Real Risk of PE?

Came across this comment,

mergersandacquisitions78:

I'll give you a long term perspective. I started about fifteen years ago in what was back then considered as a top tier firm and group, and out of a group of about fifty analysts, this is what happened.

• about 20% are bankers. Of those 20%, about half are MDs, and the other half are Ds/SVPs trying to get made up. And again, I'd say half are at tier one firms, and the remainder at tier two firms.

• about 30% are in the investment management industry. Ranging from reasonably high quality to special situations funds, to start up funds, to vanilla mutual funds, to family offices. I'd say one guy has done really well and the rest have had middling careers.

• many people went to private equity, including tier one firms. very few stayed on. There is one industry vertical head at a tier 1 firm who has done extremely well. The rest are all either working for no-name firms or are struggling to make partner in the present environment.

• about 25% are in corporates, and almost all have done very well, ranging from the CEO of a small consumer products company to the COO (and previously CFO) of a PE backed SAAS company to some VP level roles at larger companies. It has been more career rewarding than financially rewarding to date, although in many roles, there is a lot of upside

• about 10% have gone to work for family businesses, reflecting the demographic of the class. Some of these individuals are very rich indeed, but that's different

• the rest are a mixed bag (consulting, the clergy, etc.)

From a financial reward perspective, the guy who did really well at his HF and the one PE guy are probably at the top. Other than that, its the bankers and particularly the ones who have made MD that have done very well. I'd say the people at the corporates will catch up after a while.

Bottom line - PE is a shrinking industry and while there are a few people for whom its very lucrative, its not an easy path, and even for top candidates in or out of banking, its a long, hard road to be successful and / or make real money.

Also, how well you do in your job is more important than what job you do. The banker making 8 figures a year consistently is pretty much as rare as the PE guy with real carry who has a serious exit, and both will do pretty well. The middling MD making 1.5mm a year does not really have an equivalent elsewhere though.

I found the guy up the page talking about a 4.5x exit to be absolutely ludicrous. In my experience, for everyone so lucky to be the partner on that trade, there are five people thrown off the island. And even the partner on that trade has to share most of his economics with his founders who started out in the eighties.

How true is this? Is PE really a huge uphill battle? I see so many posts of people wanting to exit IB for PE, on how it's so much better than PE (higher pay from carry, fewer hours, etc.) but is one (huge) downside that I don't see much touched upon how hard it is to stay in? Do most "make it" compared to if they had just stayed in IB? Barring analyst/associate positions, talking about the long term.