Would you quit your Hedge fund gig if your boss has emotional mood swings?
If you were an analyst working at a small fund under one PM at a typical L/S equity hedge fund, you were paid pretty good/hours were good and have the potential to get equity in the fund as You progress contingent on performance , but your boss was erratic and goes through cycles of mood swings because of the performance of the fund, what would you do? In good performance months, he's all happy, takes us out to dinner, etc. but in bad performance swings, he's yelling at his wife over the phone, he starts micro managing in what I'm doing, etc.
What would you do in this case? Just suck it up?
Probably suck it up. Always contingent on your ability to find a better situation though
Yep. The unfortunate reality is that the HFs are like every other gig - a lot of the people that make it into senior positions have no business actually managing people. One of the things I've learned over time is that you need to have a high tolerance for management incompetence and (in the HF business especially) childish/ egotistical behavior.
If you're getting paid well and otherwise enjoy the job I'd stay. In any case the most important thing is that you can't leave without guaranteed alternatives (another job locked up) in this nightmare market for Hf analysts.
I'm going to go against the grain here. The negative energy of people who can't control their emotions can seep into you and impact your soul + how you treat others in the future. Sure the money can be there but is it worth the price on your well being and character? There is something to be said about being able to deal with difficult personalities sure but really assess if that difficulty has something good to be taken away from it or not.
I've met more than my fair share of people who have left lucrative roles over toxic people and 90% never regret it because once they're out the rabbit hole they realize how much mental poison they were intaking.
Most HF's are offering monthly liquidity to investors which means that your fund is, in theory, only a month away from losing its AUM. One fund I worked at went from 3bn down to 700m in 3 months during the financial crisis. There is a huge amount of pressure to perform on a monthly basis these days which creates a huge amount of pressure on the PMs. I think this type of behavior is quite common in the industry and there are a lot of PMs who go through massive mood swings. One thing I have noticed is that PMs with big spending habits and who need the money tend to experience more volatile mood swings compared to PMs with less expensive lifestyles. Either way, if you enjoy the work and are getting paid well, I would just put up with it and accept it as part of the industry. Also, unless you've personally managed money professionally, you can't really judge these guys as you haven't been under the same pressure and don't know how you would react if in their shoes.