shows 2 funds under current strategy name that have existed for last 5 years, that is a red flag. It usually (almost always) means they had other underperforming vintages / funds during the years you are not seeing, that are just underperforming and they've discontinued them
      • A good fund will generally have continuous ticker - they will keep the same name and just update the number at the end. A fund gaming the system to hide bad vintages will frequently rename itself. Ever notice how many funds don't seem to have a corresponding vintage during the energy crisis era in 2015-2016 despite having been there for way longer than that? Hmmm...
    • Change in strategy that requires different infrastructures
      • Generalist PE to software, public to private, to name a few
      • These things don't work unless the most senior person on the team is no longer there and replaced by a new person who is good at it. These advantages take decades to build
      • If a fund is always pivoting strategies, it's because they've hit a ceiling on what they can do in their current lane, and need to expand; doesn't mean they will succeed; looking at precedents, would argue the opposite

And as to why it's important to avoid "beta wrapper" funds if you want to optimize your own career / life as an investor - do you really think they will pay you / treat you well if all it matters is distribution?

Answers to 3 questions below:

1. This one is hard to say without knowing you - your own risk appetite, personal maturity, etc.  My view is that, the first few years you can take it slower to build a good foundation. That being said, I mean "taking it slower" as in being at places with great learning intensity without trying to force solve for the highest pay. If you go from Rx to reputable PE to public markets, you are probably very well prepared, assuming the PE role is intellectually intense / prepares you well. I don't mean a job where you coast / have no real responsibility. I would go for the job you feel 90% prepared for, the last 10% is a stretch that keeps developing yourself
2. As a student I was more of a scientist / philosopher. I was not obsessed with markets but was always very interested in ideas. I too have hobbies outside of my work and personally I think they make me a more stable person - I don't panic at the first sign that something in my career might become difficult, which I see a lot of men do
3. I'm not scared of AI taking my job. As a senior analyst, if I were afraid of AI taking my job, I would already need to be afraid of my juniors taking my job too. I think they can take out the junior analyst job in a few years. I really love what I do so I have not considered other careers; if things don't work out, I know I can get paid decently well being a high end tutor or some equivalent service job catering to children of the uber rich (was approached in college to be the live-in big sister / tutor of a billionaire's kids....would've paid more than my 2nd investment job, lol, didn't take it).

Questions pasted:

1. In my junior year of college right now going into RX banking. Goal is to hopefully work at SM or MM one day with a flexible mandate. Saw that you suggested learning about businesses in PE a dying industry? Scared that by the time I finish my 2 year stint the following 2 years are gonna be barren. Would you think it's better to pursue PE or HF straight out of undergrad at some place or take it slow and easy to get as much knowledge exposure as possible?
2. Were you always passionate about the markets? I don't find myself obsessing over it like the guys at my school do constantly doing pitch competitions, following things on X, and always obsessed with some stock at any given time. Obviously I plan on spending a lot of time dedicating myself to my career but I also am not obsessed and have other interests outside of work that I would like to spend more time on. Is that even possible in this type of career?
3. Are you scared of AI taking your job? Things like Hebbia and what not these days can do deep research. I find it hard to believe that there will be so many analysts and funds out there in the upcoming years....any advice? Any other careers I should be considering?

I will keep this Q&A open for another 2 weeks and then I will go back to my real world :) Feel free to post questions before that.

Also, while I’m happy to discuss general career information- I would love to / prefer to address questions from women regarding gender- specific career questions. Thanks 

How have you been able to navigate dating? I fear many men think women in finance are ugly and too masculine (this is what i hear from my male friends) and they don't want to date other women in finance? Honestly I would prefer someone who makes more money than me or equal and has equal career success or else they would probably have an inferiority complex of some sort. Any advice/what's your experience been like?

A - I haven't had problems in dating. If I were to optimize my spouse selection for wealth / income, finance is probably only at the top 40% percentile but by no means the top industry choices. There are simply many more jobs / backgrounds that are more attractive from that perspective. Since I don't consider that pool a uniquely attractive spouse selection pool, I have not wondered about how they in particular would think about women. If you thought finance was the best path for wealth creation - you aren't bad at dating, you are bad at math.

Q-

How do you manage relationships with male colleagues who are provoked by your intelligence to prevent them from engaging in politics against you? I noticed that men have a bigger issue with very intelligent women relative to other colleagues. In personal relationships, I noticed that men tend to be more protective of less intelligent / capable women. On the trading floor, I noticed that men tend to push back hard and more publicly against more intelligent / capable women, and then call the women "abrasive" or "toxic". 

Building on the points around perception -in environments where idea discussions can be pretty direct, how did you learn to advocate for your views and challenge others early on in your career in a way that landed well and built credibility?

See post on how to identify good / bad funds below or DM with detailed questions 

A - You gotta be able to hurt them, and don't hesitate if that's what you need to do. That being said, always do it where it can't be seen and not in the open, obviously. I always believe the motto - don't scream, just kill.

This is something that you will definitely encounter as a woman in investing, esp. if your focus is public market. You need to have teeth for them to treat you with respect, or else some of them never will. What are things that are like electric fences that you can use to defend yourself (and fend of the wild dogs)? A few things - (1) a network of people (PMs, other investors) who want to listen to you / hear your opinions because you are good, (2) a network of peers at good funds that they (the guys who want to make your life difficult) presumably want to recruit to, (3) allocators / LPs (surprisingly, a lot of women who start out in investing end up going into the allocation route because of how hard it is for women to stay in the industry), (4) internal dynamics, (5) observe his own mistakes and control the choke points that can hurt him.

Some of the above are self explanatory, but let me add a bit more details to each in case helpful. On (1), if you command knowledge, you can generally command more value than some dude who' just insecure, (2) - somewhat self explanatory - if they know your best buddies work at fund A B C that he might potentially want to recruit at, he probably will hesitate before he shows his full asshole state. Many roles in investing have shadow references - it's up to me if I introduce you to the right people, and make it clear that unless you treat me with respect, it's only he who loses. Conversely, you should feel very free to use your social capital to ding those who are like that. I have definitely not extended interviews, not passed along job openings, hinted at the opposite direction of how to think about an investment, to those I know that have this issue. On surface, they think I'm polite, but I'm not helping them to survive as their survival creates a more toxic environment for women. (3) when allocators / LPs who are your friends come and ask about fund XYZ, if you've heard several women suing them from your own network, what do you think you will say to them? Few funds have solid enough record for the other words of mouth to have 0 impact. (4) self explanatory. (5) many men who are the biggest terrirozers of women do what they do because they are terrified. They are insecure because they are not good at their jobs. Make keen obsevations of what can hurt his career, as if his skills are the bottleneck there sure will be a lot of attackable areas - control the components that can impact his career negatively, use where you can't be seen, and he will learn to stay away from you too.

Q- How do you manage relationships with male colleagues who are provoked by your intelligence to prevent them from engaging in politics against you? I noticed that men have a bigger issue with very intelligent women relative to other colleagues. In personal relationships, I noticed that men tend to be more protective of less intelligent / capable women. On the trading floor, I noticed that men tend to push back hard and more publicly against more intelligent / capable women, and then call the women "abrasive" or "toxic". 

A- You can also be direct; direct doesn't mean tactless / rude though. I think your question is trying to address - how to be direct but also land well socially. If that's the case, I have an unconventional recommendation / short cut I've used myself - watch all the political TV shows you can find, and observe how the different female authoritive figures carry themselves / speak. None of them are trying to act like a guy (my personal opinion is that it doesn't work), but each of them use a combination of words and how they carry themselves to deliver authority. There are a few good characters you can observe in shows like Game of Thrones and West Wing, to name a few. It's hard to describe it accurately with words but if you see it, you can break it down into verbal / physical components and replicate where applicable.

Q- Building on the points around perception -in environments where idea discussions can be pretty direct, how did you learn to advocate for your views and challenge others early on in your career in a way that landed well and built credibility?