Are the future Steve Schwarzman's of finance taking the GS -> KKR -> HBS route or are they being more entrepreneurial?
WSO makes it seem like the best and smartest people in finance land GS/PJT etc then go to top MF PEs etc. Obviously these guys are insanely smart and talented, but I also read that it's incredibly difficult to make it to the top in MF PE and similar places, and it's obviously a cookie cutter approach. Therefore my question is, are the future Steve Schwarzman's of our generation following that path? Or are they being more entrepreneurial and joining newer funds to grow with or targeting newer more exciting asset classes etc.
They take the route of top IB to Top PE, then make it to a senior role at a top PE shop and leave to start their own.
Lots of people from Goldman also leave it seems to start their own shop.
I mean Steve himself had this career path: DLJ -> HBS -> Partner at Lehman -> Start BX, which isnt too different from our classis IB -> PE -> MBA -> PE -> Your own fund path. Now if you look at people like David Rubenstein (Politics -> Law -> Carlyle) or Robert Smith (Industry -> MBA -> GS -> Vista), the career path becomes much more different from the traditional routes.
Yeah schwarzman may not have been the best example, I was looking at the backgrounds of a lot of PE/HF founders and they were decently untraditional like the two you mentioned.
Also I'm not too familiar with the finance scene 30-40 years ago. Was DLJ BB tier? I'd assume lehman was. Also see a lot of founders coming from Drexel, how were they viewed back then?
Drexel/DLJ is important Wall St. history. Read up on Michael Milken and his crew to understand this period of M&A. He's a major reason we have the jobs we do today.
I think one thing that often people forget is that a law degree back in the 80's was a much more general and strong degree than it is today. So when looking into different backgrounds today, remember that times have changed in terms of higher education.
True but these guys still pivoted from law firms into finance or starting their own fund
Congrats on PJT
Least obvious Goldman employee
😂
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