Is Big Tech more prestigious than IB now?
Feels like IB used to be the obvious “top” career path for ambitious students.
Now I’m not so sure.
Big Tech seems to offer:
- very strong pay
- better lifestyle
- strong brand names
- good long-term career options
Meanwhile IB still has:
- prestige
- strong exits
- great training
- but much worse hours
Also, people can't seem to stop complaining about how much more "corporate" IB has gotten, while tech seems to be moving in the opposite direction.
So I’m curious what people here think:
Has Big Tech become more prestigious than IB, or does IB still have the edge?
For people choosing between both today, what would you pick and why?
Tech was probably more prestigious than banking from 2010 - 2022. Def not now.
facts
If anything, the other way around. A literal retard could get an offer at Amazon back in 2021. Now you have to be very sharp to get a job and to keep a job, and the ones who can keep their heads above water during this bloodbath will (presumably) be rewarded very lavishly
It’s about prestige, not supply and demand. The aura of the cool smart tech bro who gets free kombucha delivered to his beanbag chair at work while playing ping pong during his 30hr workday is gone and not coming back. 10 years ago working in tech meant you were smart but it was also mainstream enough that you weren’t considered a basement dwelling nerd anymore. Now everyone has a CS degree. The mystery/exclusivity is gone + coding is completely commiditized with AI. You don’t even get remote work perks that you had during COVID.
Prestige is a social mechanism that signals those that can be trusted in a society to fill high responsibility roles and were filtered to fill those roles. Lawyers fit this. Doctors fit this. Politicians fit this. Advising C-Suites fit this. Managing F500 companies fit this. Investing a large portfolio of pension funds fit this. Being in "adult" rooms fits this. But developing some app? Childish.
you could be a socially awkward anime binge watcher but if you're top 10 in leetcode some company will take you and pay you 500k to work 5 hours. Better life quality? Yes. It is prestigious? No, it never was and it will never be.
Incredible take
Agree with you that coders and software engineers aren’t necessarily prestigious roles. Good take.
I genuinely think that IB is not a prestige career path either though. That’s where we disagree. “advisory” roles are no longer respected intrinsically, rather only to the extent the person is very successful or high ranking.
Sure being a MD or a Group Head is prestigious but that’s because of the role as a business executive. It’s prestigious in the way that any executive role at any company or industry is, not because it’s IB. Also respected because it’s very high paying. But NOT intrinsically the way that any lawyer or any doctor gets well-deserved baseline respect and admiration regardless of how high ranking they are.
Do finance for sure if you want. It’s like any other job, it pays the bills, maybe slightly bigger bills than being a cashier at Chipotle, but it’s the same shit. However if you want respect and admiration from strangers for your job title and book learning abilities (I personally don’t give a fuck about either), look elsewhere.
do you think that people in prestigious seats in finance/advisory are actually the ones who can be trusted? from my experience, there are plenty of people with low morals and not a lot of knowledge, and the way they manage to keep their seats is by talking in abstracts with abundance of buzzwords, so that it's difficult to hold them accountable.
I also wouldn't be surprised if there are quite a few socially awkward anime binge watcher lawyers and doctors. less so among politicians and C-suites, but it has more to do with age - in 30 years they'll be socially awkward anime binge watcher politicians and C-suites.
Part of what makes something prestigious is that there's a sort of 'mystique' around what the professional actually does. So as insiders, it's understandable that we don't feel the advisor work is prestigious, but the average person on the street still thinks it is. I mean, look at the 2008 Occupy Wall Street movement they made it look like everyone in banking is some kind of aristocrat, but the work itself hadn't really changed since then.
And if you think about the actual role, you're being delegated a piece of the decision-making for a large company with billions at stake. It's hard not to look back at JPM in the 19th century or the advisory work investment banks were doing in the 80/90s, or even advising e.g. the Warner Bros acquisition and not think it carries some type of prestige.
There is indeed a drastic erosion of prestige in banking for many reasons (i) more transparency into the actual role which many realize it's a cubicle job as any other, (ii) no more legacy hires to continue the family business/making it look extremely elite and selective, (iii) going public which killed the partnership model (look decades ago how for many being a Partner at GS was a dream), (iv) no more association of capital = prestige as you have lots of people getting rich through other means, which is important given that historically Wall Street = gatekeepers of capital and taking a piece for intermediating, (v) democratization of access to financial information so now people doesn't think those insiders/advisors are somehow more knowledgeable than them i.e. they lost authority, etc.)... but nevertheless, for the average person it is prestigious and does make an impression. After all, ask yourself why so many students still want to go into banking when there are lots other options to make big bucks nowadays (especially Asians/Indians, the most prestige-oriented ethnicities out there).
you're conflating competency with prestige. prestige is aristocracy. its the british upper class. it has no basis in merit. all those you mentioned are competent in some way, so you revere them. so is tech minus for some people lacking social skills. tech is also in adult rooms pitching to investors and vcs like other "adults". clearly you ultra biased and blind as fuck. but thats not prestige, thats mere competency
there's a random duke in the uk with a huge mansion in the countryside and he smokes all day. thats prestige.
prestige is being a multigenerational family dynasty like the rothschild or vanderbilts that have secured titles from the various governments
prestige is having governments and everyone else paving red carpets when you walk in the room regardless of your abilities.
americans don't understand prestige because there's never been a true upper class like civilizations of the past
So in your view being a judge at the UK Soupreme Court wouldn't be prestigious because he doesn't own a 18th century mansion? lmao
Is IB prestigious? Overall, relative to 90% out there, yes. Is being a descendant of the Rothschild more prestigious than IB? Yes, undisputed. If IB in your view has no prestige, would you then consider it from a social perception to be equal to a cashier at Walmart? If you're not a complete retard, you would disagree and get my point.
apologies for not being able to trust in a group of 15 anime enjoyers gathered in a room discussing how to make Candy Crush or a social media more addictive vs. a group of 15 people discussing how to finance a utility/manufacturing company that delivers necessary services/goods in society.
besides, just compare the people at the top of tech (excluding executives) vs. in finance: Chamath, Musk, Thiel, etc. vs. Paulson/Dimon/Merz. The role model in tech is the classic prototype of the man-child/marginalized by society and becoming hyper competitive in a nerdy way to the point that they are more destructive than productive vs. Paulson (ex GS) being appointed Secretary of Treasury or Merz (ex BlackRock) Chancellor of Germany or Macron (ex Rothschild) President or Draghi (ex GS) head of ECB (and a big fucking list that you can Google yourself), proving they are reliable socially and can be trusted with authority/power/decision-making outside their field in extremely exclusive roles (agian, very prestigious roles), which a tech socially inept guy will never be able to fill.
Holy cope. 20% of IB and PE is balding and has erectile dysfunction but you guys tell yourself this.
the job just exposes inferior genetics, plenty of others keep it/have no issues ;)
It depends on whether you mean actual prestige or perceived prestige.
In terms of actual prestige, it is still IB. IB is still the most conservative way to become a millionaire. It is still the job that provides the most certainty in terms of wealth generation by simply having the job. The work itself is also not going away this century. IB is far more stable.
In terms of perceived prestige, right now it is tech. We are in yet another tech bubble. We are in yet another AI bubble. We are in one of the periods where "everything" is about tech.
If tech so prestigious why tech bros so pussyless?
false. its the streets way of trying to become a millionaire. there is no prestige in the hookers way of getting money. im seeing a lot of pe analyst programs. boutique ib shops or boutique investing shops hiring ivies. probably will out earn and imo makes so much sense in making sure prestige stays exclusive
Big Tevh is about to have gigantic layoffs as these companies sustain and pay for massive AI spending. You think Meta is spending $100B to be able to hire MORE people? Lol
nah
It has been since 2008.
ib has no prestige. consulting still does. economic consulting still does because its under the radar. and now its pe analyst programs and tech too.
also a shit ton of boutique re shops or investing shops in nyc that take the ivies. i mean ib is for the streets lmao
Sorry you didn’t get an offer lil bro
(Your post history is atrocious btw)
bro lmao i already left the industry. seriously go do something else. if you're gonna troll troll better
It has been for like a decade. IB is primarily for midwits, strivers who couldn't strive hard enough to land a tech job, and nepo retards from CT. It is such a lagging indicator that big law has now cycled back and is probably a better risk adjusted career than IB.
LOLing at the idea big law is a better career choice.
If you make partner (far more achievable than in PE btw) you will make more than the median banking MD and more than the median PE partner depending on what firm you're at.
KE average profits per partner was 10mm a year and that's for 600+ partners, all cash btw.
For non partners, debatable whether a better career choice or not, but I'd say for the median t14 graduate it is.
High cash comp, relatively fewer hours, you get to spend another 3 years in your early 20s chilling instead of getting fucked in the ass by an MD. When you actually start work, the perks are better than in banking and you make more than enough to live in NYC/SF/LA.
Obviously finance is better for exorbitantly rewarding outcomes, but those are still very rare. The opportunity cost of law school, especially with debt, is problematic too.
Edit: forgot to mention that the median IB analyst burns out and does some retarded fp&a stuff, while in house after biglaw is a chill 200-300k 40hr/week
the reason you guys don’t think it’s prestigious is because everyone around you is a banker who went to a multibillion dollar PE fund and an M7 b school. the sample set is skewed to the point where you think that is the median or even floor outcome. people, especially those 30+ years old outside the industry still crap themselves if you say you’re working at gs/ms.
People on this forum tend to conflate "prestigious" with "lucrative". Which is not that surprising given the nature of the forum.
I tend to view "prestige" as shorthand for "this job signals that I am a highly talented person". Which is highly correlated with how much a job pays, but is not the same thing.
IB MD, BigLaw partner, brain surgeon... all prestigious jobs that also pay very well, because you're not going to be in one of these positions if you're not talented. University professor, flag officer, pediatrician... I would say equally prestigious jobs even though they might earn 20% as much.
Would you consider being a Principal Ballerina at the NYC Ballet to be prestigious? Because I sure as hell would, even though those guys get paid literally less than a first year IB Analyst.
Prestige is a social construct.
In most circles tech is less prestigious than finance. Try "Product Manager @ Amazon" vs "VP at Goldman Sachs" in your Tinder bio and see which one has the best results.
And I say that as someone who left consulting/PE to go into tech.
Totally depends if in NYC or SF.
Any elite woman will know that FAANG pm is better than goldman vp and that she'll get to see her man a lot more. If you;re dating a dumb PR girl maybe the goldman Vp is better tho
True but pm at amazon is not the equivalent of VP at GS. Something more comparable would be like l5 swe at meta/google. mid rank at top BB vs top big tech.
Ask comp sci majors and recent comp sci grads how they feel about big tech
AI will take all the Big Tech jobs
Big tech is cooked boys
The mistake here is comparing industries instead of seats.
Tech is not one job. SWE at OpenAI / Meta infra, PM at Google, strategy at a random SaaS company, and ops at a Series C startup are completely different careers. Same with finance. IB, PE, ER, and GS/MS vs. a no-name boutique are not the same thing either.
An AI engineer making $100M, a C-level exec in tech, or a successful founder can obviously be extremely prestigious too.
I had the same dilemma myself. I spent 10 years in MBB, hesitated for a long time about moving to tech, and finally made the jump last year. Looking back, it was absolutely the right decision. In my case I’m effectively making MD-level money per hour.
If anyone is interested I am sharing my journey here, it's focused more on cinsultants, but I think would also be relevant for bankers thinking about jump to tech https://consulting2tech.substack.com/
You can all in on red, and make more than 'MD-level money per hour'. Enjoy the work life balance!
I can tell you they’re not sitting around wondering whether their jobs are more prestigious. I can also tell you to look at the largest companies on the planet by market cap and see for yourself. Finance is a support function, not a main character act.
IB always better
Nope. Prestige is not about pay, not about wlb. Prestige is about the connections you have with powerful executives, and the amount of resources you command.
Donald Trump salary is 400k. He gets 400k paycheck and works 140 hours per week. His pay-per-hour is less than some truck drivers. But he's got the most prestigious job on earth. Prestige is irrelevant to pay.
I know a big tech engineer, he's been working at a team for 5 years. The manager of his skip ( who is not even an executive ) do not know his name. And his skip manager do not know what he's working on. He spent 2 weeks preparing a work report and his skip manager dont even bother spending 3 minutes listening to it. The amount of face time he has with executives is zero. And zero command of resources -- He once wanna use GPU worth of 80k --went through 5 layers of approval and one manager said no and then it's a no-go.
Ibanking / PE / consulting is the only place where you dont face this problem. Forget about pay per hour, you are sitting at the same table with the tippy-top executives and they spend hours listening to you. And your model / analysis directly decide the flow of multi-billion dollar. That is the source of prestige and the propel for career growth
Prestige isn't irrelevant to pay. At the very top level (heads of state), it is irrelevant, but Alex Gerko, who makes high triple digits millions every single year, is far more prestigious than even somebody like Pam Bondi or a state governor or royal family member, simply because his value is portable/independent, while most government officials are ultimately dependent on the highest ranking official, and on tenure limitations.
Similarly we have figures like Pavel Durov or Peter Thiel, who are basically more prestigious than the heads of most countries.
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