Learning in PE / IB
I have been in finance for about 3.5 years now (a mix of IB and PE), currently focused on technology PE. Lately, I have been struggling with the feeling that I do not actually know anything that valuable
When I was recruiting, I bought into the idea that these roles were unparalleled learning experiences, that you would come out with great analytical skills, sharp business judgment, and an ability to add value across a variety of businesses. In reality, I have found most of what we do to be fairly repetitive, process-driven, and insulated from true operating or product-level insight
I know people often say we’re “trained” in attention to detail, communication, and financial analysis, but I am starting to think those are somewhat oversold by people within financial circles
Curious if others have felt similarly and for those who have transitioned out, what ended up feeling more substantive or fulfilling in your next career move
My take is that we are all in our early years (22-26ish) and we grew up in a world of unparalleled velocity, meaning we are used to immediateness, especially in “results”.
You got the chance to be in one of the most fast paced industries, at a very young age, you for sure learnt many things but might not realize them yet. These things will be shown in perhaps less perceptible ways: how you communicate (especially about businesses/strategy), how you think about operations, how you analyze things generally, what standards you have for yourself and others…
At the end of the day, there is no “magic formula”. It all depends on the individual. Sure certain jobs like these expand your surface area for absorption of knowledge, but nobody can guarantee you the maximum amount of learning in any career, ever.
Trust the process, you have learnt and will continue to compound that initial knowledge. What you now see as minimal/small, is an amazing base for whatever you do in the coming years. Already being in the mindset to be introspective about learning differentiates you from a big % of this generation. Stay hungry and you’ll reap the fruits.
Learning is a lost art. Combine the fact that it doesn’t matter much in junior banking (i.e., the whole job is to churn out as much as possible in as little time as possible) with the rise of ChatGPT, and you get a perfect recipe for monotony and narrow-minded people as you move along in your career.
People who say “the best and the brightest are in banking and PE” are usually the ones who’ve drunk enough of the juice that they start to believe it and then keep repeating it. It’s circular in an NVDA OPENAI ORCL kind of way.
It’s not something you should lose sleep over. Or care too much about. It’s just a value question at the end of the day -- how much do you actually value intellectual curiosity versus bringing home money. Staying mentally stimulated and pushing yourself to your mental limits versus earning more as you get older and providing for your family (knock on wood).
And the older you get, the harder that tradeoff becomes. You earn more, you work less. Do you really want to give that up just to feed the intellectual itch you get while sitting in the office rocking your Beats headphones. Blasting EDM as you read a tech DD report just to give comments that don't matter. You want to go grind 100 hours a week at a startup for the chance to make it big? To learn more and "wear all the hats"? Maybe. I ask myself all the time. But do you really want to? Not that bad, evidently.
Call me a cynic, but the older you (we) get, the less it matters to do the things you want to do and the more it matters to do the things you need to do. Once in a while you come across a rare gem, and from personal experience, I’ve run into a few. Stick to them. Feed off them. Learn from them.
I wrote this and then ran it through ChatGPT, LOL. I'm a tech-enabled worker. It’s tough to look in the mirror and know you’re part of the problem. But what else are you supposed to be when you were molded that way.
I'd love to take that intellectual jump, but I haven’t been able to break the grasp of the invisible arms holding me back. To those who have taken that jump, I'm all ears.
I’ve found that to really, truly learn in this industry I always need to find time to post-mortem my deals and pitches, and periodically refresh my memory on other work I’ve done. Half the time you are flying through everything at 50k MPH and barely understand what you’re throwing on a page.
100%
2nd this. I also try to talk with the deal team leads (MD) to get a sense of what they thought went well/didn't go so well so I can get another perspective.
You learn more from your losses than your missed shots. Kobe RIP
I learned a ton in oil & gas upstream A&D banking as I worked with reservoir engineers and geologists on the team. General banking groups I agree, probly would not learn much as it’s mostly fluff to sell a company. ER in general is more cerebral job but it pays less and is grindy if the analyst is a nerd
Aristotle sez "The purpose of Knowledge, is action, not Knowledge"
you just don't know the learning that goes on in other roles
it's a job, not school. you're not there to learn, you're there to make money.
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