Is IB not as attractive anymore?
I know this might trigger many people but honestly IB seems like a not so great career choice these days. Compare it to the other top fields tech, medicine, starting own business, etc.
What is the point of slaving 80+ hour weeks for 2 years doing absolute bitch work for SOMEONE ELSE?
Everybody talks about the holy grail of exit opps but what is there? Sub 10% chance of making it to PE or HF? And if you make it to PE, what happens there? Two more years of the same bitch work for the same money, a bit better or the same hours and again 5-10% chance of making it further or being shown the door? The other option is what? Corp Dev for 80-100k? A lot of jobs can make that without wasting 2 years if that is the end goal?
Again just don't see how anyone can work so much for something that is not your own business doing absolutely menial mind-numbing tasks. Cuz changing font on powerpoint at 3AM is god's work right?
Sorry for the rant and before anyone says it no, I haven't failed my interviews.
The blunt truth is that it pays exceedingly well relative to how much debt you take on. Consider also the linearity of it; you get paid high amounts for something that is relatively fundamental. In other words, you get paid a lot of money for rudimentary tasks that without the high working hour count, you’d be paid less for.
And that is something to be happy about? That there is someone willing to pay you some 150-200k, which in NY doesn't really make you a player anyway, for doing his dirty boring work and having 24/7 control of your life for a few years before you burn out and leave on your own?
Listen tdmk, I know salt and sugar look the same, but try to look at this message with more of a zoomed out perspective and not for face value because being the man of the people, I’m taking the time to help provide some color old sport.
There is more than one path to the top of a mountain. Everyone’s cut and built differently. You must have a set of brass balls and be willing to do what others won't, to accomplish what others don't. Any way you turn it, there is always the Ying and the Yang, there is always inherit sacrifices and opportunity costs. Becoming Wealthy is not for everyone, but like I said there is more than one path to the top of a mountain, different strokes for different folks. Any way I turn it, life is like a sandwich, the bread always comes first and all I know is I'm going to take a private helicopter to the top of my mountain.
To answer your "Attractive" question. Yes IB is dime piece attractive, in life there’s no such thing as broke and handsome. There’s only handsome and wealthy or ugly and broke/average. Being a 2nd year Banker Teller at a Bulge Bracket (think chase or tcf), I can for sure say some days my deal sleds don’t jingle like they used too. I’m a 6 with my Brook Brothers shirt off, but a 10 with my Amex card behind the bar. -boarding in 5, pls fix and massage numbers thx :)
Feel like this has been answered a million times but since we're all stuck in quarantine I'll lay it out for you simply.
1) I was trying to find a thread that was on this site previously with a helpful chart comparing salary progression for IB / Medical / Tech / Law / Consulting but couldn't find it. Basically IB compared favorably with any of those and I believe was quite a bit higher after 10+ years even without the cost of schooling, residency, etc. Outside of being a Google or FB software engineer (have you met these people at your school btw OP? The ones I have at the ivy I went to were insanely brilliant around coding, etc. Unless you are in this bucket, don't consider them a comp) IB is basically the highest paying job you can get.
2) EVERY job short of starting your own business you will be working for "someone else". This makes sense - you know nothing and in many ways are being paid for your potential value rather than what you are actually delivering. This is no different across any of the fields you mentioned. If anything in IB, your direct impact on revenue generation is significantly clearer (being on a 4-5 person deal team generating a $10M fee) than many other fields.
I can't emphasize this enough - you know nothing. You are not being given the reigns of any company or high-level decision making right off the bat. Even if you start your own business, the second you take outside funding you are working for someone else, full stop.
3) In IB you are closer to the decision-making and high level strategic thinking than any other role. If you're an entry-level engineer at Lockheed Martin (picking a random company), you are one of tens of thousands of entry level people and if you happy to see the CEO in the elevator that's pretty cool. In IB we basically only take meetings with the C-Suite, Board or Heads of M&A - our analysts are sitting in those meetings and sometimes even have a small speaking role. What other entry level job are you getting that exposure?
In PE you are literally owning and operating companies - most of the leaders in the individual companies have been working their way up the chain for decades. High finance often allows you to skip significant portions of that or fast-track your way towards P&L ownership. I can cite a handful of examples from my EB of young 30's VPs jumping to CFO type roles at client companies.
4) The skillset you develop will make you attractive to almost every employer. You can evaluate businesses at a high level, you can model out scenarios, you know how to be resourceful for researching and parsing through data, you are an expert in time management, you are efficient, and above all you have a work ethic that cannot be replicated by a 9-5 employee. Look harder, PE or even just finance jobs are not the only options available if you want to exit.
If the only thing you learned was formatting logos on a slide then you wasted a great opportunity that is given to very few people.
5) Entrepreneurship is extremely rewarding but takes a high risk tolerance. I have a few friends who chose this path (some right after school and some a few a years after, guess what - high finance) and some are very successful and some were not. The successes involved years of uncertainty and only now are they starting to draw a 6-figure (e.g. $100k) salary after getting proper VC funding. On paper they appear to have a net worth in the millions but we are talking now ~7-8 years later. The IB/PE experience for them btw offered significant connections into getting access to initial funding/decision makers (as did the ivy network fwiw). My friends that stayed on the IB track (myself included) have now netted ~$1.5-2.0M+ in comp in that same period, which may have generated a net worth a bit less than the successful businesses and multiple of the ones that were not.
are you at the director level ? I love your analysis
Great post! Examines paths both logically and objectively.
Always had the link to this saved for a rainy day (or a Covid day):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1h1N6rrvLRmapN2fwreSBL45I89azg2t…
Anyways thanks for putting it in the best way I've seen so far.
Yes! That's the one - great way to visualize things long-term
I'm not really familiar with consulting, but why does consultant pay dip down to $0 at the 3 and 4 years of experience?
I agree that you have to be "brilliant" around coding. But 2 points. 1) "brilliance" in coding is achievable. Of course you need a knack for it. But you can practice enough to become good. And there are always some to whom things "just make sense". They are always one or two of those in every place. 2) Doesn't compensation range differ depending on the tier of your bank? I'm sure that getting into BB or elite boutiques is considerably more difficult than getting into some 2nd or 3rd tier bank. In a similar way you put it, I'd say that you'd have to be "brilliant around accounting, networking, and financial models"...
Anyways, gave you SB for the message your comment is delivering
Laughs in buy-side
Replying to Ssave
Great post
Thank you so much, it’s great to read about IB with an enthusiastic eye on here. I wish we could see more of this energy here!
The grass will always be greener. Let's go through your alternate careers:
Tech: You're probably thinking about the Google SWE bringing in 175k+ all in. Well kid what was your ACT score? SAT? How much coding have you done? Do you spend your free time playing chess, solving the rubik cube and doing Putnam problems? Are you a kid genius who has been focusing only on academics since the age of 6? If you answered no to any of these questions but still think you can pick up a language here and there you aren't going to be getting any FAANG roles. All of a sudden the hours rise and the comp diminishes. Depending on what you get placed into 60-80 hours a week is not unheard of in IT. I've heard even worse.
Medicine: Near pefect MCAT? Nice 3.86 GPA in Finance but that will put you in the bottom 10% of applicants. Hospital Shadowing? Research? Even if you do get in do not expect to see the light of day for 4 years except during breaks. 40 hours of classes weekly and you'll need top grades to get a good residency spot. That means another 40 hours at least of studying/labs/homework. Residency: ~3-5 years. You are on call, working weekends and paid very little. Far less than an IBD analyst That is a grind of 7-9 years on top of UG before being the doctor
Entreprenuer: Look kid, I get that you learned how to balance a financial statement and you got an A in management but you are probably going to be bankrupt. Even if you do make it, you probably won't earn much more than what is enough to survive. And those that do make it are constantly working. That business you have that runs from 8AM-11PM. Guess who has to be in the office the entire time. If the business grows maybe you can hire a minion to do the work for you but you still have to be on call in case something pops up.
Law: This is basically investment banking but add 3 to your age and increase your debt by $150k
Any more I can help you with buddy?
"Tech: You're probably thinking about the Google SWE bringing in 175k+ all in. Well kid what was your ACT score? SAT? How much coding have you done? Do you spend your free time playing chess, solving the rubik cube and doing Putnam problems? Are you a kid genius who has been focusing only on academics since the age of 6? If you answered no to any of these questions but still think you can pick up a language here and there you aren't going to be getting any FAANG roles. All of a sudden the hours rise and the comp diminishes. Depending on what you get placed into 60-80 hours a week is not unheard of in IT. I've heard even worse."
This is very untrue. If you were a kid genius who solves Putnam problems for fun, you'd be starting your career as a quant trader/researcher making 250-400k your first year and 250+K next several years. FAANG hires more people from okay state schools than they do from top schools actually.
I feel there is a huge self-selection bias here. Not everyone wants to or has the ability to become a quant trader/researcher. Only those people who genuinely enjoy math/computer science will apply to these positions and succeed.
No this is wrong . FAANG hires more from state schools because there are more technically oriented kids at state schools. In Harvard you can major in philosophy and still end up in IB. At a state school if you majored in philosophy being homeless becomes a real worry. So liberal arts as a whole has a much smaller presence compared to technical degrees. As to your comp point, quant trading isn’t for everyone. It’s a high stress high hour environment. The people that I know that have gone into it have been somehow connected with finance and the markets for s while. Also from a prestige standpoint FAANG is a bit more prestigious. That’s probably because more people know about those companies then Jane Street or Citadel.
Wait a second. I have a 37 ACT score. I code before every meal. I am a master at the fried liver attack opening in chess. Do you spend your free time playing chess, solving the rubik cube and love doing Putnam problems. I wouldn't call myself einstein but I'm definitely on par with newton at least. I should look into facebook
bro the fried liver attack is EZ you gotta send the bong cloud opening
Disagree with Tech. Econ major, did a 12week data science bootcamp, and currently work FT as a DS for a F500 pulling in between IBD associate and analyst pay. Shit was easy as fuck.
To be fair, tech is probably the most forgiving to career switchers because they are desperate for good talent from anywhere they can get it - whether that's through traditional OCR at tech target schools, career switchers doing reputable bootcamps/online masters/self-teaching, child savants that didn't go to college, non-targets with great resumes/projects, strong hackathon contestants, female-oriented careers expos etc they will take what they can get as long as you clear the interview bar.
Finance on the other? Fuggedaboutit
Which bootcamp did you do. Have considered one, but have heard pretty much unless its Turing or something of the like then you're shit out of luck
What type of school did you go to? How is comp progression like?
what was the boot camp of you don’t mind me asking
What bootcamp was it if you don’t mind me asking? Would love to look into it.
removed
This is super misleading. I know lots of people at FAANG or FAANG type companies (think Microsoft) who are smart but not world shattering geniuses. Realistically the "typical" FAANG SWE probably had a 3.6 + GPA in CS or Math at a decent school (Purdue counts as a decent school), took CTCI seriously, and likes programming enough that they were naturally motivated to put together a few passion projects that they could showcase on their GitHub. (These projects were probably pretty decent, but definitely didn't require proving any novel theorems about complexity theory.)
The only people who sort of fit the mold you describe are quant researchers at really elite hedge funds/trading firms, and even then, many of them are just the above student with +15 IQ points.
Is there a way for me to fall in love with cs lol? I have taken a cs class before and felt it was extremely boring. And that in turn makes me feel stupid. How can I overcome this inferiority complex?
consulting?
If there's one profession out of those listed above that is highly unattractive to me it'd be medicine. Think about all the potential regulation in the future that will likely decrease salaries across the board. Also, the science aspect might be intellectually stimulating, but at the end of the day you work with sick people all day. Can you imagine being a doctor right now with all the coronavirus patients coming in and trying not to catch the virus yourself? No thanks. Guaranteed surgery would get monotonous once you're 10 years in too. The grass is always greener on the other side.
Tech is potentially attractive. My brother works in tech at a FAANG and lives a pretty good life, but yolo.
Yeah honestly I don't think I could live with myself If I did a misdiagnosis that turned out to be fatal or left someone paralyzed after a surgery. A typo in excel, a lost deal, even a poor year of returns in AM are all reversible. A death or disability cannot be reversed.
I too find medicine quite unattractive, but my sister is a doctor in Manhattan and she and her colleagues crush it. She is making $300k two years out of residency. She has a private practice, and works in a hospital program that will forgive all student loans for doctors after 10 years of participation (starts on day 1 of residency and since she did a 1-year fellowship she's only three years away from having all debt erased). Almost every hospital in NYC is part of this program.
Curious to know what regulations you're referring to. FDA and HIPAA regs are becoming more deregulated by the day, and I doubt they will go back to the way they were without an administration change.
Is she a surgeon? I personally knew three doctors who all told not to go to medicine. Hell, I even met a neurosurgeon residency dropout who became a housing contractor. I knew an allergist who complained a lot about the pay.
I'd never be a doctor too. In fact, I used to be a pre-med.
IMO, there are really 3 considerations to make when choosing a career path (given that you are capable of course, otherwise capability would be a 4th bucket to consider) - lifestyle, principles/values, and $$$.
Let's first just consider the $$$. Being a doctor, you grind making peanuts ($-50K in med school, $50K during residency and $100~$500K after residency). When you finish residency, odds are that you're in your early to mid 30s. When all you're IB, software engineering, consulting, and even lawyer friends are already making $200+ K a year.
But let's now think about the future. Two questions to ask: 1) In all other fields, realistically, does everyone who stick around make MD/Principal SWE/Principal/Junior Partner? Do most people who move out get better opportunities or similar? 2) What's the age limit (aka at what age are you forced to retire if you haven't yet?). MDs can work forever. My grandfather is nearing 90 years of age and still making $150K per annum as a doctor working for 20~30 hours a week. Think about that.
We all know about lifestyle and principles/values (I hope). Lifestyle is really about your hours, where part of the world get to live in, etc... Principles/values is really about what kind of work you like to do - What impacts it has on the world? What kind of skills you can use and/or develop? What kind of work you consider interesting/intellectually stimulating?
If you are an MD at an investment bank I don’t think it will be difficult at all to find a 40 hour corporate finance role in-a tier 2 city that pays 6 figures. I’d imagine though it’s difficult to humble oneself that way after being on the street for so long.
There is a medical cartel that heavily regulates how many physicians there are ( this leads to very high pay) and what legislation is used. The automation thing is a myth.
Plus, regarding starting your own business, you run the risk (albeit, it's a small one, as this Corona thing is off-the-charts improbable) of having your business shut down through some sort of exogenous event. I guess that can apply to any line of work, but if you're a well capitalized investment bank/law firm, you're not gonna go out of business overnight because of a virus/hurricane...
And I know you can't control/fear everything, but look at all the entrepreneurs who have just had their businesses destroyed in a week.
Listen you just seem soft and unable to muster the courage to accept that you simply aren't built for IB or any finance job that requires long hours. Instead you bash others for not taking out 300k with interest for med school, being a genius and having a natural gift for SWE , NoT BeInG a BoSs and doing what you are unable to do in the form of a defence mechanism that reeks insecurity.
The way to get rich with the lowest risk is to be an excellent capital allocator & investor because you can diversify + take advance of compounding and untether your time from money.
Personally I think IB is nice because it builds the fundamentals out quite well for the above. You get to learn about what makes a good business and what makes a bad business...which sounds dumb, but it's hard information to get without working in iBanking.
This is important because it allows you to deploy your capital very efficiently once you have some. I've run into so many doctors and lawyers - some of which are my investors - but very rarely are any of them fundamentally strong investors.
Entrepreneurship is great but there's a really slim chance you'll succeed. I've seen so many entrepreneurs I know who are smarter than me make the equivalent of like $100k to $300k a year which is not worth the stress. I got a little lucky early on...and for that reason I would never recommend going right into entrepreneurship.
With that said, this all hinges on you and your personality type too. IE, I'm not a fan of operating but I end up operating a lot because I can't stand watching people move slowly lol. Ymmv.
Really good post - being able to allocate money/capital AND being able to effectively evaluate and manage risk are two critically important skills for wealth creation.
Working in IB and PE specifically will provide you a very strong skillset/framework for evaluating these types of decisions in both your professional and personal life. There are very few other jobs that teach people this skillset
Meh, the easiest way to get rich is to convince other people to pay you a fee to invest/allocate their money. Skill (or above-average skill) at said allocation or investment is optional (if you disagree, take a look at hedge fund returns vs. SP over the past 10+ years). Hedge funds are the best compensation scheme ever invented - not necessarily the best setup for investors.
Do you have a book list for capital allocation and investing ?
Would recommend checking out "The Outsiders," by William Thorndike; has a lot to do with capital allocation in the context of investing through M&A and corporate development across 8 or 9 case studies.
Would you mind talking about your career path and how you got started as a CEO?
I did an AMA a while ago if you go through my posts.
You may not have failed your interviews, but you do sound like someone looking for someone to tell him that it's OK that he won't do IB. Not sure what stage you're at in the process.
Side question, does corp dev really only pay 80-100k after 2 years of IB? Seems low. Anyways . .
I think after 2 years IB and 2 years PE, people tend to do a lot with that background. Maybe there's a way you can find a cohort from a few years ago and trace where they all ended up like 3-5 years after finishing their PE stint. Its a lot of different things, from more PE to HF to Corp Dev to entrepreneurship.
So I think the mistake you're making is that you're setting it up as starting your own company vs working for someone else. Whereas in reality IB & PE are paying you pretty well while also giving you experience and contacts that are valuable when you're ready to start your own thing.
Original comment might have been hot headed, but people who like finance might enjoy a career in IB valuating companies or doing whatever. you can't really change what the hours are if thats what you like
Product management pays $170,000 and product marketing pays $140,000 at some FAANG companies for 9-5 hours right out of undergrad, so I agree that they have been more attractive and more competitive recently. But in IB, your comp drastically increases past the associate level and outpaces other careers by a big margin
Most of my friends are SWEs/APMs at FAANG companies, I guarantee they don't work 9-5, and PMM does not make 140k TC
Depends on which company we're talking about - yes, the hours at Amazon are terrible, but not the case with all of them
And product marketers do if you if you count signing bonus and stock comp. Even the base salary at GOOG is almost six figures
Depends on the company. Can confirm from friends who have interned some of them are 9-5.
numbers for right out of undergrad are false by almost double, prove me wrong with a source. Not denying theres high paying tech jobs but for right out of undergrad we are also talking top .1% candidates from ivy schools
No need to deny the facts
https://blog.salaryproject.com/how-much-do-product-managers-get-paid-at…
But yup I agree, it's insanely hard to get these jobs. And not all companies pay the same, I think AirBnB/Microsoft etc pay less
There are infinitely fewer new grad PM and PMM roles at decent tech companies than there are banking SA/FT spots across the BB/EB/MM/BSB spectrum of banks. We're talking dozens v thousands.
You'd probably have a better chance doing banking then pursuing PM/PMM roles post-MBA than you would post-UG.
Also, most people don't do 9-5 at tech companies, they do something more like 9:30-10:30am start to 6:00-8:00pm finish. Especially in product where you might have an entire day of just meetings and you need to stay longer to do actual work.
Agreed which is why banking is also a very attractive career and the opportunity for promotion is faster. But it's a good idea to keep options open too, look into the buyside etc.
"Is IB Not As Attractive Anymore?"
Lots of great posts here, so I will keep mine short. IB and anything banking (or frankly trading) related has not been very attractive since pre GFC. The work and hours have stayed the same. So have the politics. The scrutiny by the public as well as compliance has gone up. In many cases so has competition. There is fee pressure.
You know what hasn't gone up? Pay.
And that's why everyone enters/stays this business.
So the short answer is "No it is not as attractive anymore"
That does not mean that the pay is bad or that one can't make a decent living doing it.
Good Luck
Glad you brought up the pay. Are there any areas that have clearly seen a rise in pay for entry positions? HF?
Offhand - anything quant, especially in HF world. And at junior levels across the board pay has been pretty stable. My comment is more on the prospects of all of this as an actual career. For instance one used to strive to be VP and up because you could be on the path to make millions (literally) by surviving and being OK (or really good) at your job. That is no longer the case.
HFs are volatile beasts. Not just returns but actual revenues (ie fees from AUM). The big have gotten bigger and have purchasing power and the smaller guys have been wiped out or forced to be niche and try to beat the market. Very few have. The numbers may be the same if you knock it out of the park with performance, but the fee base often won't be which means lower/more volatile base.
Oh and there are far fewer seats at HFs and a lot more miserable people. And people staying in their seats rather than moving.
PE is what has been hot, but the industry knows it...
Which is the best career within the realm of Finance (IB, PWM, HF, PE) today or in the near future? If you could start over, would you still be in HF/ Finance? I was discussing this with a few colleagues and a lot of them said they would be in tech or became a Quant if they could start over. What about you? What would you do knowing what you know now.
Good question! Maybe one should start a new thread. based on my casual observations of the above industries, all are very competitive but I would love to find a reliable measure of ROI/RoE on intellectual and time commitment in each subfields. I cannot imagine no one has looked into this before.
Some of these claims are ridiculous by presenting other professions as just too hard to do. I recieved 2 FAANG software offers -- the process does not test intelligence or coding ability. It's just about studying certain material often taken freshman year. FAANG is full of idiots just like any company.
Medicine is also not nearly as competitive as its being presented. Median GPA for medical school is a 3.72, meaning half the kids have below a 3.7. Again, doesn't really require that much intelligence.
Great comment +1 SB
Medical school not competitive? First of all a 3.7 in a Stem major on a premed track is MUCH harder than a 3.9+ in Finance. Second, GPA and MCAT is not enough. As I mentioned in my original comment you need hospital shadowing experience along with undergrad research to even stand a chance.
To stand a chance at a TOP medical school, sure. There are plenty of lower tier schools that still give their students an MD in the end.
As for your FAANG experience what do you mean by coding ability is not tested? That isn’t what I’ve heard from anyone who has gone through the process.
Your coding ability is tested in terms of coding basic data structures and algorithms. Not your ability to develop a product. You're asked to invert binary trees, parse text, etc. These all are basically just coding puzzles that are very straightforward to study for. They don't test your ability to build products/features/etc.
I'm curious about what made you decide that IB/finance is something you want to pursue instead of tech?
I chose not to enter IB. First went to tech, then decided on MBB.
Found the guy who got rejected by Tobin&co
Frankly sure it might not be as “attractive” anymore, but here’s a different perspective, as someone who grew up in a blue collar household (both my parents never made a salary only hourly), if you don’t think it’s as attractive anymore don’t take it then, guarantee you plenty of hungry smart kids would gladly take the chance at being in the bull pen if it’s not as lucrative or as stable as you want it to be anymore - go do what you want and let someone else take the seat
Product management comp grid provided by Levels - provides some perspective on an alternate path
https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Google,Facebook,Microsoft&track=Product…
You all are so lost it's not even funny. Choosing a career is not just about the money and career opportunities (read future money).
Having worked at a BB for 5 years before pulling the rip cord and moving to Asia to become a hippie living in semi-retirement before b school, I have some advice for you:
1) Choose a job that genuinely excites and interests you, where you feel mentally stimulated and engaged. If you hate your work your life will suck. Period. (Throw a shitty boss on top of that and you will be miserable). Different kinds of people like different kinds of work (quantitative, relationship, strategic, creative, and many more.). Figure out what you really enjoy doing. A nice side effect is that you will be better at what actually interests you.
2) Choose a job that pays you well (but you all already knew that). However don't take a higher paycheck just because you're in some ego measuring contest with your undergrad business fraternity. Think about the life you want to live for yourself and your family. Think about any obligations you may have (including taking care of current and future family). Really try to figure out how much is enough to be comfortable before you get sucked in. That way you can turn down excess money to prioritize 1 or 3.
3) Choose a career that is meaningful to you. You can spend all day at a hedge fund making yourself, your firm, and your clients richer. But at the end of the day what is your societal contribution? Finance has a tremendous capacity to create. Think about what impact you want to be having with it instead of just being a tool. Use the system rather than let the system use you.
Don't spend too much time on these forums. Half the people here barely know what life is yet. Live, love, and take some long walks. Don't get sucked into the vortex and do things just because they are supposedly the things successful people do. Define success for yourself. You will be much better off.
This should be pinned somewhere so everyone can read it. SB
It's impossible to know what will actually make you happy in the future.
Interests and priorities never stay static.
Might as well choose the most challenging, prestigious, best paying job for you early in your career. If you decide you don't like it in the future, then you have the optionality of doing something else more enjoyable, less demanding for you.
But this optionality is only available because of your background in the challenging job (IB, Law, Medical Doctor, etc.).
Less time and much more motivating to get to the top of the mountain starting at the middle than at the bottom.
For myself, I look at people who are in attractive roles in the C-suite (at least in the industry I'm in) and learn how they got there. More often than not, they all share a background in IB, have an MBA, or both.
And talking with entrepreneurs, they all tell me the same thing: working a salaried job is the easiest money you'll ever make.
how would you answer these points based on an IB job?
I think it is not really about which field to enter. Some people are just destined to be wealthy due to their innate talents with some luck. These people can make way above average figures in any field they choose. You are focusing on average salary, which pertains to the average Joe.
The last time I was on this site three years ago, this question was still being asked lol
And it will be asked when you return in another 3 years
I am an MD/MBA. I have a lot of friends in colleagues in IB, PE, medicine (obviously), and even a few in law. My undergrad was at Princeton so many of my classmates went on to be that top % of IB who make it big in PE. It is classically a grass is greener kind of situation that honestly probably favors finance but it will always depend on the person.
The average physician has more daily stress and much less compensation thatn the average person in IB.
A little more detail on the medicine side: That excel sheet actually OVERestimates physician compensation for 3 year residencies (generally Pediatrics and Internal Medicine) though some ED docs make >$400K. No Peds or Medicine doctor will make $400k straight out of residency. In fact, the best doctors who stay in academia working at Harvard or Standford make much less. Most academic attendings in internal medicine starting out make IB. I feel it is generally more tolerable. An 80 hour week feels not as bad as 60 at a desk. I'm constantly doing things with my hands and talking to people. I get to think through interesting problems and not simply do 8th grade math on excel or make powerpoint figures align perfectly. My days go by quickly, I get to hear interesting stories, make life altering decisions, and people tend to be thankful, even in my failures.
However, there are career paths in medicine that can lead you to making 7 figures or 8 figures. Almost counter-intuitively, the pressure in some of medical lifestyle specialties (Dermatology, Ophthomology, Radiology, Anesthesiology/Pain, Orthopedics, Plastics, interventional radiologists, specialized surgeons, specialized gastrointestinal doctors) can be less than that in the business side further into your career. I have seen people who need to continually produce throughout their finance career to earn the hefty salaries while there are physicians doing low risk, fairly straight forward, procedures working 30-40 hours a week making 7 figures. This is a small percentage of physicians and the equivalent in finance is probably someone high up as an MD or in PE making more money.
Overall, it depends what you want. I tell everyone if you shouldn't enter medicine for money alone. There are way easier ways that will pay you better through finance and/or software engineering. Still, the ability to solve a problem that has plagued someone for years or save a life after a motor vehicle accident or contracting COVID through your surgical or intensive care unit skills that took years of dedication to perfect... I imagine that feeling is hard to beat. Though honestly I'm sure it's awesome closing a big deal on the buy or sell-side of things.
My advice is what was echoed above... try things out and do what you love. I chose medicine because I felt it would be way easier to at least be a sell-side healthcare or biotech analyst than attempt to get into medical school after doing IB. It turned out I liked it a lot, and I get to also do a lot of business in my day to day.
**TL;DR: ** From a pure forecasting model standpoint, IB/consulting/corporate law all win in the best case scenarios. However, I do see the medicine best case scenario as having the best worklife balance. (You also generally end up with IB/consulting friends who you save their family member's life or cure X thing, and they are thankful and let you play with their toys).
Feel free to DM me if anyone is seriously at a crossroads here. I am more than happy to discuss.
What led to you getting an MBA and what is your specialty in medicine? Thank you for your insightful post. How does you see SE long term vs consulting?
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