Never really understood why give 2 years to IB and then exit to a corporate function you could have gotten straight from undergrad.
What’s the rationale?
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People figure out they want different things 2 years into their career vs. when they are college students who haven't worked any job in finance full-time and come in excited. Alternatively, they burn out of the hours / culture of IB and the investing world.
When people ask me why I went into less prestigious corp job, I put it like this: banking / PE / high hour jobs are great until someone in your family inevitably dies or gets sick (parents, relatives, etc) and you wish you could get those hours back
When you feel like shit working 18-hour days 7 days a week stuck to your chair with no rest no time to see friends and anxiety from always being on call and you stop caring to make plans, anything is worth a pay cut for sanity.
Most people going into IB see themselves as being successful on the idealized path of IB --> PE --> MBA. However, many come to find out that the process becomes even more competitive (especially for MFPE) as there's 10% of the roles in MFPE as there are in BB/EB IBD. So some portion of people who thought they could place in the "super desirable" roles of PE are unsuccessful and need to look at other opportunities if they want to leave IB/finance.
Another subset of people decide they want better work-life balance but still want to remain in something quantitative/analytical in general so pursue finance related functions in startups or corp strategy.
Some corporate strategy roles don't take entry level candidates....
Speaking from the perspecitve of someone in the states who did their banking stint at a top BB.
The people who don't go into MF PE usually just go to UMM/MM PE. If you're at a top bank, you will be able to get some type of PE exits. Will also note that obviously every single person is not pursuing MF PE, and there are a fairly high number of people targetting UMM/MM PE instead for a variety of reasons even at top banks.
Far more people fall into the second category you described than the first at least at the analyst -> PE associate level.
Fair, I overlooked that segment of the population leaving IB. But point still stands that everyone thinks they're destined for a MF and that only works out for a smaller upbeat of people (I was lucky enough to be in that camp).
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