Prestige + Sweat vs Culture + VP track
Hi folks,
Wanted to get a sense of what most people would choose between the two options. Consider it's hypothetical / just theoretical dilemma, hence why no name.
Assumptions :
- you have 1.5y-2y exp,
- you know you are ambitious / competitive / do not mind grinding, but for 2-3y ideally (not a lifetime, not at VP level, but could be)
- All kind of investment style / thesis could be interesting further down the road, as you are too inexperienced to know what you really prefer (despite bias towards PE).
Choices:
- A prestigious PE with good training / exit in all kind of investing styles, but competitive culture, horrible WLB and low likelihood of getting VP promotion
- A less prestigious with ok returns LMM firm, smoother learning curve but good culture / good WLB / very high chance of getting to VP, and smaller exit options, unless in a more specific investment style (harder to go to PE if exp > 4y for instance)
Where would you go ?
I took the former and for two years wanted to blow my brains out and hated everyone I worked with, but I'm glad I did because now that I moved on I'm absolutely smoking everyone I currently work with in terms of skillset.
What did you end up doing afterwards ? LMM PE ?
What specific skillsets do you think you were ahead of others in?
Interesting yet expected … If you had to choose again, would you take 1 ? Was it paintful to lateral? How long do you want to stay in the industry ? (Is this until 60s or out at a certain age / wealth threshold in the 30s)
Lol literally describing my situation when I was an analyst.
Had the choice to go to other MF/UMM PE (as a senior associate with a VP promote within 1 year) but ultimately decided I wanted to take a break and now at HBS/GSB
Do you think it was worth it
We'll see when I'm older to see if I gain a different perspective but yes, I think it was worth it
I’d go with #1, gives you more options
I did #1. Very worth it.
What was the exit options for those who did 1 ?
Was it easy to lateral ?
How long did you stay in the sweaty place and what was the next fund like ? (Sweaty or not, PE or HF, large or small)
What is the point of having broader exit options if you don't want to take those exit options? From what I've seen and from what friends from college have done, the difference in exits from the "top" PE funds and the "bottom" PE funds are that the "top" exits mean more grinding for more money--basically, more of the same. If your goal is to not grind forever, and you eventually want to move to a place with better WLB, then the exits are damn near identical.
I chose #2 very intentionally because the veneer of the high profile job wore off, and I came to realize that if I was chasing the "big job" or "big exit" because others thought it was the right idea, then I was literally a slave to some nameless person's ideology and not thinking for myself. In so doing, I have happily, gladly shut the door on the 80+ hour opportunities that would have paid me a $500k/year at my age, but what I gained was worth far more than that--time back with my family, Health, A better relationship with God--all for the low-low price of being in the top 99% of income earners, not the top 99.9%! I've got nothing to prove to anyone, because I'm free from their judgement. I sincerely, truly, could care less what they have to say.
Look, I don't know your situation and I don't know what your goals are. But I would be very, very cautious about living someone else's dream. I would spend the time you need to very carefully pick apart your motivations for the grinder job, to understand what is driving that--and the moment that you find out that it's because it's someone else's idea of what you ought to do, then discard it outright, and never go limping back to it.
There's no one on here that you owe anything to, and even if your idol, or mother, or best mentor, would look down on you for taking the culture VP track rather than the prestige track, then let them do that. Unless you're into some sort of submission kink, then I guess you do you, but past that?
Fuck.
That.
Noise.
-KHC
Yeah but you're like one of the only rationale people on this site.
Most people want to chase prestige because they are too braindead to care about anything but what others think about them. I swear the more I read posts like this it seems like people are genuinely contemplating being absolutely miserable to post "Asscociate @ [Insert Mid but well known UMM]" on LinkedIn vs. actually enjoying the next two years of their life.
someone I know choose something akin to option #1 and had a heart attack at age 31. I would just say to try to find balance in your life and prioritize your health and happiness over obscure, ever-devolving "exit options". if the opportunity is just too great to turn down and you will do everything in your power to grind to VP, then obviously consider #1, but please prioritize your well-being first. Life is just too short.
Ok so the 2 above are exactly the point to where I am getting.
Issue is the pressure or ideology or whatever is not coming from family (academic, no finance guys at all) neither friends. It is coming from my own personality.
I like working hard on things I find interesting. For sure, investing is interesting.
But I do not want to get trapped, and be forced to do all-nighters for the coming 10 years.
I am afraid of choosing 2 at a young age, as I may just realise that I have landed too early there, and I should have tried the top if I had the network / opportunity.
When I look at people in option 2, I just think it is the optimum in terms of lifestyle and money. What’s the point of earning 200k more over 3 years of asso and burn out, with a very high chance of getting back to 2 and similar in 3 years? Even if you make it to MD, I doubt the 10m+ would attract me that much vs making 800k cash at fund 2 in 10 years. And I love doing other stuff in my free time obviously.
And yet, looking at people in option 1, given I have always tried to reach the top in everything I have done so far, I am like : f**, go for it and see.
Did you do a little league sport growing up? If so, why aren't you an Olympian? At some point, you realized that the outcome is not worth the energy because you've got better things to do. As a toddler, softball might have been the most important thing in your life, but it isn't because you've grown up and know that that is not the case.
Money, prestige, career ambition, all that shiny shit--same thing. Your peers and environment are saying, "Son, let me tell you, this is the kind of person that you are" and you're outsourcing your thinking to them. And that drive of trying to reach the top (and probably often reaching it)--does that just magically go away because you're in a different environment?
Put it a different way: Let's assume that you have to work a job. Then let's assume that everyone that you meet, EVERYONE, including the insufferable and feckless wastrels on this forum, everyone would look upon you with grandeur and prestige. Let's assume that you will have enough money to do everything that you reasonably want to--you're only barred from, idk, going to the moon or being crushed in a deep sea submarine. If that was the case, what would you do? Remember, you have to take a job. What would it be? Because guess what, your desire, drive, and ambition doesn't just magically disappear because your environment changes--your externals are NOT the cause of your internals. If you can drive and be the best, then you can do it whether you're at a LMM, MF, as a software engineer, a search fund CEO, a sales manager, etc.--the title matters SO much less than your innate ability to just pull that shit out of you and not be a quitter.
The reason that you're not an Olympian baseball player from your youth is that you realized it doesn't matter. In 10 years, you'll realize just how much things don't matter, because the utility that you gain from a $1000 watch vs a $10,000 watch is that you'll be signaling to a very select "elite" that you haven't had the balls to pull the ripcord and live for you--it's a sign that they've still got your testes in a vice.
So if you take that UMM/MF offer, or the LMM offer, or anything in-between, then please, for the good of the world, the love of your family, and your own dignity, do it because you, and only you, want it. Not because Megafund Mortimer (intern) on WSO says it's the best, not because KHC takes a shit on all the mindless zombies that go to MFs, and not because you think that somehow that will be the difference between you bagging that 10/10 at the Metropolitan Club. Go on a hike, fast for a day or two, pray, connect with your feelings, and come back convicted with YOUR path, not ours.
Don't live our dreams, dude. They're just as fake and fleeting.
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