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Started my career there so can provide some insight.

Culture - very hard-working, very nerdy, intense, yet also distinctly less "Wall Street." Everyone there from the juniors to the seniors have a genuine passion for the tech industry, and it reflects in the day-to-day bullpen conversations and more "intellectual" culture there. The seniors expect a lot out of the juniors, so juniors get worked very hard, but the seniors aren't very toxic and compensate the juniors accordingly.

Dealflow - Still arguably the best place to be at if you're interested in Tech M&A - they're the preeminent sell-side advisors for Silicon Valley CEOs. The founders are starting to retire but the firm has built a very deep bench (also just picked up a couple of seniors from GS this week), and the firm will be fine once Boutros is gone.

Exit Opps: Any door related to tech is open to Qatalyst juniors, whether it's buyside, corpdev, or startups. 

 

all I know is comp is beyond levels that make sense. Last year Aso1 total comp was 675k, senior associate total comp was 995k. The VPs made 1.5-2.5mil. 
 

Ive heard that most people still decide to exit so they can pursue what they’re truly passionate about, but have heard the culture is great.

 

I understand that Qatalyst is probably the most elite shop for tech and I am by no means hating, but I don’t think just anyone would succeed and be happy working there. It seems like a culture where everyone just has to know everything coming in and there is not as much patience for people trying to get acclimated. To preserve anonymity I won’t mention exactly when, but sometime in the last couple years I had the worst experience interviewing there. I get on the phone for my first round and within 15 seconds of exchanging pleasantries I am being drilled by the most unorthodox and unnecessarily complicated technicals I have ever come across. I am familiar with basically all of the questions in the guides, but these questions dig deeper on topics like capitalizing vs expensing software costs, KPI metrics, usage-based pricing vs subscription, NOLs, etc. When I tried reasoning through the answers to some of the technicals, the interviewer would cut me off while I was stumbling through and quickly explain the answer before quickly asking another question. Then after what felt like 15 minutes of that shit I started getting bombarded with all these tech questions like “what is your favorite private company in xyz vertical” … “what is your 2nd favorite?” … “what company should acquire this business?” … “what other buyers would you consider?” … “what are public comps” etc. etc. etc.. Even the behavioral questions were extremely philosophical and required a lot of thinking which obviously I wasn’t given time for. The people I have talked to honestly seem nice and I think they are happy working there, but I just can’t see how any sane person could thrive in this type of environment. I had a few rounds of interviews, all of which were just demoralizing, before getting cut (heard there are 10+ rounds?) and as great as it sounds in theory to work there, I can honestly say I would probably be miserable if the interview process is at all representative of the experience as an analyst.

 

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