From what I see, people enter IB for two main reasons, the money and the exit opps.
However, I'm not looking for a particularly high salary. I am not particularly interested in deals, and have zero interest in the buy side beyond the salary itself (PE/VC/HF), which is more than offset by the long hours needed.
I want an upper-middle lifestyle with a semblance of a life outside work. Preferably, I hope to reach a compensation of 300k by my late thirties.
Due to the above considerations, I think a F100 FLDP or a CF role at FAANG would suit me best. Is my thought process generally sound, or am I missing a huge reason why IB is so desired by the WSO crowd?
Note: I specifically posted this in IB instead of CF because I figured that the peeps in IB know the pros and cons of IB better.
Pursuing post MBA banking with the hopes of working 3-5 years and then finding a cool corp-dev startup with the hybrid possibility of: corp dev + strategy (with a venture arm - unlikely but would be a cherry on top) and a comp of 200K+ at the Senior Manager/Director level.
My comfort is seeing people I've followed on LinkedIn for a few years now (similar backgrounds) succeed in a similar path.
All the PE guys I know in real life eventually leave and got bored of it. Personally do not find AM/HF fascinating enough to pursue. Growth equity/VC is cool to me but I'd rather help a company I really like grow long-term.
Your reasoning is sound - IB sucks. But 300k by 30s would be getting really lucky starting in FLDP, you need to be in a corp dev role and not just a generic financial analyst. Corp dev is a common exit from IB which is why people tend to go that route.
It's also pretty easy to get stuck in those FLDP programs and hang out at a lowish level (or in a bad MO/BO department) within the company until you're 30, while the person who went IB may lateral into a pretty corp dev high role at 28-30 because they have so much more deal experience. Some F100s really want their VP+ to have an MBA too, so consider whether that's in the cards. As for FAANG CF, it's a really small part of the firm, mostly FP&A (don't do this btw, it's boring and not much career progression) and not revenue-generating like engineering/product, so the salaries aren't as great as you would think.
TLDR; you're wise to question IB if you're not interested in the exits, but you're going to need to get lucky and be in the right division to hit your salary target
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