How many of your PE friends actually enjoy their job more than banking? I have heard countless stories of longer hours, tougher work and pay pretty much in line with banking for the first couple of years. Most people I know in PE miss their banking jobs. My question is, why do it?
I want to open up an honest discussion where people who have moved over to PE can anonymously tell us if their experience was worth it, and if there was anything they would do differently. I want this to help people that choose to change jobs do so with the full picture in mind, as I am unsure whether leaving banking for PE is worth it. Any opinions welcome.
Here is the negative side. If you don't want a bunch of woe-is-me crap, skip the post. It is a bunch of woe-is-me crap. Don't comment saying "that was a bunch of woe-is-me" crap. Don't say I didn't warn you.
I regret coming to PE. My hours are worse. The culture is worse. People are not as friendly or collaborative. Lots less fun.
The job is not as intellectually stimulating as my last job. There is lots of processing (just slightly different tasks than banking).
I am sleep deprived, and getting fat. I used to be hot - so long six pack (facetiously, but sentimentally true).
I was way happier even with less money. It has made me realize friends and family are what make you happy, not money. Besides, there is plenty of money in alternative careers that are fun, good hours, and still pay well (I should know, I used to work in one of them).
I am trying to leave here to go work at a Tiger Cub. Maybe that is out of the kettle and into the fire. I might go beg my old employer for my job back. I may go to venture.
Who knows. All I know is - it literally could not be worse. I have not watched TV, seen my friends, exercised, indulged in my hobbies in ages. I only live once. Why live life this way?
I have a few friends who work in PE and it seems the hours are not much better at all. They are more predictable in the sense that you don't have clients demanding random things on a Saturday afternoon, but the pressure/total hours are about the same, if not more, than IBD. I think there is a huge misconception that you will go through hell in IBD and then get to the other side and be in heaven at a PE firm, but there is no free lunch. If you want to get paid 350K in your mid-twenties than you are making a sacrifice: give up time, hobbies, other pursuits, health, sleep for money. Everyone should know what they are getting themselves into.
Worse pay, better culture, better hours, more interesting, more fun. Have done both.
how hard is getting into vc after tech ib
Would anyone be able to speak about overall happiness in the Private Credit / Direct Lending area? Have heard that hours tend to better than PE, but with lower comp as well.
Maybe this is because I came from a bank with a miserable culture, but I enjoy PE so much more than my prior job. As someone else on here already mentioned, I think the sweet spot is finding a MM-range fund with a good culture that's in an industry that you're somewhat interested in. I will admit that I am working more hours than banking right now, but I think some of that is a consequence of COVID / everyone wanting to close prior to year end and don't think this is how it always will be. Yes, stress levels are definitely higher because you have more accountability (especially since the team usually trusts their associates and will take their word, so your work needs to be right the first time), but I think that the majority of the analysis I do is infinitely more interesting than analyzing the hypothetical mergers I knew were never going to happen while in banking. At least now, most of the work that I'm doing is going toward a real opportunity, and I also have a lot of opportunities to voice my opinion and develop an investor mindset along the way (which is the complete opposite of what I experienced in banking where I was discouraged to say anything). I think I also got really lucky that nearly everyone at my fund is easy to work with and they've developed a great culture with some really nice people. I can see this being worse for those who spent your two years in IB at a non-sweatshop with a solid culture, but it's night and day better vs. banking based on my experiences. It's without a doubt a harder and more stressful job than banking, but also think it can be more mentally-engaging and rewarding, and I don't think anyone could pay me to go back to banking honestly.
I worked in private credit/mezz and recently moved to PE--many of my friends from the private credit world moved to middle market PE as well. I liked the investing side of private credit better--also could find some more proprietary deal flow which lent itself to much more interesting conversations on the sourcing side (finding an unbanked PE platform deal is virtually impossible these days--we dont even try anymore). Personal preference, but on the credit/mezz side, you get deep enough into a company/industry to satisfy intellectual curiosity, but not so deep (as you need to in PE) that you end up loathing the company by the end.
Culture: my private credit shop was a big one, vs. my lower middle-market PE fund. Credit at that particular shop was more fun from a culture POV, it was a little more like banking. PE firm is much smaller, more serious, and there's definitely still a bunch of internal politics (in my experience, there's actually more internal politics at smaller shops vs. bigger shops.)
Hours: credit hours were better, though both ebbed and flowed based on deals. On the credit side, though, in my experience, we usually didn't dig too far into a deal until we knew we were likely to win it (less true on the direct lending side when youre dealing with PE, but i was primarily touching proprietary deal flow), so the time felt well spent. PE expects you to fully underwrite the thing before even getting exclusivity. Some friends at larger credit shops (like KKR, Macquarie) still put in crazy, PE/banking like hours.
In hindsight, I think choosing between the two first comes down to preference on getting in the weeds, and then the difference in hours comes down to the team/culture of the individual firm.
Thank you. There is a lot of truth to this. I deeply regret leaving investment banking for private equity. Biggest career mistake I ever made. There is a lot more variance between each one of the PE firms to each other. The banks tend to give a more uniform, high-quality experience to employees. I’m not saying banking was perfect. It was certainly very imperfect. However I underestimated what PE would be like. It is not the land of big money and blow jobs. It’s stillHard, boring work, helping somebody else make money, through your finance drudgery.
Goddamnit. I'm going to be a highly paid assistant until I'm 30
You mistyped '40' as '30'. Please fix. Thx.
This is making the HF route look very interesting..
Lots of HF guys are unemployed right now
grass is greener where you water it
Honestly, it's a mixed bag, and the reality is everyone's experience will differ for a few reasons:
1) All banks are different. I feel pretty fortunate to say I worked at a bank / in a group I didn't hate - good people and good deals overcompensated for pretty bad hours at times. This is not the norm at my fund - most of the associates I came in with or have seen a year up/down had worse experiences in banking than I did, and some of the cases sound pretty extreme. There's direct correlation with how much you hated your last job - for those of us who didn't hate our lives before, we aren't as jazzed by the PE day-to-day, but for the kids who sound like they broke out of internment camps, they think it's pretty awesome.
2) All funds are different. I feel pretty fortunate to say I work at a fund where my input is valued. There's a legit culture of debate, and even the most senior partners recognize they aren't always going to get what they want - an associate and principal both pushing for one outcome outweigh the vote of a partner 9/10 times. That is absolutely NOT the case at 75% of the firms my friends work at. It's all a spectrum, and whether or not you feel like you have an impact every day... or whether or not you can hide every day while making $300k, depending on what type you are... makes a huge difference.
3) Related to the second point, everyone has different strengths/likes, and not all funds hit those. Some people really value the comradery of banking, which is definitely less present in PE (even at firms with above-average culture) but for some people it matters less. Some people enjoy the "rush" of a deal sprint, while some absolutely dread/abhor it. Some people really like getting to work closely with a CFO / Head of Strategy / General Counsel to see how the sausage is made at a PortCo... some couldn't care less and feel that drudgery is worse than making a pitch deck (it is admittedly much more in the weeds and being right actually matters). I'd say I like 2/3 of what I do now more than I liked banking, but 1/3 I like noticeably less, but it's important to recognize that's not an applicable brush for the whole PE industry - various funds will align with certain folks better than others, and it's really hard to navigate that during on-cycle recruiting, but the impact is real and noticeable once you hit the desk.
For my overall experience, it's largely been as-advertised. My worst weeks are worse than banking, but my best weeks are better. The work itself is substantially more taxing - no one checks your work, you're responsible for a lot more, you have to lead senior people + target/portfolio companies through analyses/diligence sessions/etc. and be responsible for every single number/methodology/source/etc. - but it's also substantially more interesting in general (still some very mundane tasks that I dislike immensely). I miss the comradery of banking, and frankly the opportunity to switch on/off when I did/didn't care in banking (it's easy to check out when you have your next gig lined up and check back in when you're doing something cool), but I like being treated like a real member of the team even if that team isn't drinking together every Thursday/Friday in the bullpen or the bar around the corner. It's overall better than banking but I have newfound respect for career bankers and have completely lost my juvenile view that being a career banker means you're not smart enough, not diligent enough, not x enough to hack it on the buyside, and I completely see why some folks would do it long-term if they were in a good shop.
There isn't much I'd do differently, but a couple things to think about as you go through the process:
1) really seriously listen to what the folks at these funds say, and prioritize based on how you jived with them, not their AUM/latest fund size. I remember meeting with a senior principal on the verge of MD promote from a fund who literally said some form of the words, verbatim, "we're really good at making money" 12x in a 45 minute breakfast meeting, looked like he constantly had a cold, and had zero hobbies aside from occasional walks in central park with his kids. I couldn't run away from that fund fast enough. At the fund I'm at now, I talked with a partner about their undergrad alma maters chances in march madness and some associates about their favorite places to rent a car and go hiking upstate/in the berkshires. It should be obvious which will have better culture.
2) if you work in a group with good sponsor connectivity and are close with any senior/quasi-senior people, genuinely ask them what they thinks of a few of these firms (casually, of course). You'd be shocked how many MDs think the guys at X fund are idiots, at Y fund are flaky/cheap as hell, at fund Z raised too big a fund and are blowing it on crap, but at W fund are actually good folks with a reputable track record. Sometimes bankers hold vendettas, but more often than not they have a pretty good view of who is reputable / likeable and who is running Dante's 10th circle.
3) try to suss out how your time will be spent at a fund. Every fund says "we're operationally focused" and every associate says "yeah I do a mix of new deal and port co work" because they don't want to go through a long explanation of their job for the 900th time, but try to nail down a view what that the time breakout looks like. Are you reviewing 100 CIMs a year? How many first round and final round bids does the fund do a year? Do you support your CFO or does your CFO just give you numbers for quarterly valuations? Do you have an in-house operations team, or is McKinsey on retainer? Do you have a "playbook"? How much time are you helping your portco with strategy/GTM vs. updating the company cap table for the newest hire? How much of your latest fund is deployed relative to how recently you raised it?
Good luck.
If you want to have a good MF experience you have to do your diligence. Some of the following places are pretty nice to work at:
- Carlyle DC office groups except A&D or long-term fund
- Mainland European KKR offices
- SF-based TPG groups except healthcare and technology
- Bain Capital in Boston but not for main fund
- CVC Growth outside Europe
It basically comes down to finding the right mix of group/geography that causes low deal activity but enough to justify having an office so you work 50 hours a week, do one deal during your two years, a bit of PortCo work, and relax.
The guy whose career I am most jealous of was at the same bank/group as me, but was staffed on only slow-burn large public M&A deals so he got to see relatively interesting work but never spent more than 60 hours a week in the office. He also worked at one of the places I mentioned above and had a very relaxed experience. Now he's been at a family office in an awesome location for a couple years. He wants to eventually spin out the new category he's building for the family into his own fund but wants to give himself a chill 10 years to have a family and build his reputation first. Guy's lived the charmed version of the finance life.
Quant hedge investment strategy meetings sound like, "Beep Boop Bop Beep Bop"
Yes, but that also requires real intelligence rather than just slightly above average intelligence + work ethic / drive so it’s not really accessible for most people who take the banking > PE path
How does a comment like this get monkey shit? Whoever threw MS definitely wears vests in the late Spring and considers Gucci loafers a personality trait. If you're working in PE / IB, your chances of getting into the Jane Streets / AQRs of the world are slim to none (and probably always have been).
I wish you were right, but I honestly feel as though I'm learning nothing and contributing nothing. Thinking about the amount of basically pointless work that I am creating in effect through this DD (for KPMG, law firms, market consultants, etc.) is depressing. "The moral and spiritual damage that comes from this situation is profound. It is a scar across our collective soul." The fact of the matter is that we will probably lose the deal and regardless, most of the findings and analysis will be read by few and quickly discarded because IC will already have a view about the investment and the entire Q&A is just going through the motions and covering the deal teams ass. I will write multiple investment memos summarizing the CIM, and then re-summarizing the CIM and then summarizing the "findings" of our DD and consultant reports. The majority of the work will be tedious and boring and then eventually the process will end and none of the dozens of us working on this transaction will get our holiday back.. blah blah blah..
I'll bite. Despite the title, I'm a VP at a big-ish fund ($10bn+ latest fund size). Definitely agree with a lot of what's been said here - lot more responsibility in PE, less of a banking bullpen culture, work is still banking 2.0 50%(ish) of the time. But I will say, my life has improved significantly since my associate days (even if hours don't follow in precise lockstep). One thing I'd encourage all of you to do is look up a level or two and see if you like that lifestyle and work. Again, I know there's a ton of dickhead mid-level people who work a ton, ignore their families, treat associates like shit, etc. But I've worked with a fair amount (me included, hopefully) who have a more balanced perspective on life and actually find the work much more interesting than in associate days. In general - I don't have to deal with the worst parts of the job (PIBs, models, the majority of data pack creation, portfolio company requests, IR requests, etc) and I get to do the more interesting parts of the deal. Am I still a cog? I mean yeah, sure. But a much more interesting cog than when I was an associate.
I'm also sort of realistic about the broader picture. Is this my dream job? Fuck no. But like, not so bad in the grand scheme of things. I make a ton of money (with millions more hopefully working in the background), I'm surrounded by generally smart, motivated people, I get to learn from c-suite teams who've spent their lives being good at the businesses they run. There are worse ways to spend your working life.
I guess what I'm saying is - I hear all of you guys frustrated with your lives. And in some scenarios, that won't change in 5 years depending on firm culture. But I'd encourage you not to use your associate life as a barometer of PE - see if people a few years ahead of you are (relatively) happy or satisfied or motivated, and factor that in a bit. Not a perfect job by any means, but once you get the hang of it and build a rapport with the people around you, I've found it to be a pretty nice risk / reward / interest of work mix. For what it's worth, I was pretty frustrated with my associate years. Nowadays, when times are bad, my frustration is similarly high and work hours similarly bad. But that isn't most of the time, and in normal times, my work life is far better and what I do on a day to day basis is much more interesting. Just my two cents
Thank you very much - seriously
Anything along these lines. All very genuine questions asked earnestly so thank you again. What I'm wrestling with is that I can stay but am not sure if I want to stay. Don't really care about the money honestly.
No problem.
- Hours are better, both in terms of absolute hours and stuff I do with those hours. When I'm busy on a deal, all bets are off - 70-100 hour weeks (pretty typical for anyone principal and below on a deal team, I'd imagine). That's maybe 20% of the time. The other 60-70%(ish) of the time, it varies, but typically 9am-7:30pm, with an hour or two at night for reading / reviewing and other random tasks. Weekends vary but again, typically a couple of hours each day on random things (could be talking to a banker or management team, could be drafting a memo, could be getting ducks in a row on internal pipeline management, who knows). I guess that adds up to 60ish hours, give or take, which feels about right. 10-20% of the time is easy and I'm not touching work on the weekends and not doing anything post 7/7:30pm. The work itself still has random flashes of frustration (I want to smack IR every time they ask for bullet points or paragraphs on our latest views on various industry trends), but generally speaking, most of my time is spent on evaluating opportunities and portfolio management. So think reviewing models, coming up with structures for presentations (I usually don't do much in the way of chartmaking / analysis, more so messaging and framing), drafting and or proofreading any written investment committee materials, getting on the phone with CFO / CEO and talking through performance, latest on M&A, talking to bankers on random opportunities, brainstorming deal pipeline with principals / partners, etc. Some people still find that inane (and to be fair, some of it is), but I contrast it to the garbage that I spent a lot of time doing as an associate, and it feels far less onerous. This hits on one of your other points - but the substance of work is just so different now versus when I was an associate. Not being tasked with running the model is a huge relief, and frees me up to spend time on more interesting things. It also means I don't feel dread every time someone (me included) says "hey let's run this case or change this variable." I don't think I'm a dick about those type of asks, but as we all well know, sometimes even small asks just feel so tiresome when you've been iterating for a while (and unfortunately, it's a byproduct of the industry. Some places waste a lot less time, mine included, but there's a degree of useless iteration everywhere and you just have to resign yourself to it). I also find it hugely freeing to not deal with all the random bullshit associates have to put up with - I don't update stupid internal banker fee trackers, or LP requests on portco stats, or theme decks that the partner wants to present to a prospective LP. All of that garbage adds up, and when you throw modelling duties and being at the bottom of the totem pole on it, the associate job is pretty taxing. My job now, in contrast, is very much directing associate traffic and effort and running deal teams during processes.
- I have control over my weekend time pretty much most of the time, except when there's a live deal. Then all bets are off. There was an 8 week period earlier this year where, other than attending a wedding which i was not going to miss, I cancelled pretty much everything else on my personal calendar. That's the trade off and it's one I'm willing to make because I like the work and I think it's interesting, but it also doesn't happen to me a majority of the time. If that was my schedule 70% of the time, I'd quit. Weekdays are a bit trickier even during non deal times, but generally speaking, if there's something I really care about (going to a dinner, seeing a friend's med school graduation on a random Friday afternoon, you get the idea), I can make it happen 90% of the time.
- I still deal with a fair amount of random bullshit (e.g. IC asks that are going to get shot down, putting together a term sheet for a deal that is both stupid and going nowhere), but that usually takes me personally less time because I'm not responsible for the majority of the work creation (I don't go pull trading comps, i don't build the model, etc.). It's frustrating, but again, helps not being the primary creator of materials on a project (if you can't tell, i think the associate job is more or less garbage... necessary garbage for reps, but still garbage). And having a staffing like that means 10-25% of my time is on that--versus when you're an associate, putting together an IC deck is going to take 50% of your time. So the frustrating crap inherently occupies less of my time even if it crops up because i always have some leverage beneath me.
- I have friends and (some?) hobbies and generally get to see them. I definitely don't see people much during the week, but to be honest, i don't really want to. I think that's a big part of why i can tolerate this - I have zero desire to go to dinner or drinks every night, or socialize multiple nights in a row. I love grabbing friday/saturday drinks / complaining about my fantasy team over beers on Sunday as much as the next guy or gal, but find the notion of doing it 5 nights a week extremely boring. I think it also helps that most of my friends are not in finance, so i end up not talking to them about the same old shit. I will say personal life deteriorated a fair amount during banking, and then less so during associate years, but the big change has come now, where i have more control.
Here's my advice: if you truly don't care about the money, don't stay. It's too much work otherwise. If you kind of care about money, but also care about working with largely smart people, and not being in client service (ie banking), then stay (this is where I fall in). I couldn't imagine myself working at a typical company. I know this will make me sound somewhat arrogant (and I fully own up to that and am trying to be less of an ass) - but i'd find the concept of 9-5pm and working with non-motivated people so dreadfully soul crushing. I'd rather have sprints on deals and no life 25% of the time than have 9-5pm 100% of the time but not be motivated. Obviously that's an extreme - and there are tons of companies out there with a better balance (tech companies? pension funds? i'm dim on this and sure there's a big list), but i like the fact all my coworkers are very smart, i like the challenge, i like getting to interact with c suite folks that frankly no one my age should have any business interacting with, i like the money. If you don't care about multiple things on that list, and don't think you can live with sacrificing 25%ish of your life full time to this job, probably not worth it (again, these are vague approximations).
If i worked at a place like apollo/cerberus/name your favorite shit fund, i would quit yesterday. can't sustain that. part of this job is figuring out where your pain thresholds are and hopefully finding a place that works for you. It's definitely not easy and takes patience. I will readily admit that i got very lucky and am grateful to be at a place where i've found balance. Has nothing to do with internal fortitude and being smarter and all that other garbage people always talk about - those are necessary but not sufficient conditions. The real key is getting lucky and settling into a routine at a place that matches up to your preferences. And i promise they exist - of my analyst / associate classes, i'd say half of those who went into PE half stayed, and about half of those are actually happy / not miserable. Take that for what you will
one other thing, and someone else mentioned this - covid environment sucks for associates the most. You just get staffed with no interaction. I hate it but honestly it's not as bad for me, as it's made my life more efficient and i can do personal stuff more easily. But i also miss catching up with folks, i miss being able to sit down with and teach / work on problems together with coworkers. it also means no travel to see management teams and businesses and the like, which is again (in my opinion), one of the more interesting/rewarding parts of the job. So as tough as it feels now, i wouldn't judge PE by this environment. it's the worst i've seen in my (admittedly limited) career
I think there are two separate questions here: 1) is life better in PE than in banking (especially at a junior level), and 2) how good of a job is PE intrinsically, regardless of the comparison with banking. Let me try to provide a transparent, fact-based answer to bust some of the myths (both positive and negative) around PE. Sorry for the long post!
On the first question (PE vs. banking), here's my take:
I joined a MF right after graduation and have been working here for a couple of years. I did two internships both in M&A and PE during my studies and I decided to try to join a PE fund right after graduation to avoid 2-3 very tough years in banking. I have never regretted the decision to skip banking for PE: I've talked to multiple friends at multiple banks and I have always considered myself lucky compared to their situation. PE wins by a significant margin on what I believe are the 3 key criteria that define a good job: interest / intellectual stimulation, working culture / work life balance, and compensation.
Interest / Intellectual stimulation: I have felt intellectually stimulated 60-70% of my time in PE. One of the key differences with banking is that you have time to go deep in the business model of the companies you’re trying to buy. You spend time understanding how businesses make money and assessing how this is sustainable. Your job is to talk to all the knowledgeable people in an industry and gather as many insights as possible. If you’re intellectually curious and genuinely interested in business this is just a fantastic learning experience. We can outsource at lof the comps / data crunching / admin tasks to banks which frees up time for more interesting stuff.
Working culture & work life balance: this is obviously a demanding job (see more below), and I have spent several weekends in the office. But I just want to give you a few stats that show that the hours are definitely better than banking (and close to consulting I believe, except the weekend work): for the past 3 years, I have finished work past 2am less than 15 times and had to produce some work over the weekend ~1 weekend out of 4. I feel like I have been able to maintain good sleep routine and have been exercising (think 1-hour rides, swins or runs) 3-5 times a week. This is much, much better than my friends in banking who rarely get a week without a 2am fire drill and who have stopped all form of exercising for most of them.
Compensation: let’s be honest for a second – the compensation in PE is extremely high. Of course, you could make more money launching your own business or joining a hedge fund, but within the universe of safe jobs with guaranteed salaries this is for sure one of the highest-paying. For the last 3 years I have been paid 25%-50% more than my friends in banking and 2x more than my friends in consulting. Nothing to brag about, just sharing the facts.
Now the second question – how good of a job PE really, regardless of the comparison with banking?
I reckon I am still very early in my career but here are a few observations.
I am not sure if people dreaming about PE realize how complex and time-consuming it is to acquire majority stakes in large businesses, which is the core of PE. There are literally a dozen of workstreams to cover before closing a deal: figuring out the growth in the market, assessing barriers to entry, performing QoE and Net Debt analysis, negotiating the financing structure with banks, marking-up the SPA and negotiating the key legal clauses, assessing the management team and potentially looking for additions / replacements, underwriting your exit multiple… Of course, you get advisors to help you on each, but you have to manage everyone, come up with a coherent investment thesis and execute the transaction. This is much, much more complex than organizing a data room and running some comps.
There are two main consequences:
Also, even though the job entails many responsibilities, you’re still a cog in the machine and your personal power to influence things is limited. You can spend hours putting together the greatest investment memo and the fanciest financial analysis, sometimes your IC will just kill the deal because they don’t like the sector or there are potential ESG issues. I believe entrepreneurs / CEOs can feel much more empowered / in the driving seat.
And at the top levels luck plays a big role in how much you make - you can be sitting a $1m+ of carried interest from a potential 3x deal in the travel / leisure / events space at the beginning of the 2020, and suddenly a pandemic will strike and wipe out your carried. You can buy shitty businesses that some strategic will end up acquiring 5 turns of EBITDA higher because they want to grow in a specific region / area and they have a ridiculously low cost of capital thanks to the FED.
TL;DR: PE > Banking by a large margin, but definitely not a job when you can safely make a ton of money without putting in too much effort.
I've said this time again in other threads but I'll post it here too. If you're looking to chase a more prestigious job title etc it's likely you're not going to enjoy your PE gig. If you enjoyed your banking gig culture and left due to wanting to be a "PE guy", you will likely be miserable. If you join a fund with a group which has particularly bad culture, you will not enjoy PE. If you work for people who you hate and see no future with, you will not enjoy your time in PE (this happens more often than one would think).
I could go on with my list which totally defined a lot of my experience in large-cap PE but at it's core, if you don't enjoy the very nature of the deals business and the lifestyle which accompanies it (ie a time-pressured atmosphere which doesn't lend you much predictability even as you progress), then PE will be a cold bucket of water if you were expecting a radically different lifestyle change going into banking.
While I didn't think PE would be a cakewalk when I joined, I certainly undervalued the hell out of what a good group culture meant for me in lieu of a prestigious name / potential deal sheet. I had a candidly awful experience for my two years but on the other side of the coin, was able to leverage it into a pretty sick role I wouldn't have gotten without the brand name on my resume. I am kind of going in different directions here with my messaging so happy to expound on anything but I hope you catch my jist