Random thought experiment, what if every analyst everywhere just stopped working past 6 pm
Had a random thought the other day, what if, across the entire industry, every single junior banker collectively decided to stop working past 6 PM. No latenight pitchbook edits, no 2 AM fire drills, no “hop on a call at midnight.” Just 9–6 like a normal job.
At first, I think the there would be complete chaos obviously. But assuming this was truly industry-wide, the Street would eventually adapt. I imagine there’d be a lot more offshoring. Banks would massively scale up India, Philippines, and Eastern Europe hubs, and shift to “follow-the-sun” workflows. That way when London logs off, Mumbai picks it up, then hands it to New York, and so on.
Eventually, I could see banks restructuring their teams to be much more specialized. Instead of every analyst being a generalist doing 100 things, you’d have dedicated pods: a modeling team, a pitchbook generation team, research pods, etc. At that point, banks would start to resemble consulting firms or Big 4 counterparts, but applied to M&A and capital markets. Hours would normalize (maybe 45–55 a week).
Thought it was an interesting thought experiment anyway, would banking still be anywhere near as popular as it is now? And also how would this affect comp & exits for juniors as well as the business model as a whole.
They’d get fired and replaced. But bit-by-bit within a group, analysts can definitely nudge towards better outcomes and norms (More WFH, less facetime culture, less weekend work, less late night work). But it’s a prisoners dilemma problem as the hardos won’t necessarily act in the collective interest.
I meant that just for this scenario imagine if everyone stuck to their guns, so even new analysts who join also just log off at 6. Essentially there’s no way around, it you can fire them hire new analysts but they’ll also just log off at 6.
Yes and with that would come a decrease in comp, benefits, and exit opportunities unfortunately.
Mumbai and the Philippines definitely couldn’t pick up the workload lol
OP just discovered the modus operandi of syndicates
There are a lot of potential outcomes, my personal guess is that banks would staff up and total comp would fall by ~50%.
Hah, analyst class solidarity?
no greater theft in Murica than wage theft
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