RBC Associate dead
Per Litquidity. Any more info? Condolences to the family.
Per Litquidity. Any more info? Condolences to the family.
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commenting so it gets bumped - can anyone confirm?
Absolutely wild. Isn’t tech known as one of their chiller groups?
yeah, that's what I heard. their tech NYC group seemed to have a good culture.
RBC is a really bad offender of saying their culture is really good and then it honestly being dogshit. I am fine if a bank just embraces the classic banking culture of work hard, but don't lie to incoming analysts and interns about the "culture" being great.
Another reminder that your bank does not care about you, and it is weird as fuck to have your employer be your personality.
I blame how some of these finance influencers hype up IB lol
Yes, it happened. Yes, it's f**kin tragic. I hope it gets fully investigated but that team is absolutely not known for being toxic / aggressive with their juniors. It's still banking so I'm sure this guy worked hard but I'd be shocked if this was one of those 'forced to pull three all-nighters in a row / zero sympathy from seniors' kind of deals.
This team is known for being pretty toxic
My guy, I have worked with that team but not in it. If you think that's 'toxic', should see how the FIG and PU&I guys roll in terms of hours. Or like most of GS' groups. Anyway, don't want to detract from what is just a very tragic situation.
Can confirm… that group was like a bunch of college kids tossing footballs all the time. Most chill on the floor imo. That’s just me outside looking in
thats insane. prayers to the family. hope the real reason gets uncovered and if it has to do with work at all RBC and the banks really need to take actionable steps to prevent something like this ever happening again. this is a just a job.
They always say they will but they never do. It sucks because if you are put in a position where you have bad bankers and leaders, it can be even harder to push back. It really needs to be enforced by staffers, VPs and associates.
Exactly. Something like this happens every 1-2 years, people are quick to call for change, maybe staffers ease up for a month, and then it’s back to business as usual
fucking hell
.
bruh
Comment removed by mod team
Makes me more curious what this comment was. Can you help?
Bump
Source?
litquidity's instagram story posted DMs from someone saying it
Google it... its right there
Edit: Why would I dox some poor guy who just died who worked at a firm i'm not at and is a person I don't know? Doing so seems pretty disrespectful.
Typical useless VP. Drop a link. Only coverage so far is this thread and litquidity.
EDIT: I found it, I don't frequent obituaries often. Monkey shit me and I'll match the amount to donate to his goFundme. RIP.
What specific subtype of MS gets a comment labelled controversial?
Nameee pls
he has the same name as the former new york mayor who also has a famous finance terminal names after him, but without the "berg" so google said mogul name without the "berg" and type RBC. thats him
.
.
I've seen people die at moelis, boa, Lincoln.
Nothing ever happens. Too many hardos willing to risk their lives over prestige and resume bullets.
For what it's worth I heard terrible things about rbc tech.
Can you elaborate on RBC tech, please? What are the things you’ve heard because I have only heard good things.
Not the VP above, but I can give you some color as a former analyst in another group. The old group head that was pretty well-liked and reputable left like 2 years ago. They did a weird interim situation with no group head under which they seemed to be hard chilling all the time. Sometime last year they hired a new group head and I believe there were some new senior hires as well as they tried to rebuild that franchise. General consensus I’ve heard from juniors is that the new group head and some new MDs all fucking suck. Seems like life in that group has kind of taken a 180, they’re grinding these days, and junior team is pretty burnt out / quite some people trying to leave.
Do you remember if it was related to substance abuse? Or something else?
Damn you guys are tearing each other down in a thread about some kid in banking dying?
Too many 21 year olds on this site thinking they’re the next Henry Kravis when in reality 80%+ of them will end up in middle class finance jobs that they shit on today due to either burnout or being pushed out.
What does the analyst class dispersion look like after a few years? Presumably a majority go into PE post-banking, but say 5 years out, are most still in PE? How about 10 years? Do they start shifting towards corporate jobs at that point?
How do we know it’s remotely related to the all nighter?
we don't, WSO always filled with random info
peep any of the SVB threads
While it’s natural for people to assume this is related to work given previous incidents with banker deaths that were work induced, RBC tech is probably one of the least grindy and most relaxed groups in banking. There was literally a viral tiktok a while back of analysts on that group coming in at 11am in hoodies.
I understand people want to use these cases to highlight poor working conditions in the industry in general, but writing on this forum won’t help us get there. If anything monkeys should unite across banks and coordinate no-shows, no late nights for pitch work etc. If reddit apes can take down hedge funds, smart finance apes should be able to coordinate for better working conditions.
Does anyone have a link to that tiktok? I have heard about it but never saw the actual video. When was it filmed?
So, as someone who worked on the "corporate" side where regular employees do not see often...these incidents are investigated thoroughly. You are right young analyst, jumping the gun does no good. Things are looked at on all angles to make sure that working conditions are met and are not the COD of the individual. If it were really working conditions causing the deaths of the analysts/associates, we'd seen reform change easily happen.
Medical doctor here, I know that extreme stress predisposes to illness especially when you're a few weeks new to a stressful job & not yet used to it. But my guess is that most of these IB deaths would still occur even if the unfortunate persons were working 20 hour weeks. Medical doctors work much longer hours (often with 30–40% of IB pay) and rarely drop dead just because of the stress (usually, there are other unrelated illnesses causing the death).
Maybe don't be quick to blame the culture.
My .02
why is a medical doctor on wso lol
So you are telling me, medical doctors earn less than 100k???
Typically so in UK. I also hear residency could pay as low as 34k in USA
Am I reading correctly that you are saying doctors work IB hours? Wild if true
Depends on the speciality and if you are at a hospital or private practice but yes can be long hours in many cases (my relatives are doctors). If you want a chill 9-6 and making $250K and working for a hospital, then probably skewing towards something like anesthesia. But if you have your private practice and are looking to scale it (similar to having your own business), then yes you will likely be pulling 70-80 hours a week plus.
Depends on country, location, rank & multiple factors. I've found myself doing 130–140 hr weeks before
You must mean residency, you sound like a kid, not a doctor btw. They have instituted caps on hours that can be worked during residency, I’m sure they get skirted in some programs but in our litigious society many programs are careful to adhere. Also, there is variety in the work and a sense that you are helping people or at least learning how to help save lives. In IB, kids feel trapped in a vicious cycle with no real work satisfaction and probably a feeling of hopelessness for some. Doctors in residency also pick up substance abuse habits and there is a higher than average suicide rate, likely much higher than in finance.
there is some validity imo about the kind of people certain professions attract and that role in outcomes, but like I said, its likely a complex matter. I would take the over that the legal profession is the worst offender, 1) because of the personalities attracted 2) the subject matter or lack thereof of the actual work 3) the work environment
To be fair though, I'm a West African doctor, not American; but with my extensive anecdotal info from doctors in America, I don't think I'm far off the mark
That may be true in theory (almost exclusively in America; caps on working hours are probably unheard-of in medicine elsewhere in the world), but I have heard anecdotal accounts from American resident doctors about how their superiors directly "supervise" (dictate) how they fill in regulatory / humane-working-conditions-advocacy questionnaires in order to ensure that the "toxicity" that goes on in real life doesn't get reported / reflected in the questionnaires (including questions about the real working hours). Therefore what seems reflected for PR purposes (caps on working hours) may not have great correlation to actual reality.
Partially true, one thing I'll miss in medicine is the extremely high intellectual stimulus.
That's something people OUTSIDE Medicine IMAGINE to be a profound source of job satisfaction for doctors. It's rarely that dominant a motivation among actual doctors passing through the burnout. It only sounds great when you're on the outside
That's to be expected given the generally longer-than-IB hours. But that's completely different from my original point about dropping dead (NOT suicide)
note: To All
You are loved.
Just to clarify. You won't die from pulling some all-nighters. You'll fall asleep before dying, be it at your desk, on a chair, or wherever you'll be. Thousands and thousands of analysts and associates go through this lifestyle and someone dying solely because of the lifestyle is extremely rare.
My condolences to the family, but he must be on some type of medication or he had some underlying health issues that he may not be aware of. Before getting into IB be aware of where your health stands and during your career learn to prioritize your health.
Yes exactly, this happened to a Bofa summer intern back in 2012 in London (google it). The poor guy pulled multiple all nighters and dropped dead at his flat..Unfortunately he had an underlying condition
Very appropriate username for the topic btw🙃
Bros obituary
https://greenwichvillagefuneralhome.com/obituary/?ob-id=2191&obit=Micha…
Reminder to consistently get 8-9 hours of sleep a day. Don’t sleep when you are dead like the boomers say
Yep this - research is realizing how strong the link is between sleep and greater rates of death. And it's a myth that you can make up sleep on the weekends. Obviously can't always control this with work, but sometimes you need to prioritize minimum 8hrs of sleep above going out, working out etc
Anytime you work a 100hr week and all nighters this is generally paired with energy drinks and or pills. Very common. How else can you keep going when you pull an all nighter and your md has more comments to churn through that will take hours.
That can absolutely cause death/heart issues.
We will see what really happened here, but very likely the all nighter was a factor.
Agree with this comment. I know lots of people who use various stimulants strictly because they feel like they have to for work and not at all for recreational reasons. Personally I would much rather fall asleep on the job, turn in garbage work, and quit before feeling that way — but given the nature of the industry it becomes much more normalized.
I find it sad how many people on this thread are pointing to that as an excuse to blame anything besides banking. I get it from the standpoint of a “it won’t happen to be as long as I don’t do that” form of coping, sure. But this industry operates thrives on the synergy of banks not giving a fuck about you, and people not knowing where to draw personal boundaries. It’s possible to have a little sympathy for the people who are sadly misguided enough to sell their physical health (and sometimes lives) to the system.
Maybe a good lawsuit will wake the IB industry up a bit?
There's usually a settlement and nda. A few mill thrown at the families is usually enough for them to shut up. That's like on md bonus, so basically pocket change for a bank. (Believe this happened for the moelis kid that died)
"Michael was a wonderful team member who was awesome to work with. He will be greatly missed," says Matthew Thomas, the managing director of the fintech investment banking team at RBC alongside his donation of $500."
This is absolutely pathetic. A group head donating $500 to the foundation of a kid who just died in his group? That has to be a joke. Buddy probably clears multiple 7 figs.
Saw that too, and was kind of shocked that he only pitched in $500, whereas even "Citi Corporate Banking juniors" donors gave more.
Definitely pathetic. That’s less than the secretaries extra bonus bS for half ass work all year.
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