Would you rather…
Get paid $200k per year, work max 40 hours per week, but learn nothing, gain no professional development, and think your colleagues and firm leadership are total clowns as people and investors
OR
Get paid $500k per year, work minimum 80 hours per week, feel like you’re constantly learning, and have great respect for your colleagues and firm leadership as both people and investors
I could not think of a single set of respondents that would give you a more biased answer. You are asking probably the single highest online concentration of people who work 80 hours per week voluntarily for money whether they'd rather or not work 80 hours per week voluntarily for money.
80 hours a week? What kind of unprestigious shop with bad deal flow are you accustomed to?
It depends on the circumstances. If I had a family, children/kids, then the 200k would allow a good W/L balance. However, if the children are grown, and I need to help give them a good nest egg to start life well with, no question - that $500k is needed.
Also, I feel that the growth and constantly learning will make the work more engaged and meaningful.
This doesn't make sense to me. You need to make more money for your kids when they are grown? Shouldn't they be making their own money by then?
And why give them a nest egg, encourage them to build their own. Paying for college - sure. More than that I don't think is necessary or even good.
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Bruh y'all recruiting?
Get paid a slightly more than half your current salary and have to work 20 more hours a week? Are you seriously contemplating this? Am I reading this right?
80 hours a week, easy. But if it was 100 hours a week, then absolutely not. 90 would also probably be a no. There’s a massive difference but 80 is around what I can do without feeling like shit constantly and I love to learn. 10 hours let alone 20 makes a massive difference
I think it would depend on if you loved your wife or settled for her.
at what stage in your career? if its for 10,20,30 years obviously 200k. also, who is constantly learning things?
2nd option.
40 hours a week and no hesitation on that choice. I can cover my needs and most wants with $100K, the other $100K is huge (retirement / savings + 1-2 great holidays a year). Working 40 hours a week, I can spend 1-2 hours a night reading books I'm interested in, hit the gym / driving range etc, and still get 8-9 hours of sleep in. With no weekend work, I can pursue a lot of hobbies (cycling, golf, scuba, hiking etc) without interruption / risk of weekends being ruined last minute and do plenty of weekend trips.
For those of you say who "bro you can do that now", if I can find a 40 hour week job which pays this I'll take it. It hasn't come up yet, and I'm not actively looking for it now but probably will start within the next 1-2 years. I don't care about professional development or learning anymore, maybe I'm burnt out but I'm just not fulfilled by, or interested in, my current role anymore.
Out of curiosity, what's your current role like in terms of work, comp, and hours? I'm in more of the former seat ($300K comp at 50-60hrs/week) but feels like I'm stagnating and bored quite a bit. Not sure if I'm taking it for granted though.
Comp is good for my market (I'm not in the US so figures aren't directly comparable to what's quoted in this thread). Hours are good (50-60 week, going up to 70-80 when there's 2-3 deals on at once) and culture is good too. I just don't like private transaction focused work any more. I loved it when I started out, but now I just find the work repetitive and unnecessarily frustrating. Don't think I'm interested in growing into a D/MD role, going to give it 1-2 more years and then assess where I want to go next.
Re bored / stagnating, do you have hobbies outside of work? I found this to be the big difference for me. When I didn't have anything outside of work I didn't particularly care about working late / weekends, but now I'd much prefer to be in a boring job which allows me time to pursue my interests outside of work.
PWM after the onramp my guy, and you can make more than $200k as well. the difference is you have to be ok with bizdev and volatility
Thanks. I'm thinking something more along the lines of LP such as a pension fund which doesn't do direct or coinvest. Good hours and reasonable pay without any deal sprints, and don't have investors to answer to so no annoying portfolio info requests.
The problem is not the 80hrs, its how often you work above the minimum. An 80 hour week theoretically means you can still go the gym / have some down time and still get good sleep. But so often due to client demands, senior incompetence, or stupid iterations, that 80hrs can easily turn into 100hrs and no free weekends. But if option B really had smart/nice colleagues and seniors, than hands down option B.
$500k lol. Nobody wants to work so the quickest way to retire is to make more money.
Retirement/passive income = freedom
Option #1. 80 hours/week consistently is a non-starter. I give you all a lot of credit for being able to endure that, but it's not for me.
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