Prestige or Pay?

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gonna get MSed for this, but unironically scenario 1. I want a career in investing at a place like baupost, and in the meantime i can make enough being a college/IB/pe recruiting consultant (i mean those guys get thousands an hour). i personally find social prestige valuable too because i am superficial and insecure, and as a bonus those names do open up doors. Change it to 10 mil and the calculus changes for sure. Everyone has a price, and i’m no exception. I know a bunch of kids whose parents would pay millions for them to work for free as a slave at GS, so clearly i’m not alone here

The math here is bad. The value of the first path is the earnings until you die. You can ride a prestigious university and first job for a 30 year career. The commercial banking state school route if you get fired you could have problems.

Early on, Prestige/Learning > Pay, later you trade Prestige for earning or career satisfaction.

There is little use for prestige when you have a family and if anything people knowing about the firm I work for is a safety issue and/or people assume I’m pretentious. Prestige is great if you have deep imposter syndrome or are insecure, but otherwise it has more drawbacks than benefits in the late part of your career. Blue-chip brands and firms at the start are very important for credibility though.

What kind of stupid ass question is this