Swimming upstream: VC to PE or IB?

I landed a gig at a seed stage VC out of undergrad. I love the work and even more so, the lifestyle. All my IB friends are jealous of my ~60 hour workweek and flexible setup, and I'm learning a ton. However, a lot of the skills I've been honing are more so in the qualitative analysis realm as opposed to the hard modeling skills an IB position would bring. 

I'd like to eventually make the jump to growth equity or maybe even PE but from my understanding the hires in these fields predominantly come from the pool of exiting IB analysts that are modeling gods. Has anyone swam upstream in VC before without sharpening those skills in an IB role? Is that possible? If not, should I look to exit for an IB gig to then make the jump to PE/GE easier after another few years?

Or am I overthinking this whole situation? The story I've heard from a lot of IB/PE people is that VC is the promised land and they're all looking to jump to my spot. Any thoughts or insights would be appreciated.

2 Comments
 

Learning to model is easy, you can pick this up yourself through one of the many available, inexpensive online modules. Tons of IB analysts that exit to PE barely do any modeling in their groups anyway; they teach themselves.

Is there any reason why you want to move towards later stage investing? It becomes far more process oriented. It sounds like you enjoy your current role, which is more rare than you might expect.

 

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