Is this industry too unstable if you have family members who depend on you financially?
Know its a weird question. I am currently in undergrad and have a strong HF internship under my belt, and will be interning at a private equity firm as well. I have a sibling who is severely disabled and requires care 24/7. Currently, my grandmother cares for him and once she is too old to or passes away my mom will prob retire from her job (earning low 6 figures). Once my mom is no longer able to care for him, I will be the one to.
I want to be making enough money to have a nice life for myself and for him as well, which is a small part of the reason I have pursued finance. I am currently conflicted between pursuing public markets or private markets. I fkn love public equities as we all do but I am worried that the industry is too unstable, especially at pod shops, if you have to support people other than yourself. I was wondering if anyone has been in a similar situation and could share any experiences.
Hi Intern in HF - EquityHedge, any of these threads helpful:
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You're welcome.
Bump
I thought for a while before answering this as it’s something i struggle with myself. It’s hard to think about my wife being nervous about me getting fired every day knowing I may go a year without a job and never find something that pays close to Mid-Level HF pay again. But at the end of the day, nobody feels bad for somebody who could make 10-20x+ the Median Income in a single year. I will say gets easier the further you go as your nest egg helps you sleep at night.
Private markets and IB are a much safer path to financial independence. Theres not much else to say except for that. I feel bad for you, because I have the same pressures with parents (and now a family) relying on me to provide. Its a burden im glad to bear, but I try to remind myself that it is my issue alone with the high stakes game of musical chairs I voluntarily chose to play. If you do go down this path, I wouldn’t go into detail about your job security or pay and be purposefully naive that your job security is better than it is and your pay is worse. I didnt share much with my wife until we were married, and she quickly learned that your never as rich as you think you are in good years and never as poor as you feel you are in bad years. I didn’t lie, but she may have been better off if i did.
Im not going to talk you out of the public markets, good LOs and SMs can be lifelong seats and offer amazing upside. Best indicator of happiness = Average tenure of Analyst.
The industry has been beaten down for the last decade+ and PE has gotten drunk off the zero lower bound. Thats what has happened, not what will happen. Its up to you to find where your going to make the most money. Its always a Bull Market somewhere. Where will you be when its time to get paid?
Thanks for the reply. Do you have an opinion on SMs vs MMs when it comes to this? Of course SMs are seen as more stable-but there is a flip side to where someone who "leaves" a good SM seat has a lot of questions to answer, where its more understood that pods blow up all the time. How big is the gap in stability between the two compared to public vs private markets as a whole?
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