Q&A: PE Associate to MBA to HF Analyst

Lifetsyle:

• My days now start around 9, end sometime after 4 whenever I feel like, unless there's something time pressing (earnings / event reactions, specific analysis my PM wants, etc.). So maybe 9-4pm 2-3 times per week and then 2-3 nights where I log an additional 2-5 hours of work. I probably average 50 hours per week and more like 55-60 during earnings heavy weeks or when I'm trying to finish up a write up on an idea.
• Relative to a PE associate, this is a significant step back in hours. I probably averaged 9:30-9pm Monday-Thursday, 9:30-5pm Fridays, but would frequently see weeks of 9am-midnight+ with weekend work during periods when I was staffed across multiple priority deals. Relative to a post MBA PE role, I probably work a similar amount of hours but have a little more flexibility around hours.
• Generally, working at a concentrated hedge fund land means fewer blow ups than working in PE. Vacations and 3 day weekends are much easier to take, as I have better visibility into events that may transpire. I've never walked into work on a Monday expecting a relatively tame week just to have a partner push me to get a 10-20 pager done on a new deal that wasn't even on my radar the week prior. Now, the things that blow up my weeks are events (company specific news, M&A, financings, policy changes, sector wide news) but the "output" is usually just a bulleted email explaining any updates to my views and/or model so those events tend to just require a lot of reading and some back of the envelope analysis, not building a 3 statement model from scratch or learning a whole new sector.

MBA Decision:

• Life is very short. I thought I wouldn't get any other opportunities to unplug from your career, make new friends, and benefit from the perspective of new people. I think this benefit is hard to quantify but worth the opportunity cost of the lost 2 years of income, especially given the likelihood of making far more in my lifetime than I'll end up needing.
• MBAs enable you to "date around" which is crucial for the hedge fund world, which operate in a much more heterogenous fashion than PE funds. I would never join a hedge fund without some sort of trial period of reporting to the PM. The MBA program gave me 3 distinct periods to work for different PMs and get a sense of what's out there and how they differ.
• A hedge fund seat is not a hedge fund seat is not a hedge fund seat. Prior to B school, I had final round interviews for a $50mm startup fund with ~$250k total comp , a ~$400mm Carlson spinout where I'd be 1 of 4 analysts reporting to a PM on a relative value strategy, and a pod shop seat at one of Millenium / Citadel / Baly under a freshly promoted PM. In retrospect, these were all dog shit opportunities. MBA gave me significantly better at bats. Most of my friends pursuing HF roles out of my MBA program ended up at far better roles than any of the roles I was considering prior to MBA.