Finance is like Game of Thrones
Saw this today on quartz:
"Brian DeChesare, who founded the website Mergers & Inquisitions (which gives tips on how to break into investment banking) is also a fan. He said on the site that Game of Thrones is all about “political intrigue, fighting over petty issues and grudges, family feuds, betrayal, and backstabbing people in order to advance. In other words, exactly what you do in finance all day.”
Is this true? You always read about the "cut-throat" environment of Wall Street?
How much of this is hype? Or just aggressive trader mentality spread across the whole industry?
I think there are a lot of political games played once you move up to the higher levels (VP and beyond), where people's perceived reputations (keyword: perceived) and perceived business generation can make or break them. I think this is why you hear a lot of stories of senior people taking credit for others work, pushing blame onto others, etc.
At the junior level (analyst and associate), I think most people are just trying to survive and get to the next level.
But I have seen first-hand some very sketchy board and management maneuvers that are very cutthroat. I've seen very senior people publicly undermine other senior people to push their own agendas. I've seen people take projects, and craft and execute them in such a way, that it pushes their own agenda. I've seen senior people refuse to take orders from other senior people, simply because of petty title issues, and in some cases, even quit because of said issues. I've seen people being promised equity for sticking around and never getting equity after holding up their end of the bargain. People do shady shit.
At the lower levels, it's really more like Real Housewives of Atlanta.
I fucking love this
+1 for that. Nice user name too, cooch
But when it comes down to it, its more like hunger games
Its also like GoT because "if you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention"
Oooooooooooh
OOOOOOOOOOOH
(that was a good one)
At they higher levels political skill is definitely important. One of the big internal company rivalries went down between Paulson and Corzine at GS.
Needs more nudity for this comparison to work...
can we do a comparison of wall street to Hunger Games and Battle Royale as well?
"“political intrigue, fighting over petty issues and grudges, family feuds, betrayal, and backstabbing people in order to advance..." All these elements are hardly unique to finance. In fact you can find the same struggle over control, promotions, power etc within any organization that employs more than a few people. Human beings are by and large political animals who naturally form cliches and undermine each other. Finance is hardly the worst when it comes to this, for at end of the day you are still measured against your performance and even rivals work together from time to time if they think an alliance can help them all make money (hence the prevalence of club deals in the PE universe). Whereas in other professions, especially the public sector and also big companies dominated/stratified by unions, the whole petty politics, frivolous feuds and backstabbing are much worse.
Mad cut-throat. I might be giving you an empty box one day. Two minutes to pack yo thangs.
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