PE Firms With Good Work Cultures
I want desperately want quit my sweatshop PE firm (Senior Associate, on VP promotion track in ~12 months). I like the work but cannot deal with the terrible work culture which has brought me to a complete breaking point. I know this isn't necessarily a unique problem in the industry but have gathered enough anecdotal data to know that there definitely are firms with much happier employees.
My question is - what are some firms that are known for having good cultures? I'm not looking for a 9-5 job, but rather a place where they generally try to respect each others time and people take vacations / breaks.
Geo preference is West Coast, if possible. Open to all sizes and strategies (including Growth, maybe even VC)
Bump
Can somebody talk abt Bain Capital's culture? Heard it's got good culture and would like to hear more abt it
Bump
Joined recently, can confirm. The firm is organized in such a way that encourages collaboration and a healthy work life balance. There’s a firm cafeteria that everyone from intern to partner eats at, which encourages people to socialize as opposed to eating alone at their desks. They also have a barista who makes free drinks in the morning and in the afternoon - people actively encourage grabbing coffee together and there’s a space to do so.
Most people work in the office four days a week (sometimes less), and it’s rare to see anyone come in on the weekends. The people I’ve met have all been incredibly kind. The difference between my experience and some of my peers at other firms is day and night. Inevitably, people will still work long hours from time to time, but the culture around it is much better. They even have a “no yelling” policy which I found quite funny. Don’t know the exact figures but the turnover rate feels much lower.
Just my two cents - there are many firms where culture is a nonnegotiable! Best of luck with the search and hope this helps.
Boston office?
Oh, what I would give to be a 1st year associate again...
Here we go with Bain Capital again
Leonard Green and Genstar come to mind, but those are two of the hardest seats in PE to snag.
Why hard to snag?
Can't speak to Genstar but LGP is known to have a great culture, their investment philosophy is to make higher-than-average offers for quality businesses (true Buffett approach and it means you actually close deals instead of doing a ton of work and lowballing which will inevitably be turned down) and of course geographically, you get to do PE in Los Angeles and live on the west coast.
I have heard bad things about Genstar
What have you heard? I haven't heard anything from a buyside perspective, but all my colleagues on the sell-side say Genstar is one of the only firms that has good / great culture (relative to this industry). If Genstar doesn't have good culture, then that's discouraging.
Have heard incredible things about Leonard Green - definitely somewhere I am aiming to join, however I've heard they heavily favor LA-based graduates/individuals.
Do you know if LGP sponsors Canadians?
not sure how true and not west coast, but have heard good things about berkshire and surprisingly, blackstone. can someone confirm blackstone’s culture?
This is a joke right? BX is well known to have one of the toughest cultures. It starts with being in the office 5 days a week in a suit
Maybe we have different definitions of culture, but I don't see how being in the office 5 days a week with a suit has any material correlation to the following aspects that I equate with culture: hours, respectfulness for colleagues, how close knit a team is, whether there are sharp elbows, whether seniors are verbally abusive / unreasonable, etc.
Regarding BX, past threads have indicated otherwise:
BX seems like only a place you want to be if you want the best exit opportunities coming out of PE, and not necessarily a place to work for in the long-term.
What type of firm are you at now? LMM, MM, MF? What geography? Curious
Anyone know anything about culture at any of the tech MM shops like AKKR, Vector, Marlin, etc.?
Have heard bad things about marlin and vector
retweet
Have heard AKKR is pretty sweaty
I've heard Marlin has underperformed and may not raise another fund or isn't going to. There have been some articles recently about a decent amount of people leaving.
Any thoughts on Golden Gate? Have heard they've struggled to raise new $ / a new fund recently.
I don't think fundraising is expected until later this year...
Surpisingly, I’ve heard that Golden Gate has had a massive turnaround in culture and is much better than what you hear about from 2/3 years ago.
I think it primarily had to do with spinouts of what were considered pretty toxic groups.
Not sure how pay and returns are, but have heard culture has improved a ton.
Anyone else have anecdotal evidence?
Junior pay is in line with other UMMs.
i hear apollo's culture is a+
I’ve heard TPG has a better culture than most MFs fwiw
In what sense?
Their London team has some of the most outright disrespectful people I have ever met in my professional career. They can't even keep it together during interviews (personal experience and heard the same from close friends who have interviewed here). Seems like these people generally are getting elevated in that team as well, big red flag IMO.
HarbourVest is known to have a very good culture / WLB across investment strategies. Hours are 40-50 most weeks (slightly more depending on strategy) with it stretching to ~60 at most when in crunch time, but almost no weekend work since it’s looked down upon by the seniors. Generally, almost nobody leaves once they reach VP+ level unless they’re pushed out.
this is for their core FoF business, right? FoFs generally have shorter hours than direct investments
Think this is across the whole firm really (direct PE, secondaries, FoFs, real estate). Might see a 10% difference depending on strategy but overall good WLB
Have anecdotally heard good things about NMC - can anyone confirm?
Heard the opposite but take it with a grain of salt
This is not true
Source/further details? Would love to know more as their consultant heavy ASO team made me think they were pretty good
Know someone whose good friends with a senior there. Seems to be a great platform to get promoted to VP and above. Not a 2 and out. Heard it's quite sweaty but which ~UMM PE firm isn't?
From friends at NMC - it’s a pretty sterile, rigid, and conservative work culture and hours are tough. Kind of place where you dress formally and act formally in all your interactions with people.
TB?
Rule of thumb is that usually if the firm hires a lot of consultants, then culture should be good
This is not true at all lol. GGC fucking sucked and they were very consultant-happy. I think H&F hired them too and is not great. People just extrapolate off of Bain and Berkshire and the idea that consultants are just soft people in general but the correlation isn't really there
[]
Accurate - in my experience consultant-heavy is very sweaty since you have people who are extremely risk averse and love superfluous analysis and powerpoint slides
Heard GIP culture is A+ lately
lol.
Lmfaooooo
During a couple software sell side processes last year I got to interact with the below firms' west coast / tech teams and observe them and my client's reaction to them:
KKR - extremely intense, partners asking in the weeds diligence questions that felt irrelevant to the seller. Associate looked a bit like SBF if he hadn't slept in a couple days and he didn't speak once, just machine gunned notes on his laptop. Management team wanted to kick them from the process after the first in person meeting
Leonard Green - Partner was extremely personable / jovial and well spoken. This meeting was virtual so couldn't observe the associate but overall vibes were good
Blackstone - somewhat similar to KKR but not as intense. Associate seemed a bit happier. They weren't as involved so got less of a read
Carlyle - this was our management team's favorite. The team came in super friendly, had somewhat of a southern vibe and the partners were cracking jokes the whole time. Associate seemed very happy and asked a couple questions in the meeting
Thoma Bravo - Partner seemed young and somewhat bro-ey (wearing a baseball cap) but very sharp. Got the vibe that associates seemed to not be included in the meetings but were number crunchers in the background
Francisco Partners - nerdy partner who looked like he was 25 but was very smart. Also virtual but have heard anecdotally that its a sweatshop
Have heard several of the DFW shops have great culture. Gauge Capital comes to mind - buddy of mine interviewed there and mentioned all of the people were very nice.
Also have only met them over interviews, but RLH Equity seems great from a WLB perspective and the several folks I've met there seem nice enough/personable/friendly
As someone a little bit older with friends at every firm that has been mentioned here, I have to point out that culture is relative. Berkshire and Bain are relatively nicer places to work compared to other PE firms but in an absolute sense they produce a lot of burned out and exhausted associates and are tough places to work compared to literally any job outside of finance.
I would also make sure to really vet the anecdotal accounts you’ve heard - people in this industry are great at avoiding showing weakness and imperfection. Friends of mine who’ve claimed to have the perfect gig end up being burned out and miserable when you look under the hood. They think on paper they should have the perfect job and be happy because their gig is relatively better but if you push them deeper the truth comes out that it’s still a tough gig in an absolute sense even if it’s relatively better. This has been the case with every person in the industry I know, from LMM to MF.
Private Equity is inherently a very volatile profession, to avoid that volatility creating an inherently toxic environment you have to be ultra focused on people management which almost no firm actually is in reality (this is true for NYC MFs all the way to regional LMM funds). There is also an unstated expectation throughout the industry that the job comes first and that boundaries are porous and don’t exist when a deal is on.
OP you really need to ask yourself what is causing the burnout - is it the people you work with or is it the complete lack of boundaries. If it’s the people, another firm might fix that (but remember every firm will be somewhat pedantic, hierarchical, and political) but if it’s the lack of boundaries, that is inherent in the industry and job function as a whole.
I would encourage you to think critically about how much lack of boundaries are impacting your well-being and then decide if lateraling or leaving the industry is the best course of action.
bump
Anyone heard anything about PE funds with offices in FL?
Anyone got info on EQT NY?
Annecdotal experience but I interviewed with their infra fund during on cycle and they seemed like extreme hardos. Also most of their team was in the office (keep in mind this was in covid era, where you would expect people to go wfh after a certain time) at like 11pm and I got the sense it wasn’t just because of on cycle.
This is a helpful datapoint, thank you. It’s honestly quite the opposite of what I’ve heard from others who have told me they have a more laid back culture than the other US-based MFs but these were all anecdotal views as well.
One to avoid: Corsair Capital
No one in PE is promoted based on their people management skills and there is basically no incentive to retain anyone or invest in long term relationships / career development / career longevity with anyone junior because talent is so easily and immediately replaceable (they literally hire people oncycle to replace you in 2 years within your first few months on the job as an associate lol). Promoting people also means dilution to the carry pool - it’s why so many firms love to hire senior associates (even post mbas are at this level now) who are fully trained but the firm has no intention of ever promoting to VP or giving real carry to. PE is short term games with short term minded people - a game of extracting as much value out of the person as fast as possible before inevitably replacing them in 2 years with a replacement eager and motivated to take their place.
A lot of the firms mentioned on this thread have relatively better cultures in some ways and awful cultures in other ways. Compared to anything outside of IB / PE all of these firms are toxic cesspits - even the best ones mentioned on this forum.
What you need to ask yourself is if it’s the specific personalities of the people you hate or if you hate the lack of boundaries and hierarchy. If it’s the former, perhaps a new firm will solve that. If it’s the latter, I would recommend looking for exits outside of PE.
This is a very pessimistic view, and I don’t think it represents the majority of people’s PE experiences. Certainly some, but certainly not mine or my friends who are in PE at various firms. I do absolutely agree that senior folks are reluctant to promote associates to VP and higher because it takes away from the carry pool — these promotions are usually only justified by the expectation that the promoted person will add more value than the carry dollars they’re taking away from seniors.
However, the idea that every PE firm is a “toxic cesspool” compared to other industries is just incorrect. I’ll admit some PE firms have just awful culture, but there truly are some that are pretty good. Not Google software engineer level, but pretty good. I mean, do you really think that every PE firm has worse culture than an industrial factory? Or working in (many areas of) academia, or in law, or in the military? As someone who has family and close friends in all of these industries, I assure you that many PE firms provide a more favorable culture. People like to conflate number of hours worked with good culture, and they’re just not the same thing. PE will always require longer hours than most professions. That doesn’t mean you automatically hate your job or the people you work with. But if it does, it might mean it’s not the right career for you.
Sure - there are bad cultures in every industry. What I will say is that PE (hell all professional services) is particularly bad in the lack of boundaries and respect for your time and independence. If you go to any non professional services job there are certain minimum boundaries that are respected which isn’t the case when your job has open ended work hours and a culture that the job comes first before everything else. There is a major difference between working long hours that you can set yourself and working long hours when you have to drop everything and respond back immediately. The latter breeds a culture where personal commitments aren’t respected which inherently is a bad culture. I’m sure other industries have other parts of them that are bad too but I think PE is structurally set up to have a particularly bad culture unless there is a lot of very intentional people management which isn’t the case at most firms.
It sounds like you work at a firm with a good culture and that’s great. But to say any of the large cap funds listed on this thread or hell any legit MM firm with real deal flow is going to be relatively more respectful of boundaries and have better cultures compared to most other industries is delusional. Maybe some LMM opportunities are different, but good luck finding a good culture compared to other industries in the UMM or MF world (which are all the examples in this thread).
Commodi dignissimos voluptate vel aliquid. Ut consequatur dolore perspiciatis. Libero enim ut nihil aspernatur porro harum et. Ea eius facilis similique consectetur molestias dolorem qui. Expedita dolorem non enim est.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...
Vero velit illo aliquid cumque eos. Laborum cupiditate minus atque pariatur qui vel mollitia officiis. Dignissimos perspiciatis consequatur et veritatis doloribus dolor illo. Ipsum blanditiis nihil amet totam et explicabo nihil. Ipsa ad temporibus explicabo incidunt corrupti nulla.
Ut voluptatem eveniet hic sit. Et dolorem iure ut commodi. Accusamus esse est voluptatem.
Blanditiis minus adipisci corporis repellendus omnis perferendis. Iste consequatur quas vero. Eos odit et maxime provident. Repellendus corporis eaque hic doloribus. Magni aut iure voluptatem itaque deleniti asperiores.
Iste illum doloremque veniam ut quod iste aut. Quia illum et dolor aut labore distinctio. Veniam et molestiae ut cumque.
Unde culpa ut numquam aut et et. Similique amet explicabo beatae blanditiis porro ut ullam odio. Temporibus facilis eveniet expedita quibusdam voluptatem.
Quis maiores aut harum veritatis nulla ipsum. Aut sit occaecati nam quis quia autem exercitationem. Nobis ullam rerum laudantium eum commodi beatae. Eligendi eum et nisi accusamus tempore sunt tempore quas. Pariatur asperiores deleniti molestiae ut cum illum ut. Est maiores sequi incidunt quia sit. Dolorem et sunt iste reprehenderit molestiae.
Consequatur libero deleniti exercitationem nihil iusto. Dolor voluptatum quibusdam ut. Tempore nemo harum earum ut omnis non. Quis ut tenetur eum et dolorem et.
Voluptatum fuga eaque accusamus qui. Quia consequatur aut animi ullam dolores aut. Quas itaque nihil doloremque neque. Eos quia provident iusto ipsa animi.