Has all the fruit been plucked?
I've been doing some serious thinking about the future of finance (and investment banking) these past few weeks.
My question is: has all the fruit been plucked?
It seems to me like finance twenty years ago must have been the place to be. There were some serious levels of innovation going on and most places strike me as having been very interesting places to work where nothing had really "been done before." Think, the first PE shops and HF were being set up and people were really pushing the limits of interesting deals.
Now though, it seems like finance has become a much more sterile industry where people are just milking the same cow as opposed to really looking to create new types of firms/deals. Additionally, part of me believes that increased scrutiny on the part of regulators and industry (some of it warranted and some unwarranted) will limit the future potential of the financial industry; in turn, leading to a decrease in employment and compensation.
Just trying to get some thoughts on what others are thinking, I've been a long time lurker but just a relatively fresh poster and I've come to tremendously respecting people's comments on this site.
I think you're right but there are still people out there getting some great gigs and great money, it's just much harder now. Like, for instance, you could go work on the exchange floor years ago and make money arbing in the pits and running orders but you can't do that now. Also the money you made right off the bat could be higher (think trader's assistants getting paid over 100 grand, some clerks and assorted junior traders making easily low 6 figures). Technology took a lot of the jobs away and, of course, centralized a lot of the money to less people. But, there are people out there trading making great money, it's just there's far fewer seats.
As for investment banking, I have no idea.
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