Getting the VP Promote at the "Wrong" Firm
For context, I'm a sr. associate at the VC/Growth shop. I'm well liked at my group and my MD just gave me the nod that I'm looking at a VP promotion at the turn of the year. I'm grateful to be in my seat, but I worry that as I take the promotion and spend more time here that I will get stuck and have little ability to pivot if I want. I will give some of the pros and cons, but I would love insight from anyone that has been in the VC space a bit longer.
Pros: ~$320K TC at reasonable hours (40-60). We get to invest in some of the top vc-backed names given the influence of some of our connections, so I have some "hot" AI names on my resume that bode well for recruiting. Everyone on my team is a genuinely good person that respects me and there is very little toxic behavior. I have a very reasonable path in the next 5+ years to stay stable and make solid money while starting a family and focusing on other elements of life etc.
Cons: Narrow scope of investment opportunities, which makes the job feel less like investing and more like a corporate processor. I don't want to get into details, but we are very constrained on what we can look at. My group isn't well known and doesn't have the best reputation, so associating myself with them for the long term could hurt my potential. Although my teammates are great kind people, I don't feel like I am learning what I need here to be a great investor – most don't have prior investing experience. I do genuinely love investing, but we only get to do 1-3 deals per year, and I feel like a high % of my time is spent doing admin work and non-sourcing/execution. I also feel like my talent/excitement is being underused here.
If I stay and get the VP promote and put my head down for another year or two, will that severely limit my optionality to leave? I've heard the VC hiring scene is pretty brutal right now.
Based on the most helpful WSO content, your situation is a classic trade-off between stability and long-term career growth. Here's a breakdown of the key considerations and advice:
Pros Analysis
Cons Analysis
Key Considerations
Advice
Ultimately, the decision depends on your priorities—whether you value stability and compensation more in the short term or are willing to take a calculated risk to accelerate your career growth.
Sources: Breakdown of Post-IB Exit Opportunities, No VP Promote from Sr. Associate - Seeking Advice, Private Equity vs. Venture Capital in 2018, Downsides of PE VP Roles, No VP Promote from Sr. Associate - Seeking Advice
Listen to the wso bot and let it guide you. It’s not like all it does is regurgitate excerpt what you said with more verbose and long winded sentences.
Ignore title. I'm thinking about this too. I'm at a non Tier 1, couple hundred million AUM Seed/A VC. Aka no-mans land these days. I'm most likely getting the VP promote at the end of this year and I'm extremely worried that this means it limits my scope of opportunities post-this fund. I'm not extremely bullish on this fund + sector, and candidly would prefer not to stay unless I have a very clear path to partner.
I don't want to repeat years but it's looking like I have to, or at least be willing to take a title downgrade at a new fund, which is a tough look.
Thinking about it the same way. Would go sr asso somewhere else if it is a meaningful uplift in what I'm looking for... still unsure how getting the promotion changes this
I don't know where you go though. I feel like growth is really determined by access and there's not many spots open at the top ~10 firms.
You could go downmarket but it's the same shit. Weird dual sided market of large MFs sending out crazy checks vs. sector-specific small funds.
Are you planning to get a VP and then take a down title somewhere else, or hoping to leave before the VP promote to make the story cleaner?
Curious what VP comp would be and what city you’re in?
SF, and I'm not 100% sure on VP comp but I am thinking $350-$385K, and eligible for some of the other upside associated with bonus/carry
Got it. I would think you should get the title and bounce after that. Harder to try to get a title upgrade, especially in this market
Will throw in my two cents/experience here in case it's helpful for you, I'm based in NYC for context. Ignore my title, my background is kind of all over the place, I started out in private credit, then worked in healthcare PE, and then did a stint in biotech VC prior to my current role. I was in a similar spot to you around two years ago but in my case chose to exit the industry entirely because I didn't see a future at all with the fund I was at + biotech is particularly unstable relative to other sectors when the market goes bad.
To your point, lateral hiring in the industry is pretty dead and even back then it was already struggling, so I chose to pivot and go back into credit. Took a job in a rating agency on the structured finance team as I knew it would be considerably more stable without requiring crazy hours, but had to take a massive pay and title cut in the process (Sr Assoc -> Sr Analyst, which was the equivalent of going back to Associate and 30-40% less pay, call it ~130k TC).
In my case due to a mix of hard work/luck I was able to secure a double promotion within two years and am now Director/VP, and even had enough leverage to negotiate my below-market salary to above the internal budget range because of how much work I did for the team + institutional knowledge I brought with me to the firm. But I also recognize that this is confirmation/survival bias and not a common outcome for people who take this path, I say I was lucky too because my team was in growth mode at the time and just happened to need someone like me to fill a more senior role as well, and my skillset lined up with exactly what they wanted.
If you do choose to hop and take a title cut, be prepared to spend a lot of time on rebuilding your political capital/working your way back up the ranks and also know that it comes with the risk of still being unable to move up if your new firm doesn't have the headcount/budget to move you up the ranks.
Becoming more "specialized" as you get promoted is unavoidable, I think no matter which industry you're in the longer you stay in it the more people consider you to be an expert/specialized in that particular sector. So your concern about being pigeonholed is valid. Once you hit VP it becomes much more difficult to justify applying for more "junior" roles, but the same time you may also get access to more senior opportunities, it's just they become much fewer because there are just naturally fewer senior roles available in any industry.
I think the salient question for you – how much job stability do you feel you have in your current position? You mentioned in your post that you still see a future for at least five years, and objectively speaking I think your pay to hours ratio is insanely good, very hard to find something like that across the industry. And combined with good culture that's not something to easily give up.
For me, even after the promote and pay bump I am still making considerably less than compared to if I had stayed buyside, but it's enough to be fairly comfortable (call it ~220-250k TC). And combined with an excellent team culture, good market exposure, reasonable hours (40-60 depending on deal flow), and strong job stability it would take a lot to make me leave and look elsewhere + I am loath to doing 70+ hours again even if it comes with significantly higher pay. I've noticed that as I get older, I've started to value being able to spend time with family and friends far more than I did compared to when I was in my 20s.
Certainly doesn't hurt to put out feelers now but I also wouldn't be in a rush to immediately jump ship unless you can get an excellent opportunity lined up given the state of the market, I think you're at the point in your career where you have the luxury to be more strategic about your move and although pivoting might be more difficult at the VP level, it's not impossible and you still have enough time ahead of you to search as well.
Also, do you have any experience with the operating side of the business? That's also a valid path and I know quite a number of investors who eventually pivoted to working directly at/with portcos or taking on generally operating focused roles, and I think it becomes especially valuable during periods of market distress as firms always need somebody to step in and help manage their businesses and keep them afloat (although admittedly I do feel it is much more stressful than being purely on the investing side of things). Having done some work on that side myself I think it's a very valuable skillset to have so I would encourage you to try to explore/upskill in that regard if you haven't had the opportunity to do so already.
Really helpful response. I appreciate the time you took to write this, thank you.
"how much job stability do you feel you have in your current position?" – A lot, and sometimes more than I feel I deserve. Knock on wood, but a lot would need to happen to lose my job. I would explain more but I don't want to doxx myself.
"Certainly doesn't hurt to put out feelers now but I also wouldn't be in a rush to immediately jump ship unless you can get an excellent opportunity lined up" – This is exactly how I feel. I would only leave for something really amazing.
"Also, do you have any experience with the operating side of the business?" – No, but this is the other exit that I've thought hard about. I'm around a lot of tech companies and it's totally in the cards to meet a really interesting Seed/Series A company and try to take a risky swing at joining early. I'm less interested in joining a mature company / non-VC backed industry (not knocking on those roles, it's just less interesting to me)
Again, thanks for the response. Definitely gained some insight from your takes.
Do you personally feel connected to the companies or the types of companies your fund invests in?
I think you really have to identify which specific skills you currently lack and what places would be best to learn those effectively.
Ignore everything you're feeling about the narrow scope and focus on the "Great, Kind people without non-toxic behavior". Kindness and non-toxic behavior compounds over time and that's an incredibly powerful thing that scales massively. When channeled to "do the right things the right way" (meaning doing generally great ethical things well not just having good intentions), that's the kind of behavior that attracts other great people.
And having a narrow scope is actually a great thing when you're actively investing - it just means you stick to what you know. And if you ever paid attention to what Buffet and Munger talks about, sticking to what you know is one of the secrets to investing well.
As for reputation, as long as you're not considered to be awful people, borderline grifters, or considered unethical - don't worry about it. Reputation is something that you build over time rather than something you come with and choose who you become associated with. It's your actions that determine the reputation.
Just to share my PoV - with early stage folks - being around non-toxic people is a very difficult thing to have because there's just so much noise and landmines buried just about everywhere. I've just seen too many cases of otherwise brilliant people turning awful, toxic, and unethical under a bad system. And people often make the mistake of putting themselves under a bad system in allure of something else (or more).
You are in a very lucky position because you exist in an environment with guardrails.
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