Is investment banking worth it?

Hello everyone,,

In the media investment banking is generally portrayed as a wild time. A bunch of rich assholes surrounded by money, drugs, sex and women.

Obviously I'm sure reality isn't like that. From the accounts I've read it seems to be a very competitive workforce with long hours and an education from an Ivy https://19216801.onl/ https://routerlogin.uno/.

I'm a sophomore in high school, looking to get into finance in the future, can those who actually work in this field give me the truth of the job? Should I give this field a shot? Does it pay off? What should I do to prepare myself and what education path should I take?

23 Comments
 

Not tryna be a dick but use the search bar. All of these questions have been answered 100x. There are new threads every single day about people wanting to quit because they work 100+ hours every week and are treated like shit. I don’t know a single person in IB who’s life is money drugs and sex. Your early life is sitting at a desk turning comments and being available 24/7.

 

I gotta agree with the comment above. If your only understanding of the field comes from media, then you haven’t really given it proper thought.

There have been dozens of posts of people on the brink of depression over the crazy amount of hours these firms expect analysts to put in. I’d say a good place to start is with WSO’s Investment Banking survey that gives an aggregate of the lifestyle these analysts have been faced with in the past year alone.

 
  1. High schooler realizes they like money and want a high paying job.
  1. High school realizes they’re too stupid to be a doctor or even get into med school.
  1. High schooler resorts to Google some variation of “highest paying jobs”.
  1. High schooler finds a random medium article that lists IB as a very high paying job.
  1. High schooler looks up salaries and compensation to feed their gold digging boner.
  1. High schooler stumbles upon a comp thread on WSO.
  1. High schooler is now addicted.
 

Trust me - I know high schoolers who know about the A2A, Analyst to private equity path, DCFs, etc. 

Wouldn't be surprised by high schoolers knowing about WSO.

 
Most Helpful

In all fairness, if OP wants to pursue finance, it would be much easier if they got into a top target for it. To get into a top target, they need to start getting their affairs in order now. I think its easy to be dismissive of kids thinking "too early" about this stuff, but it really helps to be prepared beforehand.

 

Honestly? Yeah its fcking sick. Yeah I went Harvard, my dad donated a building. IB is in my bloodline and if it's not in yours you might as well give up now.

I wake up every day decked out in gucci and rolexes and try to think of new ways to spend my $500k bonus I got from my summer internship (comp was low this year). Drugs? All the time. Cocaine with strippers just like wolf of wall street. Smoking purple at night to chill out and 'ludes and bars just to stay sane. Sex? Please, I simply walk around times square wearing the midtown uniform and boisterously inform women who didn't ask that I work in finance. It takes everything they have not to drop to their knees and begin servicing me with that good treatment right away. Women in NY definitely don't hate finance guys. I consider myself a failure if I only sleep with one model and not two on any given night.

Don't get me started on the work culture. The office? Basically a frat house! Good times all the time, great place to make friends and enjoy yourself. 

The best part of all this? I work in PWM. DM me and I'll hook you up with a recruiter for my firm, Northwestern Mutual.

I definitely don't have a vitamin D deficiency and zero muscle tone from spending 80s/week sedentary and the other free time I have sleeping and seeking out food. 

 

I think you're ignoring M&A completely. It's completely true that big companies can do M&A themselves and likely just hire bankers to cover their asses in case the transaction goes bad (and guess to understand what is "market"), but middle market companies, which from a # perspective are the bulk of volume, would be completely lost in terms of finding buyers, completing diligence in a timely manner and understanding how deal structure impacts valuation

Also pretty sure it's only the top companies that can pull off a direct listing - not all the no name IPOs we don't hear about. 

 

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