How has high finance changed your worldview?
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Some people need to get a life. Lots of messed up people are in financial services. I left the fast life and went to Corp Dev. Normalish hours, intriguing work, and comparable pay.
The prior slave driver I worked for was such a tard he skipped his father's funeral to get a deal done. I'm not even kidding. I bet you can guess how much a work life balance mattered to his team. He once said he would kick someone's grandma down a flight of stairs if the overall impact was >$1 NPV. Just a ruthless gunner hoping to get to the 9 figure net worth.
Well first of all stop fucking using the term "high finance"
you're not even an accountant yet. already buttmad about accountant shit. lol
swing and a miss
You and I have equally important majors.
high finance has COCAINE
No.
Don't worry about what other people think. Respect others and they will respect you.
Haha money has nothing to do with respect
The easiest way is to surround yourself with people who don't work in high finance. They will check your ego and talk to you like you are an idiot for the way you think. This ensures you don't get caught up in the mindset.
SBd, great advice
Definitely trying to do this. Have found it hard to do so.
Working in finance is dehumanizing in a way because capital is relentless. Some fund somewhere decides to do something totally arbitrary in the grand scheme of things and it sets off a chain of events that ultimately ends up on your plate and you immediately know your next few weeks/months are shot. Then it's a ton of late nights and spreadsheets and reading and analysis of big dollar numbers, and it feels like there's a huge disconnect between this amorphous global financial market and you, like, canceling taco plans with friends, which is a very normal and human thing to want. I think that's a perfect recipe to become jaded - no one gives a shit in the end about a recap or a big merger, but something has to give to make it all seem worth it.
Agree with Dolphins are Cool that you just have to surround yourself with good people and enjoy the work, on some level. I get a ton of anxiety when starting a new project, but by the end it's rewarding to have tackled a complex situation, learnt a lot and worked through the issues.
Unfortunately whatever people talk about "high finance" - those people are actually not the one who makes the most money in real life. People who are entrepreneurs (i.e. Bill Gates, Jack Ma, Masayoshi Son, Li Ka-shing) and then people who are politicians (i.e. Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping) - those people are actually the ones who control most of the wealth. Then you have financier family holdings like Rothschild who secretly control all the wealth. Everyone of us, who are in finance are mostly "agents" of those people. We are merely glorified employees who can get fired on a whim. So let's not think highly of ourselves here. Our job is not as special as the guy who is cleaning our toilets or the guy who is selling burgers - we are all replaceable. We are only here because we are lucky sperms and/or the lady luck favors us.
Why can't more people recognize this? Half the idiots on WSO think becoming an MD will mark the ultimate culmination of their life. At the end of day, you are either a capitalist (i.e. business owner, equity partner, landlord, etc.) or a laborer whose value is exploited by someone above you. If you have to answer to anyone other than your clients/the market, you are an employee and no one gives a shit if you jump off a roof tomorrow or go crazy and quit your job on the spot to join an apocalyptic cult in Arizona. Alas, most WSO lemmings must see themselves as fellow "masters of the universe" to imbue their sad little wage-slave lives with some sense of higher purpose.
Becoming an MD or something similar means you do make serious money. You're still in the 0.01%. While you're still working for many people and for shareholders and you're 100% replaceable but it's nothing to laugh at.
I legit think that the only path forward is taking risks and accept you'll lose sometimes.
This is the standard BS that you get from the average Joe. It's definitely not about money. I've worked with so many people in this business who have enough money to quit working tomorrow and have millions in the bank but drive fairly modest cars. They're not doing this for the money...
And power? What power? An MD can tell me to flip a pitchbook for the 20th time, but he's not Putin.
People's motivations are pretty complex. Whenever someone tries to boil down human beings to something black and white like "the pursuit of money/power", they usually have some sort of agenda like wanting to split the world into "those evil rich people" and "us great virtuous low and middle class".
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