Is PE a career for the uninspired, unambitious, and untalented?

Every fund thinks they’re differentiated. Everyone is everyone’s “sponsor of choice.” If you’re a MF, you have unique global breadth, if you’re a LMM fund, you have unique vertical expertise and an “entrepreneurial” culture. Strange choice of words when a career in PE these days seems no less structured than a career in medicine.
 

Target school education —> recruit for IB —> PE interviews 1 month into the job —> 2 years in IB —> 2 year PE program —> 2 year MBA
 

There is nothing wrong with choosing a career for its stability and high earning power. It just surprises me the egos of some of the people I have met in PE, who seem to think they are god’s gift to earth. I had a conversation with a VP of a LMM PE firm who distinguished themself from “civilians” working a 9-5 job, climbing up the career ladder. Um… okay…. 

8 Comments
 

Sure. But is it any more or less "uninspiring, unambitious, and untalented" than people who spend their whole lives figuring out how to throw a ball into a circle? 

 

All I could think of was this scene when reading this topic. Everyone thinks what they do is the awe inspiring, ambitious, change the world type of work that they should brag about.
 

“Hooli isn’t just another high tech company. Hooli isn’t just about software. Hooli. Hooli is about people. Hooli is about innovative technology that makes a difference, transforming the world as we know it. Making the world a better place, through minimal message oriented transport layers. I firmly believe we can only achieve greatness if first we achieve goodness.”

 
Most Helpful

PE is a career for ambitious people who have no specific ambition. So they gravitate towards the most prestigious and high paying thing they could find that is also very railroaded and doesn’t, at least at the junior levels, require much risk taking or outside the box thinking. It’s the safest option for someone who wants to be well paid and have a “top job” but who doesn’t have a particular niche or passion.

Nothing wrong with PE, and I know plenty of really smart and creative people in PE, but at the end of the day that is where the most garden variety and undifferentiated high finance people tend to go.

 

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