Has finance culture become less “bougie”?
When I was an IB analyst/associate, so much of the talk around the junior bankers was focused on fancy restaurants (per se/le bernadin types), watches (rolex and eventually Pateks/APs), nice bags (for women or men buying for their GFs), Blades to hamptons, generally nice clothing/shoes (oxxford suits or Gucci loafers)
Now it feels like people don’t really GAF about that stuff, and would prefer a nice meal at a trendy Chinatown spot or shoes from allbirds instead. I much prefer that change, but I am not sure if that is just me and my friends as we age up and stop caring about appearances, or if generally finance has become less show-y due to WFH, covid, shift from NYC to SF/tech and their values as a center of power. Curious what everyone thinks here!
Think you're confusing some douchebag's fantasy of what finance is like vs. reality. No analyst is getting helicopters to the Hamptons.
Tbf if you look at OP's post history, this person has been on WSO since ~12 years ago, so probably referring to those days
Damn, that’s older than the average user base in this site.
- same guy on every watch thread saying he uses a timex or his phone Which are more accurate and he doesn’t see the need.
-If he were in finance he would then say what his MD wears and how MD makes 7 figures but just wears his Apple watch and is down to earth and a good person
OP you are right, the culture has become like every other middle class drone culture which is lame, the type of culture at corporations where people look at the clothes being worn by someone and scope out who got a new Honda Accord v6 while saying they should be more conservative with their money ...
What the fuck is this take
people in finance earn less than 10-15 years ago. its harder to live in nyc as an analyst/associate than it used to be. not enough money to blow on blades to hamptons and crockett and jones shoes when you are paying off student loans, paying absurdly high rent, and inflation adjusted salaries and BONUSES have not caught up to pre crisis levels.
Nothing wrong with this imo to live simply
subtlety is the new flex
Could not agree more. The biggest hunchos at my firm wear Apple Watches, Jeans, and Sneakers because that is actually what improves their productivity. It's usually the first year analysts and associates who haven't ever seen 5 figures in a checking account before who blow it all on a Rolex Sub for 3k over list.
3k over list? Where??? That would be considered a decent deal in today's crazy Rolex market!
Could this be a sign that we've gotten poorer?
Yes. Inflation is real despite what the CP lie and your prized "expert" economists like Paul Krugman would tell you. Salaries have not even been close to keeping track with inflation, so of course everyone's real salaries have declined significantly over the last 10-20 years. The 2% inflation rate that we supposedly had over the last 10 years is pure doctored fantasy. Government has many reasons to understate and rig the inflation rates. It's all tRaNsItOrY though if you listen to JPow. Buckle up everybody. It's gonna be a bumpy ride. Do not have significant amounts of cash
This is the truth, there is a huge gap between billionaire fund manager and the average analyst, and this gap is growing wider within society as a whole. Just look at Ray Dalio and other billionaires who write at length about jumping ship to China. They are betting on China, are international citizens above all else, and have been pushing the narrative that the USA is a sinking ship for years now. There is a financial incentive for this.
I'm no ultranationalist or anything, but I do believe the USA is a very young nation that is undergoing growing pains. I believe there is a financial incentive from the international class of billionaires to disparage the strength of the US economy, just as there is a political incentive by financial bureaucrats in Washington to present the opposite. Maybe this narrative is being used to beat the drums of international war, to teach us to fear the rise of China and justify a military conflict.
So yes, the salaried Wall Street worker is not as wealthy as they once were. However, the Wall Street big business owner is richer than ever, and their wealth increases along with other institutions of old money. Maybe this extends to managing directors and c-suite employees, I cannot say. As wealth concentrates to the top, the road to becoming a "Wall Street baller" becomes narrower and more competitive.
tl;dr The rich get richer, everyone else suffers for it. Nothing is new under the sun.
Personally have found that a lot of the wealthiest friends I have work in early - mid-stage startups or tech sales roles
Those places/teams (some, not all) have a surprisingly more 'bougie' culture accordingly
Well that's depressing; after all, WE'RE the ones doing God's work.
Disclaimer: Not a grizzled finance vet lmao
I think this change is real, and a lot of the notes people have touched on here contribute (increasing nontarget population, relatively poorer income, tech culture shifting images of wealth, and not mentioned by anyone but many women increasingly value trendy popups/brunch places over Dorsia's) but really I believe it's a deeper change in how youth are approaching wealth. I think a lot of people have begun to wake up to the ideas that:
1. the life of MD's is fucking depressing - they seem like big bad BSD's but in reality a lot of them are emotionally crippled men addicted to money and caught cold with golden handcuffs. This extends to all the "promised land" jobs. You probably aren't going to make enough money to be somebody but you will end up having traded a significant chunk of your golden years - and for what? A nicer house? Only barely, and probably not relative to what your parents got. "The deal" doesn't seem so sweet and we can all see it, particularly in light of the GFC. These lives of ours are much more fragile than they seem, and our plans to be Ken Moelis aren't certain, even for the best of us. So then what? If the promised land of ultra-high income jobs isn't the way to go, what other option do we have? In the past there really wasn't anything - that was the trick they got you with. You got a taste of the high life, you got hooked, and you kept spending and spending to taste more, all the while lacking any meaningful wealth accumulation - the golden handcuffs are latched on.
2. Now, the perception and awareness has shifted, and "the promised land" isn't the only out. Investing culture is at all time highs among young people, and saving is hot. All these brokerage apps make investing and saving so visible, so preeminent in our daily lives, to a level it really wasn't in the past, particularly for 22-26 year olds. It only took a critical mass to move into saving significant amounts of their money to heavily deteriorate the social momentum that compelled junior bankers to spend their money in dumb, bougie ways. Yeah, we forego eating at bougie restaurants all the time (and for many of us implicitly acknowledge and accept that this will never come) but provide far greater levels of security for ourselves and ensure we're not captured in this life. We can move into far worse paying industries or even retire at an early age and not be caught up in this thing of ours until we're 50.
Once "the deal" promised by high salaries and even higher bonuses began to seem a lot worse than it did in the past, the floodgates were open. Attitudes began to shift and for all but the most psycho hardos, life seems more valuable than grinding out our 20's and 30's. Finance became the means to an end, rather than an end in itself, and from that point frugality and investing seems much more enticing.
My parents paid $60k for a beachfront house that is now worth over $1.2 million. They did it fresh out of college on a combined salary of $30k/year as a man in construction and an elementary school teacher. They paid for college with part-time jobs, and were able to afford a relatively new car off the bat. To live that same exact lifestyle means I will likely have to make a salary 10x what my parent's combined salary was.
Similar to you - my parents paid 200k for a house in 2000ish worth about $1m now. But that was only after my parents fucked around for the first 35 years of their lives - not taking school seriously, living in ski towns as a part-time chef and skiing in Park City before it became what it is today, hitch-hiking across the U.S. and picking up random jobs, etc. They were then able to live a higher quality of life in SF working in restaurants (not head chefs or anything) than I'm able to afford as an analyst in SF. Then ofc my dad stumbled into a job he by no means deserved, and was able to easily afford buying said house, raising kids, and subsidizing a stay-at-home mom situation.
I'm working in banking - pretty much as good as you can do coming out of college, and if I don't take a high-income trajectory like PE, instead opting for corp dev or the likes, it'll probably take me until around the same time as they were able to buy a house to get the equivalent place for myself. Hell, that might not even be enough. This is of course, despite not getting to slack off in school and spend the first 10 years of past-education living an amazing life around the country. Imagine this from the perspective of someone going into accounting post graduation, let alone from a banker like myself.
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Brands like gucci and chanel are not "bougie", it's what people without money think that people with money wear. Those brands are what lower/middle class people buy bc they think that it will make others view them as upper class. Flashy brands are just gaudy and its a quick way for me to immediately tell that someone is a cheeseball.
The word "bougie" itself is honestly cringe bc the term wasn't even widespread vernacular until recently
Edit: MS from the people who wear gaudy LV belts to their MBA accounting class. If you take issue with this comment you're likely who I'm describing
Why does everyone on here feel the need to be the mr money mustache fuck of the banking world
I would much rather prefer to use my money to invest in businesses, crypto, RE, ETC rather than fund a vacuous life of consumerism.
Finance is no longer the default career for intelligent and competent young graduates. Banking salaries have barely increased (if at all) compared to inflation since the GFC. HFs are shrinking, competition is fiercer, and comp is lower than it was 10-15 years ago.
In retrospect, big tech (Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, etc.), startups, and VC have been where all the real wealth has been generated in the past decade - especially as institutional investors have increasingly moved down the risk curve to illiquid private alternative investments.
Most of us are riding on a dream that ended 10-12 years ago and haven't realized it yet. I love my job and wouldn't trade it for anything in the world, but I'm honest enough to admit that the peak of this industry is well in the rearview mirror.
I hope this isn't a widespread change since I personally love watches and cars. Not from a desire for conspicuous consumption, but an interest in mechanics and horology. A lot of the guys I've worked with have also liked watches, so maybe your coworkers just aren't interested. Even though comp seems to have lagged since the GFC, bankers still make decent money compared to other similar options. If anyone could afford a nice watch in their 20s, it's bankers. Probably not a Rolex given how difficult they are to find now from an AD (another sign pointing to the popularity of luxury goods) but something tasteful like a JLC or Cartier. I could see the influence of the tech industry pushing people toward Apple watches, but that trend has been happening with everyone who never really cared about their watch in the first place.
Some other posters discussed this already but it's honestly depressing AF how fucked the housing market is and what it takes to achieve a "good" standard of living. You have to gun for these types of jobs so, so early now, graduate w/ potentially crippling debt. Buying a house alone and the prospect of raising a kid (forget about paying for college) is so effed.
Don't know who or what is to blame, if it's lack of regulation around college costs (shit's so bloated and at least at my alma mater costs annual all in $ is already like 40% higher than when I graduated 6 years ago), foreign / institutional housing investors (kinda eh on this one personally but it certainly makes headlines and certainly doesn't help housing prices), or what.
Honestly don't know how anybody survives off of anything that's not a minimum 6 figure salary in any major city and not be depressed AF about the future.
This is exactly why I decided to pursue a career path outside of a “top” city
I personally felt like I would be grinding away for years on end, with likely nothing or next to nothing to show for my work
The lifestyle I live in my my “tier 3 or 4” city as an A2A is probably comparable to a senior VP or a D in a large city. Am also able to sock away an absurd amount of money every year
Yep I used to work in the Midwest and really wish I had stayed. Followed my fiancée out to the Bay Area, so terrible. Got a big pay bump moving to PE but always felt like I was way, way poorer.
I will take working at a solid MM and killing it in a T3 city than slaving away at a BB scraping by in like NY or SF 10x out of 10.