HF Distribution of outcomes - by mid-30s
Posting bc trying to think through the risk/reward of a HF career (specifically L/S) vs BB/EB IB and PE/private credit
For someone who is an IB analyst entering a $bn+ SM or traditional MM platform, what is the range of outcomes you have seen in their career by mid-30s or early 40s? It seems like there are huge variations and way more than PE.
Asking because you hear stories of people like Dan Sundheim becoming CIO of Viking by the early 30s, but way more stories of people moving from firm to firm, getting fired after 1-2 bad calls and never having a real career/skills by 30s, after which they are pushed out of the industry into a corporate or IR role when they could have been a VP/SVP at that corporate had they just gone there direct out of banking. Obviously the former case is a 0.00001% scenario, but does anyone have a range of success vs. non-success stories in HF and how that risk/reward compares to traditional IB/PE?
Range is as you mentioned - Unemployed to Billionaire. The modal outcome in your 30s (10 years in) is likely being a Senior Analyst at a SM with AUM in the $500M-$1B range making $1-2M in a good year and $200-400k in a down year. You’ve likely had a couple really good years, a couple of down years and years in between grinding over high water marks and are probably on your second or third HF by now. Not much upward mobility from this level and are contemplating staying or leaving to take a swing at a MM PM role.
On the MM side you likely will have gone through 2-4 MM seats at various levels of seniority and seen multiple blowups as an analyst while making $150-$700K and are at the PM level. You are probably on your second attempt after having two good years ($2-3M) as a PM at your first shop before hitting a drawdown limit and now are on a first year guarantee at your second (and final?) shot at being a PM.
If this all sounds scary to you, don’t worry! The perceived stability of PE is nothing but longer lockups on capital that was placed during an era of declining interest rates and rising equity values and future returns/stability/carry payouts will look nothing like the last decade. Asset classes are cyclical, HFs were amazing at the turn of the century and horrible for the last decade. PE/VC has been a free money tree for the last decade. Go with where you think you can make money because you will see both sides of it over the next 20 years.
I mostly agree with this, but I think your "modal outcome" is more like the 80th percentile - most people I know who started at a SM or MM are either out of buy side entirely or are hanging on by the skin of their teeth. 7 figure senior analyst is the dream job, not what you fail into
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This is actually one of the best comments I've ever seen on this site.
Would add also that there's varying levels of stability but boils down to the PM / senior level management. I've had friends at the analyst level survive < 12 months in the MM world as a direct result of their PM having 1-2 down quarters, but again are largely employable across that MM framework. Have written at lengths on the forum broadly about SM to MM or vice versa, but overall I think the highest outcome on a normal distribution curve by "mid-30's" is actually senior analyst (step below PM) at an MM. Comp-level these guys are pulling in somewhere in the $500k-1m, again on a normal distribution with slightly more guaranteed comp but arguably less stability... i.e. if you're on track for a $0 bonus you're probably already fired.
I would also echo that the bulk of MM's know the game and structure of this industry and so therefore you aren't "unemployable" by blowing out at any given MM. Boils more down to the "why" than anything I'd guess. I think the risk lately has been inevitably higher as stated by the anon comment above, but PE has yet to see a tumultuous down cycle so therefore it's useless to try and guesstimate the future of the broader asset management and investment industries to try to identify the right risk-adjusted career path.
I think the Sundheim's of the world are some of the more brilliant investors but even they may struggle through current environments. Of course the guy is wildly successful and in the upper echelon of the HF community, but to the last point think it ends up being what you actually want to be doing. Another thing to add at the senior MM levels (PM & probably senior analyst) is those guys get poached too from fund to fund quite frequently and can make an extra payday by doing so, couple $m guaranteed just for swapping seats. Risk-adjusted in HF careers I think the "best" or "most risk averse" seat in correspondence with comp would be senior analyst at an SM, quickly followed by senior analyst at MM. If you aren't the primary source of capital risk and there's one leg above you then inherently you can blame any poor performance on the PM, as brutal as that sounds.
Then traditional IB/PE is fine. Love the comments on PE but would just add to the IB side, nothing guaranteed there either. If you were an M&A banker thru the GFC you were at a pretty significant risk of being laid off (ex-FIG & RX groups perhaps). It's all a giant funnel to the top so largely you have a bigger tail risk of being a relative underperformer just about anywhere in the industry.
How common is it to return to an MM (albeit different pod, ofc)? For example, go from Millennium to P72 then back to Millennium?
This made me feel better lol. I'm early 30's and in that first bucket and generally feel like a failure
this is a spot on answer. extra points for the PE comments
For better or for worse, this is an industry where achieving a median outcome is (and should be) quite disappointing for the participants.
Everyone shoots for the top decile and the top decile is extremely and uncommonly rewarding, but the rest eventually drop out. At least most folks get at least a few shots on goal (whether MM or SM).
This. If you get a few shots on goal you are ahead of the pack. Most shots won't land of course.
Can anyone comment on the distribution of outcomes for the 15 or so L/S single managers with $10bn under mgmt, and how that range outcomes compares to other, “more stable” careers in finance? Correct me if I’m wrong, but there has to be a wide range of outcomes even among the best of the best funds?
Career MF PE vs Career L/S investor (SM)?
Feel like people mention this a lot. I think the previous consensus was top SM like a tiger cub > MF PE as team runs lean, higher comp for lesser experience, don’t need to wait around for carry as much, good returns. This this view is obviously stale and the HF model is less attractive for someone coming out of MF PE now imo. I’m not sure I’d give my left nut to work for some of these cubs anymore. Also not sure I’d give up all my brand equity from IB+MF to go to a dumb pod. It’s just a weird time in the HF industry.
agreed
will you give your right nut?
Already gave it to Moelis
Lot of ppl here saying most people leave the industry. Where do they go? Doubt the average person with 2 yrs of IB and 3-10 yrs of HF is too excited about a 2nd level corp dev job.
also interested
excited or not, if it's a choice between unemployment and $150k corp dev job, you'll take the job
Idk about that being the only option
Long only. Just hope you aren’t too old. But if you’re old and still surviving the HF industry, you’ll be fine
Corp dev, IR, if they had a good year along the way seems they like to start or join seemingly misguided startups or roll up pet stores cause they love pets or something
Yeah making 1mm/yr is not the modal outcome lol, it’s probably making 200-300 in a VERY wide range of things:
take an asset owner role (endowment/pension etc)
move into HF/long only sales
move into service provider sales
move into FOF
move into Corp dev in an industry you covered
move into data science/programming
move into risk management
Why would anyone move into a HF if that is the modal income? Just for the lottery ticket of being the next Dan Sundheim?
the average IB analyst is making $400k as an ASSOCIATE and had they just stayed in banking would be making $1mm as a SVP/director at the same age the HF analyst is washed out of industry. And more if they succeed in PE. How does it make any sense to go into HF?
Exactly. Can someone please explain the appeal of joining an HF (even big tiger Cubs post 2022)?
From a pure EV perspective, EV of a MF / UMM PE career is multiples of an HF one. I feel like there isn’t a single fund worth leaving thr PE partner track for, and if there is, please explain the logic for leaving PE (or even banking!!!!) for HF!
the average IB analyst washes out to one of these jobs too? just going to an IB, even a top group/bank, does not guarantee a 1mm/yr future. plenty of people decide they dont want to make the sacrifices it takes to get to that level, and plenty are washed out too. there are what, 1000+ IB analysts per year? you think they all make it to 1mm/yr?
but to be clear I was trying to provide a wide range of things people might do after a few years at a HF, rather than a specific modal outcome. probably a large number of people also stay in HF and grind it out for 2-500k as well
The job is a call option, it’s a all a moot point, cause you have to love it to do it well AND if you don’t overweight the bull case on yourself, why are you trying to beat the market?
On the flip side if you love it and can handle lifestyle volatility, don’t be discouraged. A lot of the people who leave really didn’t ‘get it’ in the first place and shouldn’t have been there in there first place or were just following “the path”. A larger bunch were ok, made fine money on average but just didn’t like it enough for the lack of visibility. It’s also possible to be totally capable and engaged and just step on successive landmines with where or who you work for, but a lot of the short career peers I know were either just following “the path” or didn’t really enjoy it or had no business being there. That said it will be interesting to see how the mkt shakeout progresses.
As for avoiding the sad times:
- Do your diligence on your PM and their LPs and the stability of such
- Avoid subscale funds. every fund says they’re raising. Ask about hurdle rate and fee structure
- Avoid “consultant role leading to full time” unless the fund is great enough and ex-consultants actually become full time or gone elsewhere great, without exceptions
- Discretionary bonus structure = disappointment and conflict, with very few exceptions. Work for a PM who is already rich and doesn’t have to choose between paying you and finally getting their vacation house or a fund that has a passthrough fees for bonus
- If you get netted, you’re not getting it back next year
- Don’t linger on sinking ship (unless the loyalty is really truly earned and rewarded with addl upside)
- Always be interviewing
What is netted referring to?
Meaning if you make money and the firm doesn’t and so you don’t get paid well bc “there wasn’t money to pay you” then you’re not getting a double bonus next year. It’s gone.
How does one diligence a PM? Have heard examples of PMs misrepresenting their political power inside a MM or the fundraising progress they’ve made at a SM. Seems difficult to diligence whether they’re psycho and or honest
Talk to anyone and everyone you can and then assess the answers. It’s like you would analyze a stock.
There are probably a few people who would tel you negative things about me but the vast majority would tell you to come work for me.
Some of your analysis can be just based on quantum of positive vs negative feedback and some can be on your judgement in assessing the quality of that feedback - who do you trust more and what is the likely shape of the distribution around the pm being a good or bad person, good or bad at being a PM, the firm’s reputation for hiring/firing, etc.
I agree 10000000000% with everything in here.
Why? What if you’re already in a good seat?
I don’t mean proactively search or answer every headhunter junk mail or waste time on case studies or whatever - but it’s prudent to know where you’d go if something happened tomorrow (your PM gets poached or hit by a bus, PM unexpectedly quits, big redemption - you’re fired).
These things happen - when they do it’s good to have an existing good impression w/ a person or two who would hire you in that scenario vs. scrambling from a position of desperation.
Also, if you don’t have equity you’re an employee not a partner - you should expect to be paid the minimum necessary to keep you (98% of cases, if you’ve ever been voluntary overpaid, congrats, disregard). Nothing wrong with this - a good investor doesn’t turn off their brain when it comes to opex. Highest comp is not always the best seat, but if the gap vs mkt comp gets too wide it’s useful for everyone to have a reference pt to provide, if needed. “Waaaaah but I did x, y, z gimme gimme” is more annoying and less poignant than “I could get x% elsewhere”.
1. The "modal" outcome described is more of a bull case and prob >80th percentile imo (you can prob count the number of scaled SMs and analysts vs. MMs etc.).
2. Anecdotal, but even big HFs are set up to make the top guys, not analysts, rich. Might you make a couple of sticks in a good year? Sure. But you're almost definitely not getting paid entrepreneurial money without taking entrepreneurial risk.
3. Anchor's post is pretty on-point.
4. For those asking why they should go into the HF biz over PE / IB, you prob shouldn't bc it's prob not a good fit. These are the types that flame out because were on the "path," lacked the talent etc. Yes, on base rates, the EV of a PE career is likely > HF. You gotta love the HF game and have a variant view. This biz is like pro sports, delicate, higher vol / stress and about the tail outcomes. It's about taking asymmetric risk.
This here is the right answer. People who leave IB/PE to move to hedge funds for the most part aren't thinking about average outcomes. They're thinking they'll be outperformers and since compensation is entirely linked to performance it will take care of itself if you're an outperformer. If you're thinking about average outcomes HF is probably not a good fit and you're better off staying in PE/IB since risk adjusted comp really is better at those places
Exactly, this is ridiculous exercise and even more ridiculous now that you see a tough year how much the industry gets crushed vs everyone thinking Tiger was holy before.
The personality and the role the job entails is much different than any other job. Comparing HF job to PE/IB/Tech makes no sense cause the personality this job fits really does not fit any of those, even PE is a very project/task-driven job (maybe not at the very senior levels) while HF is not that environment.
Want to echo this. People who have made it in HF world are truly passionate about whatever their strategy is and can't imagine themselves doing anything else. The person who went to prep school, Ivy, BB/EB, MF PE, etc... might or might not have that passion, but it's a very different game and not one you can win by checking boxes
Exactly this, especially Point 4.
People who make it in the HF world are so passionate about their job/strategy, whatever it is, that they couldn't imagine themselves happy doing anything. You have to be addicted to public markets to a huge extent.
Feel like I'm rephrasing the PM above, but if you have to ask if you should stick in MF PE or jump to a HF, that's normally becuase you're trying to optimize for EV and/or the median outcome, and hence, the answer is probably stick with MF PE. Cannot emphasize that enough. Precisely because the EV is worse, only do it if you have a true passion for it.
Would also say there are some smaller funds many people, even in MF PE, have never heard of, where you can crush it--think like $5bn ish AUM but good return profile and 10-20 IPs which is still really good economics. Because I know I'm going to get asked for names--Sachem Head, Junto, Cyrus, Abrams, Route One, Kirkoswald, across a variety of strategies. Read a comment on another post on WSO that echoed this point about smaller under the radar funds that focus on returns and not asset gathering--will find if I have time
(Whoever said above Tiger only has 30 IPs for their $90b AUM is full of crap--look for more than 2 min on LinkedIn. Very few funds--maybe only Tiger (pre-2022), Pershing, Lone Pine, Soroban have $1bn AUM / IP and that's an unrealistic threshold; I can't figure out why that gets thrown around on WSO other than it sounds nice.
MFPE is better risk-adjusted path than top SM HF. Have a friend who is a partner at top MFPE (e.g., KKR). He joined his current MFPE out of bschool and has spent the past 10+ years scaling the ladder at his fund. Over this time, he has been paid extremely well. But it wasn't until recently as a partner that he started receiving large, life-changing distributions from deals that he successfully led and exited. So if his career is representative of the typical partner path, it is long and extremely backend loaded. In contrast, at a HF, the career path is much flatter with a lot more optionality. This means that you can move into a senior, risk-taking role much faster than in MFPE. You can be in a position to make large, life-changing payouts in good years. So the difference between MFPE is that by the time you make partner (late 30s), that is when things are getting started in terms of true financial upside. However, at a top SM HF, if successful, this will come a lot earlier. But the reality is that, on top of fund risk, you will probably be above average -- nothing special -- at HF and will eke out a few good years here and there, in which case it is probably better to stay the course at MFPE.
What constitutes life changing distributions? Also at MFs, are sr guys paid in cash and stock (if public) + carry obviously?
Did it because I was an adrenaline junkie.
Did IB/PE when I was in college, that environment suffocated me, the bureaucratic pretentious environment I just couldn't handle.
Knew I can only do liquid strategies / public market at that point.
HFs I worked for blew up, yeah, happened. But I landed another HF gig every time after that.
I just happened to keep doing it.
I don't sleep well and have an itch if I know I am not exposed to any type of risk.
This resonates a lot. I'm too non-conformist to do these other jobs. This business rewards thoughtful non-conformity like few others.
Yeah, it's weirdly addictive somehow.
But like any other career, a lot of times I went through challenging phases (underperformance, etc.) and I just compared pitfalls of other careers vs HF, then shrug my shoulder, told myself 'pick your poison' and moved forward.
I feel the exact same way about IB. Unfortunately I am post MBA. I’d do about anything for a markets role.
I broke in post MBA. It's really hard but it's not impossible - I took significant risks and paycuts, and I was both very dedicated and very fortunate. Good luck.
You can break in post-MBA. HFs value raw intelligence, obviously pedigree is important as well, just not as much as IB/PE.
People with IB background mostly end up in L/S space, or Events (Merg Arb) or Distressed.
Would be a fun ride if you can stomach the job instability and the amount of risk required to be put on constantly.
The learning curve at first 1-2 years tend to be quite brutal.
Even a thrill seeker like me at 1st year of my career I had to say to myself that 'Hey this is much harder than I thought it would be'
Once past that and you will develop some sort of a grip on your own strat, then you will find yourself wake up every morning feeling quite powerful.
Haven't logged in or posted for years, but this one is particularly salient. I started at a single manager fund at 22 and have been at the same fund for 12 years.
-Of my 10-15 friends that started in banking, only 2 are still investment bankers. They generally hated their lives in their 20s, but work/life balance is better now. They have rolodexes and are making $800K - $2M a year based on firm/individual performance.
-5-6 guys are at PE firms that are not MM, but not megafunds. They are starting to get sizable carry checks and have visibility to really good, recurring carry checks. Honestly, PE has a very high comp ceiling with a fraction of the comp variability in the HF world.
-3-4 guys are "out the game", ie corporate development, consulting, or completely left the industry.
-The guys that did HFs had a mixed bag. To be candid, the distribution of outcomes is only going to get more bimodal. 15 years ago a lot of funds got 1/20, could raise capital, and they overhead wasn't brutal. Today, the very best firms charge 2/20 or have passthroughs (Millenium, Citadel), while other firms do goofy consultant driven fee schemes in a hope to draw assets (ie 0 and 30, 1 or 30, etc).
For all of the banking analysts on here, I'd highly recommend going to the best PE firm possible. The asset class has so many structural advantages over the HF space. Sticky capital, no mark to market, and long duration leverage are cumulatively worth so much more than even the best fundamental analysis.
For people that are wholeheartedly set on being public market equity investors, I think there are only two really good options.
-Be the cliche kids that goes top banking group -> MF PE -> Top fund
-Find a really talented, niche manager that is committed to keeping capital small and focused on performance. You'll make a lot less money the first 3-5 years, but long-term it can be really rewarding.
Could u share what kind of distributions in outcomes of the people that went the hedge fund route you've observed? Or even how your own position and role has changed within the fund over the years? You've been in the game for a very long time in an industry that's super meritocratic and cut throat about performance and therefore I assume you've done very well over the years. So I'm sure everyone here can benefit from your observations
What is your list of top PE funds
Not OP but would guess hybrid/value-oriented over growth-oriented, so perhaps SS/buyout at KKR/APO/BX rather than a place like WP
The really talented niche manager route is great for people (like me) who love the game and don't have immaculate resumes.
unrelated but do you still talk to these guys or have they mostly drifted to acquaintances over the years?
thanks for this, what is to be said about the younger folk who now have the opportunity to grow up in the industry and can start at a P72, Citadel? Is banking still the move for optionality if at the moment they are set on public equities?
After reading all the comments, it seems that ON AVRAGE, HF analysts make way/meaningfully less cash compared to their IB and PE counterparts ?
On AVERAGE most IB/PE juniors absolutely do not rise to the $1-2M+ MD roles, so keep that in mind for comparison. I would say IB is the easiest to make it to the top of the three, if anything just due to the fact that so many leave IB on the way up. Those in PE/HF are usually trying to grind up the ladder.
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