Title Inflation

Is it just me or are people noticing significant amount of title inflation across PE / HF roles in the industry? A few years, this was apparent at just a small number of HFs, but I’m noticing this across PE and VC firms these days. It seems like everyone is becoming a “Partner” or “Managing Director” in just a few years. Are others catching on to this as well? There are several people that take off their graduation dates and inflate “Summer Analyst” roles by being vague. Is there a particular benefit in doing this? Is this important when you are reaching out to start-ups and founders?

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In VC, I'm fairly confident that a16z pushed this and its caught on. The only benefits I see: 

  1. Employees feel more important with inflated titles
  2. The firm can tell people how flat the structure is (which is true on paper org chart but not in practice)
  3. Outreach - founders more likely to respond to "investor" or "partner" than "analyst"
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