Why is nepotism bad?
I keep seeing everywhere that nepotism is bad and is a problem that needs to be corrected, but why? Isn't the goal of spending your life working to make sure your children or grandchildren have an easier life? If that means giving them a job or getting them an interview or internship that they may have otherwise not qualified for, what exactly is the problem there?
The only objection I can think of is people saying it isn't fair, but again isn't the point of working and grinding to the top making sure that you have an advantage you can pass on?
I think it's better to earn what you have through your own hard work and skillset, not just because your dad made a phone call to one of his buddies.
Better as in more rewarding or better as in objectively better for your career? (Genuinely asking because I can see both sides)
I think both. Earning what you have via your own merit is of course more rewarding than being handed something.
On the second point, if your dad gets you some prestigious job, but you didn't earn it, you're probably not the most qualified person for that job, which means you will probably be behind your peers experience-wise
I'ma Sophomore in college so this might be wrong and feel free to tear this apart, but isn't this a relationship driven bussiness at the end of the day meaning kids that come in with established family connections will eventually turn into MDs that can leverage this and bring in more bussiness?
I don’t actually think nepotism is inherently bad. I’m fairly convinced that most people who complain about it don’t mind it all that much either - at least not in the abstract - what bothers them is something a bit narrower.
It’s when nepotism LARPs/cosplays as self-made virtue. When people born several floors up the building insist on narrating their lives as though they climbed every stair barefoot, eyes forward, and with no mention of help.. They’ll talk about “hard work,” and sure, I believe them - work can be real even when advantage is real; however, what they miss are the invisible conditions cushioning that effort, the background assumptions that never had to be questioned.
Take something as small, and as massive, as an interview for an elite IB position. For one person, it's framed as a single shot that could permanently alter the trajectory of their life. Rent, health care, future capital for taking care of their aging family - all quietly lingering in the back of their mind. For the nepo, it can still be stressful, yes, but not existential... No desperation humming.. but it doesn’t threaten the ground beneath their feet.
A useful corollary to nepo behavior appears in an anecdote from Blackstone’s Steve Schwarzman. In his memoir, he recalls that when Bill Donaldson offered him $10,000 to join DLJ, he countered with $10,500, and not out of need, but simply to be the highest-paid person in his Yale class. In the book, Donaldson agreed, then Schwarzman later frames this as rational, even admirable, decision-making. Viewed through a class lens, it isn’t. No one operating under real survival constraints would take that risk. Lower on the class ladder, the downside dominates: offend the offer, lose the job, derail the trajectory. Caution isn’t timidity, it’s rational. What the anecdote reveals isn’t cleverness, but insulation. To be clear, Schwarzman didn’t come from wealth; this isn’t nepotism in the strict sense, but Yale changed the frame. Elite institutions don’t just confer credentials, but they recalibrate risk. Failure stops being existential and becomes negotiable, and survival logic gives way to optimization. In that way, the story mirrors the broader critique of nepotism: whether advantage is inherited or absorbed, the result is often the same... A worldview increasingly detached from the stakes most people actually face, and decisions that only make sense when the floor beneath you is already secure.
Growing up and living paycheck to paycheck rewires how you think, and time ultimately compresses. Risk becomes dangerous and mistakes compound in that person's mind; that said, it can be exhausting, which is why many in lower class strata 'give up' or 'weed out' themselves from the process or can't relate to the interviewers or accidentally show signs of desperation ('If you were offered the job, when can you start?' tomorrow!). This is very subtle, but those pressures don’t simply disappear in a nepo's privileged life - they just never even enter the frame ('if you were offered the job, when can you start?' 3 months from now). The pressures are absent from the worldview entirely, not out of malice, but because they were never learned nor never needed too.
And that’s the real irritation. Not that nepotism exists and that people are pissed off about it. It always has, and it always will. It’s that some beneficiaries of it refuse to name the obvious, refuse to signal awareness to it, and refuse to carry even a hint of humility about the scaffolding that held them up while they 'climbed.' Also, there is likely no acknowledgment and/or no context when they're pitching that next 'startup' with daddy's money... All of it just becomes a 'performance of grit..' Then, fast forward, they'll make their rounds on podcast interviews about how unique their esoteric investing principles are... maybe even talk about sleeping on some friends couch while tinkering on ideas in the garage (because they could afford too) rather than being a bartender to make ends meet while going to school full-time...
Wow... what an insightful comment. You could write a book with this sort of writing ability
A see a fruitful substack career in your future my man, poignantly observed
Love seeing that high quality, thoughtful posts still exist here. All of this checks out, from my experience grinding away from lower-middle-class to my version of “making it.”
How none of you have clocked the obvious fact that this is AI generated is beyond.
No normal person talks or types in such a refined yet deeply uncanny and meandering manner
Genuinely what is this trash
Not 'AI generated' slop. Most of what I wrote derives from personal experience (raised under a single income/immigrant household, several career transitions with six-figure school debt, non-target education and years of life experience before joining an 'elite' financial institution).. and several books; specifically, The Class Ceiling, a great 'academic' read written by sociologists, Laurison and Friedman, as well as the corollary drawn from Steve Schwarzman's memoir.
Putting thoughts to words can be quite difficult; however, Laurison and Friedman did a great job transforming the abstract 'class ceiling' in a compelling narrative. Their work goes beyond simple theory, and I dumbed it down even further.
Just because you're an illiterate moron, doesn't mean everyone else is too.
Na, some people just know how to write.
Isn’t it all relative? If a middle class person goes to Yale, due not exclusively to his own grind perhaps but to both his parents and his own, and then has a brilliant career due to help from his now wealthy friend network, someone watching from the sidelines may say that is a form of nepotism. “Kid went to yale with so and so and got the job.” But in reality the extent to which he is or isn’t self made is somewhat subjective. And that is the issue with pretending to know about other people’s life stories and the complexities of multi generational socioeconomic mobility. You see plenty of cases of a single individual 100’xing his/her family’s not insignificant net worth and then getting discern from the media because they were ‘born into it.’ When most people don’t understand how hard it is to do that. I agree the most frustrating part is seeing people exaggerate their stories but I have learned to save judgement unless I feel like i understand it more
Bravo. I agree with everything. I've been both the guy who went to a non-target UG with no good pre-IB internships and now a target MBA with very deep pre-IB relevant experience. Once I built up a strong resume over years it gave me the confidence and peace of mind to recruit. At that point I just needed the access my MBA program provided. It was a night/day difference in terms of recruiting experience. I didn't need to explain, "Why IB, this bank, this coverage group, or etc?" I was still tested on technicals as a formality but through strong prep and leaning on my experience I felt very comfortable with the likelihood of placing.
Before in UG I'm sure I came off as too neurotic and desperate. During my recruiting period this past year bankers noted my "lack of thirstiness" I guess. I was trying to maintain some level of zen during recruiting but still smile and come across as pleasant given the madness of recruiting. So there's definitely a balance of hunger/personable you have to carry when recruiting. Without making this too long I think UG prospects should go for that early low-hanging fruit in their freshman year and MBA's need to get an IB/adjacent role before their 1st year to build their experience and credibility. Over time "the why IB" builds and it becomes a virtuous cycle as towards that BB/EB/MM internship.
Nepos will always exist, but candidates should also be aware of their own merits and go hard on what they can control. In terms of getting in that's all I can say. In terms of how Nepos affect moving up ... we'll see. Nepos that perform are tolerable those that don't are irritating, I'm sure.
Exactly this, and even in my case, I was a non-target for UG and MBA, and I still made it. That said, I was that unaware (and stubborn) regarding the process. But, I learned along the way and very quickly, and through grit...
Because if you were already born with the "easier life" advantages given to people labeled "nepo" (i.e. family wealth, no need to work to support your education, better access to educational opportunities, more knowledge of the opportunities that exist and how to get them, etc.) there is no reason you shouldn't be outperforming already. The only reasons you couldn't get a job with these advantages, but without those relationships are 1. lack of effort or 2. lack of capability. If you consider these issues when it is DEI, they should doubly be issues when its just some rich kid who isn't willing to work for what they get.
I feel like the main issue people have is when “nepos” DO get those jobs. I’ve even seen people say the reason they got those jobs was because of access to education.
If I work with a nepo kid and they are intelligent, hard working, and went through the same process, I generally don't have an issue with it. I understand that life isn't fair and that some people have advantages that improve their ability to do work (similar to CapTableTriage's point).
But if I work with a kid who is a dumbass and I have to do more work to make up for their laziness, and then I find out that the only reason I need to do more work is because their dad is part of the right golf club, that is naturally going to piss me off.
Even if life isn't fair, it doesn't mean we can't critique systems that arent fair / not based in merit.
Calling cap on this. There are people who are against private schooling as a whole but the problem people has with Neptoism in a career context is whenever daddy makes a phone call when his precious son is looking for an interview.
Not because they went to elite institutions
I don't think Nepotism by itself is bad. I mean, I've met plenty of kids who qualify as nepo kids and still work incredibly hard, and even without the family connection, probably could make it in. Granted aside from being a nepo kid, they went to semi/target schools so they have an advantage there as well.
I think the main gripes about nepotism on this site stem from two basic things: this industry is incredibly competitive to break into, and the actual intellectual/talent bar is pretty low relative to starting pay and potential pay.
I've met nepo kids who are doctors, and they definitely took advantage of their family connection when it came to getting into med school, but nepotism didn't help them at all when they were working 20-hour shifts as a resident or studying for USMLE Step Two. The actual requirements for breaking into finance are much lower.
Just my two cents.
I've always believed that if there was a nepo kid who made it onto a desk purely because of their family connection, they weren't going to last long. Nepotism helps kids get their foot into the door, but once they're in I'm assuming that advantage decreases significantly, unless you're Howard Lutnick's kids. I don't think they were ever in danger of being fired.
When they are hardowrking, its better, but in some way still a problem.
There is the inherent inequality that comes with being born into a certain class or family. They have access to better education, generally no financial problems and access to information, which working class people dont even know exists.
Nepotism is 1% of candidate pool. Nobody cares and will never be eliminated. On the other hand, gender DEI, ~50% of seats in hiring and promotions.
You can see someone is a woman just by looking at them. You can't see that someone had their dad donate money to get their kid into college but believe me those types are everywhere.
At my firm the intern classes are around 70% nepo, 25% dei.
You honestly have no idea how rampant nepotism is until you are on the inside…
Why should someone less skilled, without the necessary ability be advantaged, simply for being born into the right family? They have to do less, to receive more.
why is free trade bad? why is trump sanctioning the globe, nationalizing the fed, reshoring manufacturing and deliberately devaluing the USD?
Spain when it doesn't want X - Elon: Dirty Sánchez is a tyrant and traitor to the people of Spain
US when it doesn't want free trade - Howard Lutnick: globalization has failed us
"Why is nepotism bad?"
It's fine if you own 100% of the company.
But when you have co-owners and hire someone weaker as a personal favor to yourself, the problem should be obvious. It's a form of theft.
It's also not entirely clear the kid even benefits. Depends on circumstances. Having grown up in a small town with a lot of rich families (not mine, but others), the distribution is pretty binary.
Some kids were raised from a young age to be humble, frugal and hard working, almost to an insane level. I knew a kid whose family was worth $1b+ who would lose his shit if the vending machine took 75 cents from him. I can only assume his parents were intentionally biasing him one way at a young age so that he'd ultimately wind up in the right place mentally when it comes to respecting money and working hard.
Those kids are all successful now. They maybe got a few favors along the way, but nothing huge until they were already somewhat made on their own in their 30s or at least late 20s.
Others were pampered early on, given everything early on, and the bad result was very reliable. Damn near 100% hit rate on those feeling wasted potential as adults, and feeling behind their peers despite having a trust fund.
I feel like most of the comments here were either straight up written by AI or come from Nepobabies themselves.
Nepotism is bad. Point blank period. It's literally defined as the practice of those in power favoring relatives or friends, by giving them jobs or special treatment.
So just like any other form of undue advantage that perverts what should be a meritocratic system, it's a cancer.
The world is unfair, yes, but it doesn't mean we should shrug our shoulders and accept that should be the case.
Most people work hard to provide a good life for their kids but there's a huge difference between giving your kids a comfortable life and solid foundation , and leaving them to thrive or fail by their own devices, and coddling them under the pretense of being a loving parent.
Again Nepotism is bad because it stifles the only unequivocally good thing about capitalism which is class mobility and creates an inbreed group of elites who fundamentally lack a certain level of grit and societal awareness awhich makes them noxiously insulated from the plight of the masses and generally tone death if not outright bad leaders
.
I don't know if I'm just being pedantic or something , but I'm getting the distinct impression you're conflating two very different things. Nepobabies and rich kids.
Someone can be born to wealth and not be a nepobaby and the inverse can be true.
No one cares if you made it into the industry by your own merits and also have rich parents. But it's a whole different matter if you wound up in the industry mostly due to connections.
It doesn't matter if you're still competent it's a black mark on you because it inherently suggests you are taking up space for someone more deserving. That someone could be another rich kid or preferably some poor kid.
It’s easy to say we shouldn't 'even things out' when the current scales are tipped in your favor. But most people aren't looking to 'set you back' they just want the same access to the tools you were given.
If 'working hard' is the answer, then that work should yield the same results regardless of your starting point.
Right now, it doesn't, and that’s the part of society people are trying to fix.
This is an idealistic take that doesn't align with reality. Yes, everyone wants society to get better over time and for everyone to get a dividend of that incl future generations
That said, when it comes to your kid I can confidently say >80% of people are not thinking 'how to make sure my kid's talents benefit society.' They are thinking (and acting upon -- where one form is nepotism) about how their child can succeed in their life (and how they can help, if possible) to actualize that journey
Vast majority of people if you look at what they say (yeah society's needs matter more than my kids) vs what they do (calling buddy to hire their kid) is in wild opposition. As usual, talk is cheap -- what you do proves your real priorities
I will 100% -- if within my power -- do anything & everything I can to help my child succeed. Not with the intent of screwing anyone else over, but with the intent of helping my kid do well in life. You'd be hard pressed to find people in the upper 10-20% of society who would choose to do otherwise
Here is an example of how it can be bad.
Im a mid level at an understaffed firm. We have 4 entry level folks and 3 mid levels. One of the entry level folks is a nepo hire and at a firm our size, this is causing massive issues. Mid levels have to do his work for him, other juniors have to pick up more slack, and he is completely untouchable given political dynamics and a fairly toxic culture. Multiple attempts to actually push discipline, give negative reviews, etc, have fallen on dead ears or been strong armed away.
His poor performance has hindered the teams ability to perform as needed on deals. It's impacted myself and my MDs standing in the firm. It's arguably impacted promotion timelines. It's arguably cost clients money.
I'm being intentionally vague on firm description here to avoid detection / dox myself. I'll just say we aren't a family office where something like this is perhaps appropriate.
Nepotism, especially when it is folks who are legitimately bad at their job, has real victims and costs. Those costs are likely less noticeable at larger firms.
I've worked with a nepo kid before who was talented and it was fine. But you can't play house forever if your cokehead son wants to larp as a financier.
Not bad at all. Life isn’t fair and you’ve got to use every advantage you can to get in / ahead
Lmao
"The only objection I can think of is people saying it isn't fair"
The only objection I can think of about the Titanic is that it hit an iceberg
Nepotism is good when it benefits you / your kids. Nepotism is bad when it works against you.
Thank you for your attention to this matter!
holy fuck people in finance are so retarded
It's "Rich Kid Syndrome", also called profound mental retardation
Without nepotism there would be no incentive to do any work. Society would collapse.
Facts, can’t tell you how many people who I know hit the number sticking around so they can make sure their kids are set up. Don’t blame them, I hope to do the same.
I have worked with several sell-side MDs/buyside PMs kids and most have been solid. The couple partner/CEO kids I have worked with all tend to suck and quit after a couple of years.
b
bump
If jobs are available in excess and competition isn't as harsh, it truly doesn't matter that much. If, however, there are only a limited number of available positions and some dickhead moron is chosen over you because his daddy is rich or an important part of the company while you decided to bend over backwards destroying your own physical and mental health to study for absolutely zero reward in the end, you might crash out and become slightly angry at how the world works.
So basically, Nepotism is in direct contradiction with the notion of a Meritocracy, which is, I would argue, a pivotal part in making sure society as a whole accepts the hierarchies it creates and maintains. If Hierarchies become objectively illegitimate (i.e. through heredity), people that lost out (which is always the majority) will inevitably get violent.
It’s not morally bad on its face. Just depends on how it’s handled.
If the kid is absolutely crushing it in school and nothing was handed to him/her, sure they can work at your friend’s company, they can hire whoever they want and they already know you. Trust is important for analyst hires.
But if they’re human garbage, no they don’t deserve anything and it’s a foolish thing to put yourself out there for a dumb kid you raised.
In the end, it’s business. People do dumb things all the time. Nepotism is part of the deal for a lot of people.
I've said before that pure meritocracy is really the only way we can all be treated fairly. Nepotism is the opposite of DEI in a sense, but also just another side to the same coin. You're hiring someone based on something other than ability. If you think nepotism is OK then you have to think DEI is ok.
This is why to avoid being hypocritical, if you oppose one I think you must oppose the other.
I am somewhat biased though, I grew up in the rural south and went to Alabama public schools. 1 parent was blue collar and the other was a nurse. So I've always had strong disdain for anyone who was simply given what they have and then claimed achievement. That said, you still can't replace work ethic (mostly).
If you did grow up with a silver spoon, at least be humble.
Realize this is the IB forum, but there can be scarcity of supply of some high level jobs.
If there's 8 high level jobs of one type, and 5 more of less have nepo connections, the odds are really bad for a random person.
In the broader economy, a lot of the high paying jobs aren't really that gettable. This is outside of things like medicine/biglaw/tech.
Nepotism is not bad.
Nepotism is only bad, IF I AM NOT INVOLVED.
BUT IF I AM INVOLVED, I WILL DEFEND IT!
It’s not bad at all. The reality is if someone (even if it’s family or client) is willing to vouch for you that is a positive signal that they have a baseline level of competency. Because if they don’t that would reflect poorly on the referer’s own reputation. In a hiring market with imperfect information this positive signal poors the nepo candidate leagues above some random kid from the street who I have no idea about.
Further nepo/insider hires are more likely to mesh well with the team’s existing culture which is just as important as competency.
i mean theres a difference between nepotism and networking and the thing is many people dont understand or dont see the differerences
Because we (as Americans, at least) like to claim that our society is a meritocracy, and that social and class distinctions aren't semi-hereditary. If we accept that nepotism is okay, then we throw out the fiction that merit matters. At that point, complaining about any other system becomes moot, too. WSO conservatives love to hate on DEI, but once you say out loud that hiring isn't done on merit or ability, then all you're doing is complaining about the hiring standards being used. And then you and others would have to admit that what you dislike is minorities being given positions of power or privilege, not that it isn't going to the most deserving candidate.
I say this often, but not giving a shit about meritocracy or merit-based hiring is fine. You sacrifice your right to complain about not getting a job, of course - who cares what is on your resume at that point? What is bigoted and fucked up is people who complain about DEI without complaining longer and louder about nepotism.
Advocates of nepotism tend to be the people who think they'll benefit from it, which is a pretty craven worldview.
Some degree of nepotism is necessary to fuel the desire to accumulate wealth.
The marginal benefit of nepotism beyond some optimal level X may be small or nonexistent in incentivizing hard work but the marginal cost which is misallocation of capital to those who wouldn’t compound it at the fastest rate begins to more than offset that benefit.
The debate is the optimal level X
This is correct. A lot of people just would not work as hard if the fruits of their hard labor couldn't apply then to their kids (i.e. passing it on to their next generation). If you told me all of my wealth would be taken away at death, I'd either 1) absolutely not working as hard and 2) move to a different country. Period.
Nepotism follows the same principle, you want to know that your hard work helps your kid get a leg up in the world. The world is not zero sum, but it's not exactly limitless sum either
There is a right balance of nepotism, when it goes to far in either direction that's when society is screwed
WSO: "Nepostism is good and necessary"
Also WSO: diVeRsiTy iS KiLliNg tHiS iNdUsTrY, wHeRe iS mEriToCrAcY?
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