Does one year of PE 'keep you in the game'?

I'm finishing up my first year as a PE Associate at a UMM fund. This first year has been pretty brutal, and so as a sort of escape valve I applied to Wharton and GSB R3 for admission this fall. I got into Wharton last week and after a pretty strong interview with Stanford I think I have a real shot at getting in there too (decisions come out next week). 

My question is: If I decide to enroll, will my one year of PE experience 'count' for anything? I know I don't want to go back into PE, but I like investing and I might be interested in GE/VC or maybe even HF. If I tried to recruit for these fields from Wharton/GSB would anyone take me seriously with my one year of PE at a top UMM shop? Or should I just grit my teeth and grind through another miserable year of PE to keep these options open?

5 Comments
 

first off congrats! That's awesome and Wharton is obviously one of the top 3/4 school's for both of those things. 

The thing about GE/VC is that they want founders or people with deep product experience (product management/product development) since they have experience taking a product/company from inception to launch. Sector knowledge is table stakes so that really is not a differentiating factor. 

I think coming out of Wharton you will be fine. But you may see yourself losing out at top VC jobs to founders, people who worked at unicorns from the start, and people who were in product management. Since that kind of experience wins out over PE 9/10 times. 

I expect MS since this is a finance forum where PE is seen as a golden path that can't be beat. Not the case.

 
Anything to back this claim? Venture partners exist for a reason but seems like most vc/growth fund have finance backgrounds. There will also be an operational team with consulting backgrounds. This is more true for later stage/bigger funds

first off congrats! That's awesome and Wharton is obviously one of the top 3/4 school's for both of those things. 

The thing about GE/VC is that they want founders or people with deep product experience (product management/product development) since they have experience taking a product/company from inception to launch. Sector knowledge is table stakes so that really is not a differentiating factor. 

I think coming out of Wharton you will be fine. But you may see yourself losing out at top VC jobs to founders, people who worked at unicorns from the start, and people who were in product management. Since that kind of experience wins out over PE 9/10 times. 

I expect MS since this is a finance forum where PE is seen as a golden path that can't be beat. Not the case.

Anythinf

 
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