Talented Young People: Stay Away from IB/PE
If you are a young, talented person, PLEASE reconsider joining this industry. And this is coming from a HYP -> EVR/LAZ/CVP -> Apollo/KKR/BX. Most people I know enter the industry only because it's a risk-averse, high-optionality path with a chance of becoming a centi-millionaire.
Being completely honest, IB/PE does not require a high IQ or creativity. The "Oh I love working closely to businesses and blah blah" I say to other people about why I joined PE is an excuse for me not pursuing actually interesting work. Most of my job the past two years in PE has been high-stress (AKA don't fuck up DD), boring busy work. I suspect most people I work with are disinterested in the job too. Most people will not last or be fired before making director, too.
When I was in college, I had the option to join Tech at a startup. I was genuinely interested in the job but was too scared of the risk to turn down my EB internship, which I now heavily regret. The best part of my career so far has been my IB analyst stint and only because of the pledge-like camaraderie I built with analysts/associates. That doesn't even exist in PE as everybody is fake and over-the-top professional. The dark humor that is so common in IB is hella taboo in PE. PE is eerily soulless, something you find in a dystopia novel.
Don't come for the money. Don't come for the prestige. Find something you're genuinely interested in and take the leap. All my friends who went into exciting industries (Tech/Quant Trading/AI) love their job, get paid similarly (most of the time more than) to me, and have ridiculously good WLB (50hrs/wk vs. 80hrs/wk and 3 months balls to the wall deal season). The dream I came into PE of becoming ultra-wealthy has died along with my soul, and I am going to exit out to something (hopefully) more interesting and less draining. If you are an intelligent, young individual, you will most likely feel bored and burned out following the 2+2+2 path.
is HF better?
Good perspective. You have to genuinely love investing (or money) to last in this industry.
This post could not have come at a better time. I am starting my analyst stint at a MM shop this year (Is not well known but has amazing culture) and have been working on a startup with a buddy of mine. I think I will try to defer my offer to next year and have a serious crack at the startup and get pitchin and buildin.
What's your role in the startup?
Co-Founder. I do more Product Dev and Strategy.
This just seems like hindsight bias to me
Sure you realized that you hate the industry now but what if the start up that you could have joined after grad failed and you lost your job in this market if you went that way? I am sure then you would be regretting turning down your EB offer - looking at your finance peers with envy on how much “stability” and prestige they have.
Not saying this is a bad advice (i somewhat agree with it), but you gotta realize that grass always seems greener on the other side. IB/PE is still a great starting point for those who are bright but with no clear direction of interest early on
Then join another startup
Missed the entire point unless it was a joke
Add to OP’s point, it all comes down to the nature of the industry. IB/PE’s job is essentially capital/resource allocation. You don’t create anything new. As you move up the ladder, the only thing that matters is the money/deals you can bring to the table. This is why some star analysts get frustrated when they realize all the hours they’ve put in doing modelling, DD and documentation just don’t give them much edge getting to MD, and tbh any high school grads with 3 month training can do this. In tech, CS in particular, your path is arguably more transparent - your college degree gives you skills directly applicable to your job, and as you become more experienced at your job you become more qualified for senior positions. This is why finance jobs sometimes hire grads from STEM subjects but never the opposite.
wish i figured this out as a college freshman
Thankfully I am not talented
Fax bro, I’m dumb and willing to work long hours for more money than the next guy.
I realized this when I got cooked in real analysis by some elite asians . Never looked back afterwards.
What % of people actually become centi millionaires would you say
Grass is greener syndrome! I have a friend who’s in tech burned out, because he wears more hats at a Tech startup than an insecure bald dude, who works as a doorman at a swanky club in West Village.
Cannot emphasize enough how soul crushing this job is. Waking up on a Monday morning staring down another 90 hour week where you know you will not see your friends / family / significant other or have any time to work out or decompress is very disheartening. I have come to realize that I need to take care of myself and banking just ain’t going to cut it anymore. You have to really love it to stick with this. The pay is not what it used to be but the antiquated culture and pressure to be “on” at all hours of the day to turn comments or address a fire drill is alive and well. Not to mention that there are so many LOSERS who work in banking lmao. 🤙 see you boys on the other side
Which bank are you at to the point you don’t have to workout? Wouldn’t say that’s a general sentiment at all banks.
Risk adverse path to centi millionaire. In which currency lmao
risk-averse path with a chance to become a centi-millionaire. Most people, if they can keep up with the lifestyle, can make it to VP. Once there, then there's a lot of "what if," politics, and straight up luck.
I’d trade my PE seat for a prop shop any day.
Apollo all the way .
Talented young individuals may be deterred by the demanding work culture and limited work-life balance. As a result, many opt for alternative career paths that offer greater flexibility and fulfillment. It's essential for firms to address these concerns and adapt their practices to attract and retain top talent in today's evolving landscape.
Thanks ChatGPT!
That’s not Chat Gpt that’s Ghat Cpt
Come back and write again once you get carry
If you bois think finance geeks are losers wait until you discover other disciplines
id advise anyone , in any industry to start as a 2+2+2. It’s fantastic foundation for a career and I can’t think of a better way to start unless you are going for a technical PhD or quant type work - nothing really beats the rigor and client exposure you’ll get . You can always get into marketing or another function after the mba if you don’t think finance is for you
Ironically, IB/PE is perfect for the scrappy, semi-intelligent types. We generally aren’t talented enough to start our own business or innovate/invent something, but we can poop out excel models and PowerPoint slides day and night like I poop out Taco Bell.
If I had a genius for a friend, I would never tell that person to go into finance unless it was their passion.
or not lucky enough to have a safety net
how about s&t? thoughts on it?
Yes, you rarely see anything abt s&t. I know someone in FX says their analyst have better WLB and he has vacationed everywhere across the globe since his early 30s and has multiple vacation homes. No idea what the comp is. Never had asked him.
What’s up with that side of finance?
agree bro, so underdiscussed :C
(Edit: Not worth the debate).
are there any areas of finance that you'd recommend that are still potentially lucrative but less soul-crushing? (besides quant -I'm not a genius:)
You have to realize that most people here wouldn't be able to do CS/Math to join the tech/AI space or quant. Most of us are best cut for finance because most aren't academically oriented to STEM. I would be premed if I could cut it lol. If your only option to make money is within the business realm then IB is the best path by far
I am glad somebody else is calling bullshit on the “working close to businesses etc.!” Oof.
Disagree. IB/PE is still the best path for the majority. You haven’t seen the dark side of other paths.
1. Tech people are getting laid off. And even if they are lucky enough to not get laid off, their pay plateau quickly and their career is stuck at L5. Further promotion is harder every year as the people on the top aren’t moving their ass to give you their seats. Unless you’re a ML researcher at OpenAI / some god-level start-up ( which many people neither have the determination nor the pedigree to become ) then tech job is pretty much a dead-end that is bound to be phased out by AI and automation. Look at the pay and job market of the traditional web dev: / full-stack / backend / frontend, they are pathetic. Companies expect applicants to have over 8 years of experiences and only paying around 200k for that. And it will further decrease in the future. Tech golden area is gone, if you wanna find the next utopia arbitrage industry, tech definitely ain’t it. You gotta look into other emerging industries
2. Quant trading is not an industry, it is a competitive sport. The people who succeed in quant trading have a by-birth talent for math plus years of rigorous math training no less intense than the training went through by Olympic sport players. Good quant traders are less rare than good NBA players. It’s not like any other industry — you get in, you work hard to stay on track, you climb ladders, and you accumulate wealth. Quant trading is more like: you get in, and the next day you’re fired because you didn’t beat the IMO-5-gold-winner who were playing against you. If you’ve got what it takes to succeed in quant trading, the recruiters of those trading firms would be lurking outside your school dorms before you even finish sophomore year, let alone watch you slide into another industry.
In conclusion: if you are math genius, choose quant trading. If you’re not, IB/PE is still the most worthwhile path regardless of your interests or strengths.
I would also add that tech roles (even as a STEM major such as myself) are largely much more unfulfilling. A lot of programming is only fun if you are building cool things, which in a lot of tech companies you won’t be doing. Even the ‘cooler’ products (such as YouTube etc), the product is mostly just an addictive algorithm, which is not very fulfilling at all.
Yes a lot of IB/PE is shitty, but people have been yapping about it for years, so I don’t understand why people keep falling for the trap. Even if you follow money, there are way better paths that can grant you that (i.e. moving to a tax free region, doing something that allows co-invest i.e middle office at some PE firms, doing something less intensive that involves a partnership i.e consulting).
Agree. Interesting work are getting more rare these days as most of the products have stabilized and matured. Recent grads and juniors are hired to do shitty grunt work. Writing config, setting up pipeline, digging through long and tedious documentations. I literally want to vomit while doing these work
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