Is this a good time to invest in IB/PE skills?
Hello,
Senior in college heading to a BB to do coverage IB. With everything going on in the AI world (the thought of being replaced by agentic LLMs) and with better paying jobs in fields like quant/tech, I was wondering if it is wise to invest my time learning more about investing and becoming a finance hardo. It might sound like a stupid decision but do you think it's worth it to be a top 1% IB analyst / PE associate and whether if it will pay off long term. It's an open-ended question and I would love hear your thoughts!
Top 1%? Lol
?
Hard to define top 1%
The top 1% will always survive and thrive. But what's top is very subjective and situation dependent.
An overall your question is a bit all over - learning about investing won't make you a top 1% ib analyst for example or not necessarily
What do you even mean by "invest in becoming top 1 %" - you think learning modelling faster or spreading comps faster would make you top?
You play the hand you're dealt. If you see opportunity in ai, it's pointless unless you think you have an in there, and if you were the guy that had an in there, you wouldn't be asking these questions here anyhow.
I'm looking at the work we do and how repetitive it is especially in product groups. Of course it can be automated. No one knows how fast that will happen.
Good luck
Mate - regardless of whether AI or whatever seismic shifts changes our world, being the top 1% in any field will get you whatever you want... Pareto distribution, come on
Del
I blame the schools for the never ending misunderstanding of what jobs like IB / PE are like beyond the junior level.
An MD is not building a spreadsheet. A PE deal is closed with soft skills, not through generating prose.
AI will reduce the work load, and potentially total amount of juniors hired, but the funnel is needed for the next generation of seniors.
At the point where Goldman and KKR have been replaced by AI, we are living in a UBI world or in the WALL-E universe and it probably doesn’t matter if you spent your formative years in finance or as a SWE.
I welcome other perspectives on this.
It baffles me every single time...
FO finance jobs are sales jobs first and foremost. Too many people entering FO or "high finance" without appreciating that fact
In its current state, AI is much more dangerous to text heavy roles like lawyers — simply because you can do more with fewer people
The only impact AI has had on banking for me is the occasional drafting of something with chatgpt
Banks are slow to introduce new technologies largely due to regulatory oversight, RIA restrictions, and long sales cycles
Lawyers are quicker to implement emerging tech (albeit still not fast) because they’re smaller and private
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