Help me understand the new generations…
I’ve been reading this forum for a while, and I came to the realization that I don’t understand the new ANL classes. I don’t know your motivations, your game-plan, and more broadly why joining this industry (especially given how much bitching I see on this forum).
I’m a 40 year old male. I’ve worked my ass off and probably will continue to work my ass off for another 10 productive years until I’m financially at the place where I want to be, the kids are out of my payroll, etc.
There were aspects of this job that I didn’t like when I was a junior (facetime, not controlling my calendar, some assholes I had to work for/with), and there are many aspects that I don’t like now either (politics, short-term focus on the next fee, lack of accountability when we miss deals, etc.). On the overall, I like this job more than many other jobs I know, and think it is better than some of my friends’ jobs. I feel lucky to be in this industry. And I enjoy life.
So if you are a summer intern, an incoming analyst, a full time analyst , etc. - I want to hear from you, your story, what you think about this job and the industry, etc.
Grew up middle class with a couple siblings. We were okay for money but never completely in the clear. Dad worked in a very cyclical industry and had some bad years. We always knew when money was tight. Very thankful for everything my parents provided but anytime they would make a comment about money I felt so bad. My overall goal is to get off his payroll as soon as possible.
After I Interned this past summer I was pleasantly surprised. I absolutely loved my group and generally was excited to learn. A lot of great mentors who I am excited to learn from for the next couple years. Originally, I was only concerned about money but my focus has shifted. Meet some great mentors, help others who come from smaller schools like I did and maintain relationships with close friends/family. Hope this provides some perspective.
Most of the people bitching about a career providing a 6 figure salary as a 22 year old are ungrateful. Either they grew up that way being sheltered in their bubble or they read too much sjw bullshit online about WLB, mental health, salary growth not catching up to inflation, meaning of life etc.
@ those throwing MS. Come at me.
I've served in the military, and just can't fathom why anyone would be complaining about making so much money sitting on a desk typing on a laptop in a nice office. Wow you work long hours, ok and? Not like you didn't know about it beforehand. You're stressed because of the passive aggressiveness? Your job doesn't provide you with meaning? Why the fuck would you try to find meaning in your life in a job. It's just a job. Find meaning in some other thing. It's your fault for making your job your identity. Everyone that did their fair time rolling around in actual trenches (hate when people that have never even held a shovel say they've been in the trenches working on deadline or something) will agree on how less stressful and well paying the roles actually are. Anyone complaining are ungrateful.
I feel the same way. I served active duty in USMC. My parents are immigrants who fled from the Cultural Revolution. So I get it.
Banking is a joke. Yeah the hours are long but you are literally a desk jockey. Who gives a shit. The dinners and Ubers home are comped and the office is climate controlled. You get paid an absolutely obscene amount of money. You are never in danger. You can turn into a fat slob and won't get fired, whereas the military actually has physical fitness standards.
And once you decide to leave there are a plethora of opportunities afterwards. It's a pretty good gig. People are soft, but people will always be soft.
Shit take lmao. You clearly must have forgotten what it was like to be in the military. Being in the army was easy as pie; probably easier than banking tbh. Yet people complained there too; it's the enlisted mans god-given right to bitch. Same here; same everywhere. Life's never perfect, there's always something to complain about.
Dude please stop with this military hardo bullshit, you're making all of us vets look bad. I honestly agree with a couple of your points, but this machoistic chest-puffing for being a vet is cringe af. We're fortunate to live in a country that honors and respects its veterans, but doesn't mean you should be an arrogant prick about it...
Ahh wouldn't be WSO without an intern giving out the most freezing cold take
8.8% YoY inflation is just what the woke liberals want you to think !!
Damn sjws and their fake news narrative that wage growth hasn’t even been close to matching GDP growth over the past 4+ decades
Not saying those aren't real. They're very real. But having the privilege of making 100k+ right out of college for doing mindless tasks in a sheltered office environment and still complaining is mind bogling to me.
I've served in the military and anyone with an average IQ that's served will be able to crush it at the sweatiest banks and groups. Yall are just whiny asf.
Intern.
“I’ve served in the military”?
Thank you for mentioning in back to back posts that you served in the military. I did too, btw, for 8 years, and would like to just highlight that you clearly are one of those veterans with a huge sense of entitlement because you decided to join the military. Funny to me that you criticize banking analysts for being entitled while yanking your own crank about your last job. Rest of us vets would prefer you please just shut the fuck up, nobody is impressed. Also, you're an intern, so please shut up twice.
Bro I made 70k base and 45k bonus in banking a decade ago. That's 150k inflation adjusted. If you take mean 5% (nominal) gdp growth that's 190k. I think analysts make that now so what are you bitching about? I didn't have any protected weekends you guys work less
I think you and other commenters on this thread come off as super insecure and jealous.. like yeah you served in the military and made no money, why are you holding up 100k for a graduate when that’s what they worked hard and sacrificed many aspects of their youth like it’s such a big deal.
And it also seems hypocritical to criticise those who want meaning from their jobs, when most who join the military do so for meaning (or are in such a desperate position that it would make sense you would berate 22 year olds who have worked their asses off and sacrificed to get into banking for wanting the best for their their circumstances).
Also almost everyone on WSO who wants to be a banker actually likes doing deals and like analysing companies. And they like it so much they don’t mind sacrificing long working hours. What they don’t like is assholes who create unnecessary bs work that doesn’t add value for the client and ruins weekends for no reason. You say get meaning outside of work, but how is anyone supposed to do that if they can’t even spare one or two evenings a week to spend with a partner or with a friend.
It really is people who get no joy out of life and have a slave mentality that make investment banking a worse place to work. Make your healthy colleagues look bad by eating too many assess for no good reason. Create try hard 40 page appendices with irrelevant analysis that ruins weekends and no one will ever read. Then become senior and hand the same shit back down to juniors and then wonder why all your brightest people leave to the buy side. Well no surprises the people who leave are the ones who really enjoy the work.
One thing that might be different with younger generations is our inherent distrust of corporations and large institutions. I’m 22-24 and some of my earlier memories are of the 08’ crisis.
While the last ten years have been relatively breezy with low rates, job switching has become more common culturally. Nobody wants to be a company man, and people are skeptical about the motives of the companies we work for.
One thing that accompanies this is the mindset that our current roles are always a stepping stone for whatever is next.
People want wealth, but don’t want to necessarily endure what your generation went through to accrue it. Some might say this is a lazy mindset, while others would argue that your generation failed to capture much of the value you provided to corporations in the early parts of your career.
One thing to add:
I think that growing up while seeing zucc and other young entrepreneurs strike it big taught us that success isn’t necessarily tied to age. While banking is certainly an apprenticeship, and part of being a successful MD is building a quality personal brand and network, I believe that many young analysts believe they could do the job at a younger age.
There is an absolute hellish grind to moving through the ranks, and much of the process work done at some of the younger levels appears to be busywork that doesn’t provide an opportunity to grow.
What his generation went through? It was multiples easier to build wealth for someone his age than it is for someone of ours. It’s not like there’s some laziness gene that started to materialize in recent generations only (although circumstances may have contributed to it .) Point being that the difficulty part is not a factor
Congrats on MD by 40.
Personally, I have no desire to travel that same path. IB is a miserable existence and doesn't deserve 20 years of my time (I value it too much). I could mindlessly drone my way to the VP level and have enough EQ to make it Director. I dislike how much of your identity that work becomes.
I joined IB to pick up the requisite skillset to become an operator and work for myself. I can't fathom the thought being someone else's errand boy for the rest of my life.
Some notes...
First, let's stop pretending that the grass is greener on the other side (i.e. entrepreneurship). You're 22 years old making six figures, getting bi-weekly paychecks without ever thinking twice about getting paid on time, in full. Which leads me to...
Good luck walking away from a stable/solid six figure salary AND taking on substantial personal liability just to make around the same (if that?) money. Business ownership isn't as sexy as standing around and giving other people orders-- you will be breaking fingernails, princess.
Oh and here's the best part; you can can quit IB and even the finance industry, but you can't quit or slack off (quiet quit) on your own business. I hear economic downturns and other "black swan" events are a bitch.
Sure you can make it BIG, but when you come from luxury/privilege, it's hard to walk away (and stay away) from certainty. Yeah, you can lose your job, but rarely does someone lose their entire career.
There's a reason why so many immigrants start a business; they come from nothing, have no opportunity cost and no career opportunities, period. That kind of hunger, ambition and hustle can't exist without those circumstances.
Source: parents are business owners, and looking for a buyer.
Just look around you, how life changed in 20 years and how IB changed meanwhile. That basically sums up the answer. Why work in a toxic and rigid environment in IB with same values as 20 years ago, when you can go work for one of these fancy new companies/startups that are more adapted to the new world/culture. Then people of 30+ years ask why the new generation Z bitch around to work in the same old values. Bitching is because the olds are rigid and not open to change, hard to adapt to changes. Not even discriminating you, because that's how life is, we will be in your place in 20 years, asking why generations born during COVID bitch around.
Peace.
Back in the day if you wanted to make a lot of money out of undergrad you had to go to Wall Street and eat shit. And you got paid a lot more than any other alternative at 22 years old to eat shit. Now we eat shit and see our tech friends make very similar money and not eat shit. Naturally, we don’t want to eat shit if we don’t get paid a premium for it.
Inflation is devouring the pay edge. 20 years ago, 150k was real money. 150k could buy you fancy watches and luxurious suits.150k for college new grad was unheard of and people would drop their jaws hearing it. One in a thousand jobs paid 150k. It was an absolute badge of honor marking the top 1% elite.
Nowadays, 150k is poverty line. It could barely afford rent and food in HCOL areas. Average Joe on the street are getting 150k offer. Even trade support at Jane Street get 150k base first year. And they just do trade reconciliations working 8-5.
College kids are playing cards with decks of 250k offers and they throw away 300k offers just for remote work. The world has changed.
People have never changed. The new generation are still greedy, ambitious, and money-chasing like the older generations were. But new generations have more leverage and bargain, that’s all.
That guy is talking out of his ass. Outside of trading, banking, hedge funds, private equity, and a select few tech roles, making over $150k straight out of undergrad is unheard of. I’d like to hear how much that guy makes - it seems everyone saying how easy it is to get these massive comp packages are never the ones receiving them.
The note about $150k being poverty in a HCOL is absolute nonsense. The amount of just straight trash posted on this site by people who aren’t even out of college yet is ridiculous
As a now PE associate - i'll bite on why i went into banking and why i left
I went into banking to learn from the best, to progress my financial skills including modelling, cover clients, and understand corporate transactions. I kinda knew it would suck as far as work-life balance but I was ready to live with that in order to grow. I had a really smart, detail-oriented director who i worked with directly - was a bit of a dick sometimes and an almost robotic stickler for detail but i respected him immensely as a professional and learned a lot from him.
Why did I leave banking? My director moved to another city meaning he was replaced with somebody who despite being more pleasant to work with, meant I would not grow or develop as quickly (didn't care about the details, just getting deals done). I realised I wanted to be on the investors side and the skills I was building were capping out and it would be better for me to develop outside of banking. Whilst I was happy to have a bad work-life balance, I think i underestimated heading into it how hard directors and managing directors worked. My naive view heading in was that being an analyst - VP would be tough, but once you became a director / MD your life became much easier. I realised quickly that if anything they worked constantly, were constantly contactable, didn't properly take holidays, and heading at home at six didn't mean they weren't working. I do not want to work 70 hour weeks when I am a father and I am happy to sacrifice in my long-term career to be there for my future children, and as such I could not see myself as an MD.
Just my view - i'm still working a lot in PE and working hard but i'm hoping that it will be part of the path to that golden career where i can provide for a family and yet attend soccer practice.
Immigrated at 9 and grew up in pretty much the hood (south Asian). Lived in one bedroom and stilling living in one bedroom with parents while going to college nearby (non target) was able to make it this past summer and got my return. Personally being in the condition I am in where my parents barely make anything in a HCOL I don’t have the room to bitch, I just have to work hard until I make a name for myself. I don’t mind the endless hours of doing PowerPoints or bullshit work because I have experienced worst stuff in my life so, in a sense I appreciate high finance/banking. Although I don’t mind the hours I would be upset if I had to deal with disrespectful people in the industry which I have yet to deal with. From my
Experience this summer there were interns who complained about the hours than than got the return is is deciding to come back to complain more….and all those people grew up in a very privileged household so From their perspective this job isn’t a necessity for them to progress in life where for me it is so I am willing to take the shit at the early end of my career
Grew up similar to you in very high crime areas where a lot of kids who I used to kick it with from my childhood are now wannabe gangbangers.
Would love to chat, but that’s the drive that got me through my summer and everything in life. Being surrounded by a lot of bums definitely gives you another type of boost to put in the work and do whatever it takes to be on the top.
I think a lot of people here are oblivious to what the majority of the country and even world live like. Yes, the hours sometimes fucking suck and VPs that give unnecessary tasks should be sent to the gulag, but we have to make the most of the opportunities given to us and keep grinding towards some goal(s)
I hear a lot of MDs say things like this. I have a lot of MDs at my firm that are always talking about "back when I was an analyst…". The reality is this - banking culture has not changed much. Analysts still get brutally worked to no end and the hierarchy is more concrete than ever. Yes, I am grateful for being able to make a great salary and the opportunity my parents gave me by raising 4 kids with middle class salaries in, let's be honest, virtually two serious economic breakdowns in less than 2 decades. That being said, working 80-100 hour work weeks months on end is not something to scoff at. There are only very particular people that can do that for an extended period and who believe that is worth the money.
I can't speak for others but, my knees and back bother me now, there are days that I probably only eat 500-800 calories (I'm 6ft, 170lb), weekends that I'm spending hours putting 70 page pitch decks together in which we end up using 10 pages of, etc., etc., etc. There is a lot of avoidable pain in this industry and I don't see anyone making an effort to lessen it. Just because you went through the pain we did doesn't make our pain any less. I am sure you complained and griped as well because most people would. Yes, you can say we're lucky for the opportunity, lucky to be able to provide, but that doesn't mean we can't complain. Everyone complains, that's just human nature.
I only joined this industry for the money and the ability to give myself the opportunity to be part of something more (whether a small startup, my own business, etc.). I don't have an interest in realigning PPT logos, turning models, and doing mindless industry research for an ungrateful shithead who has no respect for my time or frankly, his time either. This industry is an incredible stepping stone to many great things. Most times you have to go through pain to get to great things and that's a reality everyone in IB lives with. I am thankful for what this industry has given me, everyone involved in giving the opportunity to me but not quite as thankful for what the industry has done and will do to me. I can't exactly say it's been fun…
I'm 29 (millennial) and an As2, but going to bite here anywaysGrew up super middle class in the rust belt. Both of my parents had back office operational type roles at F500 companies and together made ~$100k per year.
They worked hard and me and my brothers never wanted for anything. A few small vacations a year (amusement parks, Florida type stuff). They also were pretty frugal and prioritized saving. They're your typical "millionaire next door type". Well off but not rich. I wanted to be rich.
Thriftiness and diligence were passed down to me. I have been working as much as possible and saving as much as possible ever since I was 14. One day when I was a teenager I stumbled across a compound interest calculator…typical financial advice tells most people stuff like "hey save $10k a year and you can retire when you're 60".
The concept of compounding hit me hard. I realized that sure, you can become a millionaire by saving a little bit each year over a long period of time….but I thought, what if I saved $100k/year? $200k/year? $300k/year?
After this epiphany I prioritized maximizing my personal FCF to investments. This is how I made every major decision in my life when I was young.
I lived at home and commuted to a state school for college
I worked Full Time through college in a back office job at a BB
All said and done I was able to graduate from UG at 22, no student loans and on top of that saved up $100k. With this alone I had already beat the game.
I wanted to keep the snowball rolling, so decided to pursue IB after graduation with the BB I was already at. IB was the perfect fit for me. With the skill set I have it would allow me (personally) to maximize my earnings at a young age. All other traditional high paying careers were not a fit for me and also not aligned with my skill set.
Anyways, it took a couple of years and I had to move to a new city and take a few different roles along the way, but I eventually slotted into a 1st year analyst spot in a product group when I was 25.
I've been with the group ~3.5 years now and have been top bucket every year. Current NW is just a smidge under $1mm. I like the group and plan to keep at it as long as I can. Now that I've built up a substantial net worth at a young age I've learned to be a little looser with the purse strings as well as compounding should do most of the work for me from here.
Exec Sum on why banking for me: I'm a pretty average middle class dude with a killer work ethic. Banking was my chance to get rich in my own relative terms. For me a life changing opportunity and I wouldn't change a thing, and I'm glad I've made the sacrifices that I have. I realize money doesn't motivate as many people as it used to, but it still motivates me. Even if I never invest a single dollar again I'm going to become a decamillionaire. There are no other paths that I am aware of or that were available to me that would allow me to do this.
it may be partially because of the ease of wealth creation we can see some people attain these days. social media wasn't 'a thing' 20 years ago, but seeing people your own age become multi millionaires doing 'fun' things on YouTube/tiktok/instagram without the 100hr workweek slog may have an affect on peoples perceptions. just a thought
In a world of side hustles, IG models, influencers and streamers, the attractiveness of working 90 hours a week, for $90K in after-tax income, isn't what it used to be.
Why the hell did I have to scroll down this far to find this. Your answer pretty much sums it all up. There's way too much overthinking going on above and just flat-out false claims trying to equate today's "110K base" or whatever with pre-GFC comp. Throw out 2020/2021 anomalies and look at this summer's normalized comp figures. Yes, analysts ARE underpaid especially when compared to the opportunity cost.
Too many people forget that while a regular 9-5 will pay less it opens the door to being able to work on any of the above side-hustles / businesses. You literally cannot do such a thing in banking. Even if you are in a "chill" group, you'll have compliance down your ass the moment you make any decent money elsewhere. The JOB is your life and the cope that VPs spew on this forum of "well, you're learning so much!" is ridiculous. What have I learned that's going to command a comparable salry outside of PE/HF? Serious question because I honestly don't know outside of formatting/being organized with time.
so you would be an IG model / influencer / streamer if you worked 9-5 instead of banking? I think people overestimate these side hustles due to how random success in there is.
I am an incoming analyst. I grew up living a comfortable middle-class lifestyle in the suburbs. Most of my friends are still living off their parents and the type to settle for a simple $60k/year engineering job. I knew I wanted more. Ended up going to a small state school and aspired to land at a MM firm close to home. My fate changed, and I did an SA stint in NYC. I basically fantasized the lifestyle and every day felt like a movie. Reality is the firm and group culture were extremely rough, lost 15 pounds. Lot of facetime and last-minute deadlines. My friends at other firms, had much better experiences. I did enjoy the team, network and exposure to high level deals. Another factor really was the status/influence. Got invited to parties, dinners, and met celebrities, simply off a SA title. I see IB as a life changing opportunity, that can lead to much more. Hope to get an MBA, become a PE boss, and eventually run for public office.
lol this MD should work at a ford factory - confusing bitching and whinning with wanting better work life balance and pay is nothing unique to this generation
Because I guarantee that it is worse now for analysts than when you were coming up. I am not sure you were analyst but if were not it would explain your comments. None the less, yes pay has come up but so have work expectations. I’ve spoken with very senior people (head of entire divisions in their 40s-50s) and not once when they were analysts did they have entire months without a single day of rest. They never stayed awake for 72 hours straight with assholes breathing down their necks. Yes I know some mid to late 30s bankers who were analysts from 05-09 that and had an even tougher go of it but they are also leaving in droves now.
The people make this job. One set of MDs / VPs I work for respect me and the work I do and never once have I ever complained seriously or considered quitting while working for them. They other set of MDs VPs are incompetent, yell at me for their mistakes, were never analysts so offer ridiculous timelines to the client without asking us how long it will take, make us sit in on 8-9 hours of a calls a day and then get angry when work wasn’t progressed quickly during that time, refuse to provide mark ups and expect us to read their minds and laugh at us when we do not give them exactly what they want and simply say “try again.” They will keep us awake for 48-72 hours straight when they go to sleep at 10pm then get angry when our attention to detail deteriorates with 3 hours of sleep the entire week. I already have a PE job lined up because I actually thoroughly enjoy investing and hate all the backing into the clients numbers and telling the client exactly what they want to hear even if they are wrong that happens in investment banking. I hate being wrong when I know the right answer. Even if I didn’t have a PE job lined up I would still be looking to leave because the people above me make my life hell.
Also understand that if you are really expecting to hire the best you are competing with hedge funds, private equity firms, and large technology companies that arguably offer better comp and better lifestyles.
Your generation had the benefit of a rising tide. We do not. Basically unless someone in your generation majorly fucked up, despite all the abuse and hours, you were still going to get promoted and comped properly.
That wasn't the case until the pandemic + tech hiring away alot of junior talent.
I graduated in 2015 and until the pandemic, UK analyst bases barely moved.
Also, money went a much longer way during your generation. Especially wrt primary home, and you could put some of that bonus down to investment properties. No such luck for us.
If banks want to make a change, maybe grow junior salaries past 2008 levels and axe unproductive MDs (who ironically create the most bullshit work)? Oh wait, it took a global pandemic and labour rebellion 14 years later to do that.
I can understand many of the points you raise. I could have a list of examples on how those issues are shared among many industries, including tech, VC, etc. And how pay is good vs. most other non-finance industries, even if lower vs. pre-GFC. Or how 5 years into the job a good ASO could clear $400-500k working 60 hours per week, while folks in tech are much lower than that.
But don’t want to pitch you IB. What I don’t understand is, if this is an industry characterized by:
Then why on earth are you on WSO and trying to break in? That’s what I don’t understand.
I’m not saying you should join the industry and stay for life. But you must find that this industry provides you some value. And our PE clients that require 2-3 years of IB experience must think that you actually learn something while in IB…
This community skews young. What they don't see at the junior level, and frankly what we as an industry don't do a good job of is highlighting the fun parts that they don't get exposure to. All they're generally looped into is the construction of the materials. Deal strategy, negotiation, stakeholder management are incredibly fun and not many juniors get any exposure to that. Seeing the trees, missing the forest.
A lot of the complaints feel to me like they stem from a lack of purpose. Late nights and weekends without being looped into the "why" of all the work is grinding. PE is more hands on, more operational, you'll see it described on the forums as more "intellectually challenging" and "stimulating'. It scratches that purpose itch.
I was considering putting out a "what I love about banking" post touching on these things. Seeing as there are a couple of MDs like you on here, maybe you would consider doing one?
I agree with a lot of this thread, but one aspect not mentioned is I think this generation has grown up with more information at their fingertips and more technology than anyone previously. I think this directly affects analysts in a few ways: