Is Monkey Business accurate in today's world?

It's been a while since I read it, however, yeah it's pretty accurate. The job is brutal and requires many personal sacrifices (both physical and mental). However, a few things have improved:

1) Many firms have protected weekends/days for juniors, which is really useful to unplug and reset for the shitshow you'll deal with the following week

2) Most large firms don't require you to print/bind your own books and there are other workflow/productivity improvements saving time

3) Analyst training is more regimented, while some people are still assholes, that generation is moving into retirement. HR steps in more frequently when things get too crazy if the person in question is not a rainmaker type figure. Though it still happens a fair bit people try to hide it more, so the net effect is it has slightly improved.

Several things have gotten worse:

1) The book came out in 2000, so when the authors worked at DLJ, cell phones didn't exist the way they do now, from many people I've spoken to, the always-on culture didn't exist back then as once you went home, you were home. All this means is back then you could better compartmentalize your life whereas now you can't but you may get to leave the office more often. To each their own, but spending time with friends/family but having to check your phone every few minutes is not ideal for me, I'd probably rather be in the office.

2) Quality of people is generally lower, generally most of the people at a bank today started their careers after 2000 (except for maybe the very senior dealmakers), I think around this time, the opportunities within and outside of the finance industry became much more competitive, first, it was the hedge fund boom, then the PE boom, then tech. As a result, I think the people who stay in banking are remarkably less excellent than they were in the past. This is going to be a hot take and very controversial if this thread blows up, but the top guys at many firms started their banking careers when everyone wanted to do it and they cut their teeth to get there, many were also originally analysts though not all of them were. Nowadays, the Jr. MDs down to the Associates are mainly Post-MBA hires who just aren't as bright. I think the quality of analysts has also gone down on average as many of the really intellectually driven people that I went to school with ended up doing something other than banking or found a way to skip it.

3) Dealmaking is in some sense less sophisticated than it used to be from an analytical perspective. There are certain types of deals you just never hear about much any more such as: demutualizations, privatizations, 3-way mergers, etc. A lot of corporate raiding tactics also no longer exist, there's a lot more regulation in capital markets which limits what you can accomplish. That being said, deals nowadays are also complicated just in different ways. While the deal itself is not complex, the process is more complex, there are new boardroom dynamics to overcome, many more ways for deals to fall apart etc.

I still think it's a good experience to get for 2-3 years to learn a lot and maybe stay if you really enjoy what you are doing, however, by the time you are a year into college these days your career path is already set which means these decisions are made way too early for most people.