The MBB delusion

Flow of thoughts post: Tldr - Working in MBB with top Harvard Stanford MBAs was extremely underwhelming - these brands are just that - it is marketing - what makes you excellent is striving to work hard - being focused - never being complacent - challenging yourself and sticking it out in an industry. Below are a list of learnings and reflections that I have gathered through working at an MBB:

Long form thoughts below on my gripes with MBB:

Heightened Sense of Self-Importance:

I have worked at both MBB and an EB. Both have their strengths and drawbacks - but the one thing I have noticed about MBB is what I like to call the MBB delusion. As young professionals a certain amount of confidence is expected, even good for your career, but at MBB that confidence is tantamount to delusion. Having this confidence with a degree of humility and understanding that skills take time and repetition to develop is a great thing, but the zeitgeist that permeates the MBB is one of self-complacency... "I do not need to learn how to model - PE funds don't really care about that anyway...", "excel will get replaced soon"... The people at MBB gave off the most "I am the most important" / "I am the main character" vibes than I have ever seen anywhere else... expecting shit to be handed to them and delusionally thinking that they can do anything

A crippling fear of numbers:

There is a hate / fear of excel - more than that they do not want to be good / nor get better at excel. Coming from Banking, I am well versed in setting up an excels. Making sure model assumptions and outputs are structured and well organised, version controlling excel files to avoid ref'ing out a model, etc.. Not only was structuring your excel frowned upon - it almost seemed like MBB consultants liked to hate on excel - they wanted to suck at it. It is absurd the amount of times they would actively not listen to best practices. I thought it was an ignorance issue, but what I think it ended up being was a mix of ignorance, laziness, and ego (too good for excel) - this ties with the first point around humility. (Excel does not suck - your lazy attitude towards best practices is what makes you suck at using it)

Volume vs. Quality Issue:

The thing that shocked me the most is this point around volume vs. quality - at the EB we worked on doing a few pieces of analysis to utmost perfection - detailed footnotes with references back to exact source documents - at MBB our literal sources was "Source: [MBB name] experience" - furthermore, all bits of analysis seemed insanely rushed - instead of doing a few things well - we were doing way too many things at a shitty / mediocre level - there was a case where I was working on a DD - where the Associate had not been diligent about keep the excel organised and entered the wrong values and that made it seem like prices were growing vs. declining historically in an industry - the Partner on the case was developing the story to present to the PE firm - the Partner changed the narrative completely based on this one bit of analysis - but he did so with such non-chalantaness even though it was such a fundamental shift in the narrative to provide to the client. In my experience, MBBs priortise more volume of work over the quality of work. They will want to see five different cuts of data - before they are even sure about the quality of one of the cuts

High-paid temp worker:

I think a lot of people want to work at an MBB so that they can explore a lot of different industries without being a specialist - while this is great at the start of a career, it is a recipe for absolute disaster later in your career - you become a jack of all - and have to sell your "half baked experience" to look like an expert in something - which when you are grilled deeply into - the fact that you are a novice clearly shows - there is also the huge and often overlooked risk of "task switching" every couple of months from project to project on seemingly unrelated cases which builds a situation where you are older with no continuous set of experiences and knowledge to show for it - again this can be beneficial if you are young in your career and do not know what to do - but absolutely horrible if you are even the slightest bit focused or frankly older and are expected by society to know what you want. You are in essence a high paid temp worker

Top MBA sham:

I also realised how much a sham / marketing this whole top MBA stuff is inside the MBBs - prior to working at an MBB I could only have guessed - but now I can say this with utter conviction - that these Harvard Stanford colleagues of mine are underwhelming - they have spent a long time building up optionality to the extent that they never developed skills in a singular area of focus - this makes their skill set very underwhelming - I remember working with a Stanford GSB grad who struggled with basic computer skills and did not want to hear tips around getting better at it "my job is above computers - I am a relationship manager". I think top MBA programs play on our anxiety of not being smart enough, they wave around the branding of an MBA like it will give us the validation that we as high achievers want - but frankly their value is extremely dubious - you can be a rockstar and get a top mba and exit as a rockstar - but that is because you have always been a rockstar (i.e., have had good habits of working hard, achieving your goals, staying focused) - a top MBA changes nothing... these programs are just good at selling themselves to our anxieties that naturally make us feel stupid and be hard on ourselves... found this experience revealing when actually working side by side people from these so called top schools.

As a person who always valued education and wanted to get an MBA at a top school - it made me realise that it is not a school that makes you - it is your skills, and efforts when put towards a concentrated target area of focus over a long time - that is what gives you purpose, meaning and love for your work, it is also what makes you good at your job / your vocation - schools wont change you - it is the work and practice and study you do every day that defines your work fulfillment.

Not knowing what you want:

If you are aimless - do not know what you want to do - and/or you are young - then MBB is the perfect place for you. Truth is that no one at MBB knows what they want - and that is fundamentally what makes the MBB such a value prop. for these people. It is also why MBBs have been mediocre from my experience - it is not that they cannot do the tasks at an outstanding level (they are smart and have mental horsepower) but they have not had the "focus of mind" to apply themselves on a singular area of focus with repetition and practice to be truly exceptional - this is the danger to being a generalist - you risk all of your potential by mucking around industry to industry on unrelated cases without actualising into someone of skill and value.

I am from a non-target so I do not think of myself as neither a banker nor a consultant - i just observe how people behave and try to adopt things i like and avoid things I don't. 

My key takeaways that I hope not to forget are:

1. Get focused - know exactly what you want and practice those skills

2. MBB is good if you are early in your career or want to be a strategy professional - otherwise it is not great - in fact sometimes harmful because you will waste time doing shit projects on irrelevant things and just be older with nothing to show for it - MBBs will sell themselves a lot "oh you get a free MBA, oh you can exit in to w.e. you want, blah blah blah" - all this shit is set up for you to accept the offer - be wary of how dubious the value propositions can be

3. Your schooling does not define you - I have seen exceptional human beings with insanely strong skills from non-targets and i have seen some of the most stupid people i have ever worked with from Harvard Stanford - it is you and your drive that define your skill

4. Always stay humble and hungry - no room for complacency - there is always someone out working you.