Day in the life of IB? Do you really work that much?
Disclaimer - not interested in being a IB, am LP (investor) in VC, work in the valley. Yes I am ignorant I don't know anything about this space!
I've watched a couple "day in the life of IB" youtube videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Vm-bmlt55A
I'm not here to promote the videos and understand am asking pple to watch, but how accurate are they? Here are some misc questions...
- Why do you have to work in the office? Doesn't seem like it necessary, why do pple say they have to stay late in the office? Sounds like work can be done anywhere. Slack = life
- Repetition - "financial modeling" "excel spreadsheets" "powerpoint presos" - if it seems like you are doing these day by day, why does it take so long? Yes I'm ignorant. It sounds like you can get a lot of these templated and just customize when necessary
- "Financial models" - seems like pple spend a lot of time on these. Working in the valley, there are a ton of startups/companies/tools to expedite creation/testing/validation/etc of models. I am assuming banking companies are just not modeling efficiently? i.e. use excel
- What's with the deadlines? Why do you have to work until midnight to make changes for a deliverable. Seriously, 1 day, half a day, 2 day delay is not going to ruin anything. When some of my investments went IPO, I really doubt a day or 2 delay would have make the founders/board choose a different XYZ
- MD/VP - can you get to this level and be client-facing without climbing the ladder? Say I'm VP of Sales at XYZ company, definitely know how to talk the talk
- MD/VP - do you work as much as the bottom of the ladder? Yes I know work is different, but question still remains?
Day is good. Yes work as much as you can
Can Patrick ban this Fucktwat already?
Ok
Work wherever best for you
Good things take time
Models can be complex. Sometimes to take complex ideas and simplify to a one line on a PPT slide tskes time
Sometimes things are urgent and need to be done ASAP for whatever reason
Not sure. Prob
Yes. If they get paid more it’s because they prob work more/provide more value
1. We aren't working in the office right now...obviously things are easier in the office. Plenty of FAANG companies say they are going to return for collaborative synergies.
2. Lots of data goes into these things and the data is different for each company/project. Markets change etc
3. There are plenty of software programs available to us and we do use some of them. The models themselves aren't that complicated (usually), but entering the data into them can take time. Adjustments need to be made for one time/extraordinary impacts that a computer would not pick up. We have plenty of code monkeys in India (and sometimes even in "the valley" who can fix our excel VBA through the night if we need it.
4. By doing things faster we can get on to the next thing. You could say "what is one more day" about anything. Why doesn't Facebook just wait one more day to roll out their new ad algorithm. Each extra day is lost revenue, it is called "efficiency." If everyone worked 20 hour weeks, GDP would fall...just look at the Spaniards. Also, lots of the deadlines are actually important. If things don't make it to the SEC in time, the IPO has to get pushed. If roadshow deadlines are missed, investors walk.
5. You could only get to be an MD/VP by coming in through an adjacent finance position. Think PE, not corporate finance. It is possible that a place like Apple's acquisitions department could spin out some talent worthy of being an IB MD, but most of those guys came from banking already. Bankers see tons and tons of deals. A corporate development guy is going to see maybe a couple deals a year. The experience gap would be huge. It is not just a sales job, there is actual hard stuff going on. Financial markets are not just a walk in the park.
6. No, MDs do not work as much as the "bottom of the ladder." Just like a Senior Partner at a BigLaw firm is not going to work as long as a first year associate.
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