90% of the post here are from interns, students and chickens that spent a maximum of 2 years in the job.
Still 90% of the conversations make it sounds like becoming an MD / partner is straightforward and expected. Are you guys completely idiots? Have you seen the number of partners ?
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Whats the point of dreaming if youre not gonna dream big?
Amen, love this attitude. Go big or go home.
Dreaming is cheap
Besides, by your logic, is being partner of a PE shop really your definition of dreaming big??? If so, that's kinda sad....
Yea 50-100mm is sad ?? Ok bud
"If you're going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big"
- Donald Trump
to answer your post - yes 90% of this forum = idiots with little comprehension of how things work
like working at an EB guarantees an MF offer or something stupid
Shoot for the moon, bro. Besides, some of us actually have the "right stuff".
stop compensating we get it you suck ass
Are you saying that not everyone on WSO is a summa cum laude ex-HYP top bucket EB to MF to Wharton to Apollo partner track candidate? Fuck.
And making $140k base/year?
(FTP btw)
You know how it is, we've all been young, hungry 20 year olds with the world at our feet. Nothing wrong with being ambitious in my view, but totally get where you're coming from. Reality eventually hits, for both those who "make it" and those who don't.
Every sperm must vouch for himself to even have a shot.
Lol its even worse than that. There are countless posts on here from kids still in college trying to do math on allocation of a carry pool as a MF PE Partner or if they would get $5M or $10M at Lone Pine in a 30% year.
Would argue that most here act like they're going to be partners rather than MDs. So they kind of play themselves by all gunning for PE at the same time when it's already like 5x harder to get to partner vs MD. Of all the analysts I've seen exit, so few have made principal.
What percentage would you estimate made principal?
And of the people that didn’t make it, did they choose to go in another field or were they pushed out by the PE firm?
Out of the entire GS Analyst class that I was a part off, there are only 3 people still in IB, 2 in PE (none are partners me included) the rest quit. I'd say it's typically 1-2%
Lol are you the guy who got outed recently by a BAML VP?
You're better off asking someone from GS or an EB where nearly everyone goes to PE but my observations are that less than 20% of PE associates make principal. Most get told by their firms to go to business school or w/e (soft kicking out) and then a few just prefer going and building their own company outright by working for a startup or scaling company.
Bruh what are you talking about? 90% of the posts on this website are about exit opps and people complaining about how much their jobs suck.
??? That's exactly what I'm saying, no one seems to actually want to be an MD
I think it’s in the tech vs IB threads. A lot of people basically assume MD/Partner and cite that comp as guaranteed while saying it’s difficult to make it past middle manager in tech.
second this. It's people outside finance who think that the goal of entering finance is to stick it out to the end and become MD at the firm. Cuz that's how the norm is in other fields - join as a junior engineer and stick it out to become veteran engineer, join as a high school teacher and stick it out to become veteran teacher, etc. In other fields, leaving your profession to do smtg else is a big no-no and people automatically assume u fucked up. The business model of finance especially high finance is what boomers don't get - people usually do it for the exits, and exiting is completely normal and respected. And plus what finance people see as the most respected exits, even better than a banking job e.g., MF, regular people have nvr even heard of (regular people dont even know what KKR is, so they probs think u fucked up if u left GS for KKR lol). So u rarely see people wanting to be an MD
Because that's what they do.
And that's also what I did (minus the cringey comp/networth calculation part).
But I did have similar conversation with people close to me (e.g. peers in university who were also gunning for finance roles) that I was gonna be the outlier who would make CIO/PM sooner than everybody else.
I had always been vocal with my social circle that I was gonna blow my competition out of water and make HF PM/CIO very soon, not only my path would be straightforward and expected, but my track gonna be much faster than everyone else.
It took me a few years, from sellside Structured Products, to buyside Quantitative Research, then carving out my strat and was given a PnL to run with.
I'm currently PM at a small/mid-size shop running Relative Value Strat with a few traders/analysts working under me.
And I'm not even 30 yet.
So yeah, dream must be big and wild. But it needs grind associated with it, otherwise it's gonna be daydream.
Respect ppl who dream big and act on it
Really like this view. I think drive plays such a massive part which is why passion is so important because the people with true passion will always go the extra mile.
I think its easy to get caught up and assume everyone is on the same wavelength as you and feel you won't be able to outcompete everyone. But from speaking to peers recently about their life goals, a lot of them who are very smart simply aren't that interested in grinding hard to reach the top levels (which is fair enough)
I think it’s great to aim big, but it’s important for people to know the hardships associated with an extended career in industry. I do wonder if people would be ask keen to undertake the big lift of grades, internships, extra curricular, etc etc if they knew it isn’t a definitive path once you break in. Especially for people that don’t know how much of this industry is soft skills at more senior levels vs your ability to model
I worked in accounting at a big4 before switching to banking and there I was told if I wanted to stay and go on the partner track they would start building me up with the right clients and internal support. Unfortunately, despite being good at the work, I didn’t want to sell accounting services and discovered PE and wanted to get into it.
I think if you’re young and hungry, it’s not unusual to strive to reach the top of your profession. In accounting my path was more clear but now that I’m in banking, I see how few MDs there are relative to the junior pool and how few, if any of us would make MD - I’m sure PE is even more challenging. These careers have a “straight forward” progression to partner (given the up or out nature of the businesses) hence why many want to believe they can make it. Along the way you face reality where you realize that you either don’t have what it takes or a less straight forward opportunity comes along that’s a great career move so you pivot further.
how long were you in big 4 if i may ask
3.5 years - got an early promo to senior associate after one year and then an early promo to manager at 3 years. Spent half a year after manager recruiting to get into IB
Some of the kids who post stupid shit on WSO will become MDs. As funny as it sounds there will be “some”
Because I am an exceptional person, and I know I will be as successful as I choose.
Like above poster.
When I went to university, I didn’t study medicine, because I was worried I wouldn’t make it into med school. Later, I grabbed hard onto IB because I didn’t think I deserved the job.
Doubt has only hurt me. So now I assume I cannot fail, and that I can do whatever I choose as long as I work hard towards it. That mentality is more productive.
In a 20 year career from now, if there’s kids out there that want to become PE partners, that’s their life goal, then they should pursue that. It is entirely possible with enough grit.
Because that's the right attitude for someone who is 18 - 20 and wants to enter the industry or someone who is a junior in the industry. Enter with big dreams and - hopefully - achieve them. The issue is not dreaming big (as you imply), the issue is not dreaming at all and not striving towards something.
it helps them cope with their shitty lives. end of.
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