MS, GS, Qatalyst Tech Groups

Does anyone have some newer thoughts on MS Menlo, QP and GS TMT in the bay area? What caliber of talent do these two groups typically attract? If you're interested in tech to an extent, but your primary interest is investing, what are the pros and cons of these groups? Understand this is a very general question, but go to school on the west coast and am thinking about the pros and cons of options in NYC and SF.

 

if you want to exit to PE/HF/start ups on west coast, these are some of the top groups to do so from. If you want to be in NYC in the long run, BBs / EBs in NY will be the smarter choice (except for maybe a few tech focused PE shops based out of NY)

 

I'm not in / never have been exposed IB or the sell-side. That being said, my general knowledge is that the 3 teams you mentioned are literally the top 3 IB groups on the West Coast.

Agree with what was echo'ed above - if your goal is to come back to the east coast then it is definitely easier to place if you're already working in the NYC market

 

These are all fantastic groups, but they are definitely not "all doors open" places. The reason has nothing to do with the firm or the group -- everyone knows these are hard jobs to get. It's more the nature of work as a tech banker. You simply don't get much exposure to debt and cash flows. If you go to one of these groups, you'll definitely wind up somewhere good but it will most likely have a tech angle to it. It'll be pretty hard making the transition to a non-tech exit where there is a lot of emphasis on the balance sheet.

 

This makes sense. That being said, is that a characteristic of all tech banking experiences? It seems like there are a lot of highly levered transactions in the enterprise software space, for instance, and given the sponsor activity in tech more broadly I imagine there has to be some debt exposure. But to your point, I imagine most pe opps would have a tech bent to them. Is l/s equity plausible? Seems like most of the top shops are heavily invested in tech.

 

I have a generalist M&A background and am in non-tech l/s equity now. You should be good for l/s equity given that every large fund invests heavily in TMT and your industry experience would be highly relevant for that. You will get some exposure to debt in tech, but it will be light compared to someone coming from a restructuring group, M&A group, or traditional coverage group like media/telecom, industrials, etc. I think that tech banking is very exciting to work in, but I personally don't think it provides the best foundation to learn traditional finance. I tend to advise people to do something more technical for their first job, like M&A or restructuring, to learn the hard skills upfront.

 
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