Is Investment Banking Paid Slavery?

Is doing a residency after you graduate medical school paid slavery? You work the same hours under the same (if not more) stress and make significantly less.

I fail to see the comparison. I see zero similarity between get yelled at by a VP and getting whipped by somebody that literally owns me. If the VP pisses me off that bad, I leave and know that I earned along the way. If a slave tried to leave they were hunted like animals. Comparing a career in finance to slavery is just wrong on so many levels.

paid slave is a contradiction of terms

I think we all need to stop entertaining these kids who come on here to complain and be negative. Let their threads float to the bottom so that we can focus on replying to people who actually have questions and want help breaking in. Not those constantly questioning this career and second guessing us and themselves. If you don't want to do it, stay out. If there's something else you want to do more, go do it. Stop coming on here for emotional reassurance. That's what your parents are for.

Lots of semantics here. Finance is over-comped so people are stuck having to eat whatever gets thrown their way. If they don't want to deal with it, they can leave to an industry with market dictated comp. It's in market based industries best interest to treat people well since a far bigger nuisance than doing so is the inevitable churn from not. People (for the most part) don't leave over-paid positions by choice. Having to deal with whatever gets thrown at you because you CAN'T leave (ie actual slavery) =/= having to deal with whatever gets thrown at you because you WON'T leave. Fundamentally different but an analogy could do worse.

I'd say that you make a valid point that after a certain point, the amount of money starts mattering a lot less. Is there really a difference between the satisfaction between a $200k corporate finance guy and a $800k investment banker? Just a thought.