One of my clients observed that making the leap from college football to the NFL is like the difference between reaching base camp and the summit of Everest.
You might be in the same ball park, but the game is entirely different.
The same is true on Wall Street. You might make it through an internship, but with no near end in sight, FT is another gig entirely.
Read Young Money and you see that theme.
These young, eager, energetic winners in life systematically fray at the seams.
The boss is a jerk. The hours are horrendous. The stress, constant. It’s a hard job and many people who begin never see it through.
Those who do are marrying an abusive spouse. People might bitch and moan about how much top hedge fund managers get paid, but few people would want their life.
Every day your stomach moving with the market. Like being married to a bi-polar that loves you one day and hates you the next, you never know if today will end your marriage.
One horrendous trade and you could be done. A couple of years of bad trades and you could be done for good.
Every day living under that strain is hard. It breaks many of them. Those who truly win get rewarded ridiculously. Those who kindof win do pretty well too. Those who are average...
Well, they are like C list actors in Hollywood. Most of them you’ll never hear about, and most of them will struggle to make a good living.
Investment banking is a different trade, but not altogether different gig.
Long hours. Extraordinarily long hours. What sort of job requires you sit in the office all night?
Constant deadlines. Intense pressure. Everything has to be done yesterday, perfectly. It never is, being the constant reminder.
Deals blow up quickly and consume your weekends and sibling’s wedding. They blow up equally fast and months or even years of work can leave you with nothing more than perhaps a box of chocolates as a consolation prize.
It’s feast or famine. It’s win or lose. The deal business is a tough business. Those at the top make a name for themselves and a killing.
Most others are just trying to get a deal or two across the line to cover their kids private school tuition.
Wall Street is a tough business. It’s dog eat bone and bone crush dog’s head.
It’s hard. Every day is hard.
Yet every top college player wants to play professional football, and if you’re built for it Wall Street is a game you cant help but want to play.
It is hard…BUT IT’S WORTH IT!
About Geoff: A former investment banker at Goldman Sachs and investor at the Carlyle Group, Geoff Blades is an advisor to senior Wall Street executives, CEOs, and CFOs, on corporate and strategic matters as well as topics of personal and professional development.
"These young, eager, energetic winners in life systematically fray at the seams."
Stopped reading here. You fucking people need to get your heads out of your collective asses and realize that your value or worth as a person isn't tied to your job, city of residence or your bonus.
I appreciate the spirit of the article, but I cannot believe the propaganda of working so hard that you cannot have meaningful relationships with folks important to you - spouse, kids, family, etc.. - is something that actually makes sense to some people..
The author's perspective is really not the same as a college football player wanting to get in to the NFL.. the player loves the game itself and will continue to love it even after he retires or even if he does not make it into the NFL ... a WS person who is just in it for the money sounds exactly like the author (and every IBanker I have ever met in my life) - they literally hate their life. It is another thing if you enjoy financial analyses, etc. but that doesn't seem to be the case here..
all I see is propaganda trying to justify their life choices...
EDIT: one more thing.. the author does not really explain why exactly it is WORTH IT.. he has gone out of his way to stress on how painful and stressful it is but has literally not devoted one sentence to explaining why it is "WORTH IT"
He's just pimping out his brand, I could have sworn I read another post by him that was nothing more than a plug for some book or product he was shelling out.
Agreed, Blades does not even address what is so worth the WS grind aside from the assumption we should make that it is the money...
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