Craziest comp stories you've heard?

I personally know a 27 year old Harvard guy who graduated early and so had almost a decade of experience by his late 20s — far and away best VERIFIED comp datapoint I’ve seen, but take it with a grain of salt since these examples are the exemption rather than the norm. People on WSO tend to look at a case like this and impute it as a likely outcome. It is not a likely outcome. So with those caveats out of the way... 

He was a wunderkind from a young age, and after skipping a bunch of grades, he tested at a handful of magnet/G&T schools. Think Stuyvesant, etc. Well, he crushed all these exams. Had his pick, and this is at like 12 years old, so a good 2-3 years ahead of his peers. Graduates near top of his class, goes on to Harvard at 16, graduates in 3 yeas and is a 19 year old investment banking analyst at MS. Moves to MF PE, now legally allowed to drink, he decided the HF world is the place to go if you want to be a real hitter with a liquid net worth, not cash poor and unrealized carry rich.

For some reason went to a non-descript single manager fund with like $1-2bn AUM. But must have been legit because after 2 years he left to go to a top tiger cub a la Lone Pine. Here’s where a lot of luck came in. He was initially a consumer analyst that began to pick up more consumer-tech/FinTech names. Then transitioned fully to tech, which is obviously where you want to be in the HF and especially the Tiger Cub HF world.

Timing was just right because he had 3 or so years of tech investing at a Tiger Cub under his belt when he was finally experienced and credible enough to have positions of his own (how you get rich in this business) with real wood behind the bat. Leading into 2017 he has a pretty good year, makes ~$5mm.

Then comes 2018, somehow skates through the end of the year carnage relatively unscathed and puts on some monster bets in the end of 2018/beginning of 2019 at the lows. Spring loaded to go bananas. I think you guys can already see where this is going. You may even know the guy I’m talking about. He puts on multiple billions of dollars in net long exposure in stocks that ended up being up 30-50% by year-end. He generated well $1-2bn P&L, over $250-300mm performance fee contribution in a year where the fund also crushed it.

This fucking bad ass walks in on comp day thinking maybe he’ll make at least $20-30mm. Obviously super nervous. I mean this is a 27 year old thinking he may be about to join the 8 digit club. Fuck you money by 27 year old standards, or any standards by that matter. When he goes in to get his comp number, his mind is racing, super nervous... he’s running through all these scenarios in his mind... what if they fuck him. How’s he going to respond? Keep cool, and lawyer up? Keep cool, and quit while giving them the finger? Freak the fuck out. No, wait, thats impossible, he crushed it. They will light him up and it will be glorious. Squirmy wormies in his stomach turn into soon to be euphoric butterflies. He starts imagining all the things he’s going to buy. All the haters he’s going to flex on. He showed them. Fucking losers, nobodies. He gets a bit ahead of himself on these latter day dreams, ends up getting fully erect. Raging hard on. That’s right, a throbbing aching erection right before one of the most important moments of his life. Now this is where things take a turn — the universe works in mysterious ways, and God always has a plan for you if you give Him the glory. Just as he sits down in the chair opposite the founder’s desk to get his comp #, he realized he sat on something, the last analyst (purposefully) left a broker swag GS golf ball on the chair, and it happens to lodge directly in between his cheeks. He can’t jump up now, he’s locked eyes with the founder. He has to commit... he sits down fully, letting the weight of his body press the golf ball into his rectum. The nerves made him sweaty, the butt cheeks are extra slippery. You guessed what comes next... his butt hole completely swallows the golf ball in slow motion, right through his chinos. Between the unplanned hard on and the even more unplanned prostate stimulation from the golf ball planted by this colleague saboteur, he has the “this has never happened to me before” premature ejaculation we all dread in moments like this.  Except its a full on explosion. The force of the geyser rips through his boxers and busts open his chinos and a pile of splooge unfurls onto his founder’s desk, covering the founder comp cheat sheet. A few aftershock spurt all over his pants as he flinches and cowers in shame. He knows what’s going to come next — obviously, he gets fired on the spot. If you could just ejaculate all over your boss’ desk and still keep your job, then everyone would do it. Here’s the kicker. Right after it happens, he’s mortified, embarrassed, humiliated. Appologizing profusely, he clumsily tries to mop up the piles of splooge off the founders desk and papers. As he’s using the blade of his hand to squeegee the seemingly cold dead jelly fish off the desk, he catches a glimpse of his smudged name printed on the paper he’s trying to clean off. He was set to make $150mm. The biggest single payday (outside of the founder) in the history of the firm.

27 years old, $150 million dollars. Let that sink in. Yeah, those are the outcomes the real hitters are playing for. You’re either out there swinging for the fences, or you’re... well, who cares what you’re doing if you’re not doing that. $150 MILLION DOLLARS!