Banking doesn't pay enough?

So before we start this off, seriously no trolls.

100K a year is terrible as a 1st year student.
Currently I manage a few items for sale on ecommerce sites and earn about 75k/year. I spend less than an hour managing it, have an employee who runs it, and literally it's the easiest thing in the world.

However, I'm getting to a point where I'm going to have to select a college and start working for a company. However, it wouldn't make sense working for a company or in a sector which doesn't pay enough.

So, 1 thing i've learned is, this 75k has no security vs a job does.
The 75k might not be able to grow, while the job by the 10th year you might make 500k.

So where I'm getting at is, which type of fields should I join to earn 10M++ a year.

For example, Mergers and Acquisitions, from a quick glance, if im 50 and have all the connections in the world i might be able to sell a company for 50 million that was really worth 55. And get a million dollar cut.

Etc

Or, if I'm a stock trader, i may get some inside knowledge allowing me to make million dollar cuts.

I know a lot of trolls will come. But, im dead serious. Which field of banking or finance do you think I should focus on?

 
buysidebandit:

This post reeks of high school. What makes you think you'll ever be worth $10,000,000 a year? Keep your head down, put in the work, and stay humble. If you truly have what it takes the opportunities will present themselves.

This was such an unnecessary post. Please tell me, in 1 bit, did you help me out? Did you achieve satisfaction of helping someone? You know how many people make 10,000,000 a year? ALOT How? Well it's all about finding out. And that's where im seeking any guidance on which sector has the biggest chance of doing so.

It's like going to Mcdonald's and working a $8/hour job and saying OPPORTUNITIES WILL PRESENT THEMSELVES!!!!!

 
NewLifestyles2:
buysidebandit:

This post reeks of high school. What makes you think you'll ever be worth $10,000,000 a year? Keep your head down, put in the work, and stay humble. If you truly have what it takes the opportunities will present themselves.

This was such an unnecessary post. Please tell me, in 1 bit, did you help me out? Did you achieve satisfaction of helping someone?
You know how many people make 10,000,000 a year? ALOT
How? Well it's all about finding out. And that's where im seeking any guidance on which sector has the biggest chance of doing so.

It's like going to Mcdonald's and working a $8/hour job and saying OPPORTUNITIES WILL PRESENT THEMSELVES!!!!!

He tried to help you out by pointing out that you should stay humble.

 

Lol I can't tell if you're trolling, but it's close to impossible to make more than 10MM a year unless you are an entrepreneur/investor. There's no salary (outside of entertainment/sports) in any profession that approaches 8 figures, and even MDs will rarely make 8 figures on salary/bonus alone. Unless you are an entrepreneur that owns a company/firm, or you're an investor/chairman that has significant carry in the firm's profit, it's tough to break 7 figures.

However to answer your slightly idiotic question, you'd probably want to go into IB for two years, do PE for a couple of years, and try to either climb the PE ladder or join a HF and somehow prove that your 20 something year old mind is superior to 50+ year old finance professionals

 
consultbanklive:

Lol I can't tell if you're trolling, but it's close to impossible to make more than 10MM a year unless you are an entrepreneur/investor. There's no salary (outside of entertainment/sports) in any profession that approaches 8 figures, and even MDs will rarely make 8 figures on salary/bonus alone. Unless you are an entrepreneur that owns a company/firm, or you're an investor/chairman that has significant

Ever heard of ecommerce? Clothing brands? Franchise owners? Lol? 8 figures is fairly possible......many people all around the world do it wholesale? Agriculture? BUT NOOO I'm trolling. Like grow the F up, obviously not trolling.
 

You do realize I mentioned "entrepreneurial" in my comment right? I suggest you consult a "dictionary" and understand what that means before completely misinterpreting my comment.

You clearly don't understand how finance works. Successful firms are built purely off of reputation and relationships. Look at any HF/PE firm that manages >$1b of capital and I guarantee you'll see household names next to the partner/chairman name's. The thing is, unless you have significant personal capital and are willing to prop trade it, there's no way in hell you'll secure ANYWHERE near $1b of investor capital without a strong track record and reputation. Nobody gives a shit if you own a few franchises and made a few million. The only way institutional investors with billions and billions in capital will let you touch their money is if you have a compelling value prop that puts you above established funds.

 

I don't think a finance forum is the place where you'll find a roadmap to $10 mm + / year.

MDs don't routinely make that. Senior people in HF and PE don't routinely make that. People running very big funds, with a good amount of carry make that. Unless you believe you are the top 0.1% (or some much smaller figure, who knows?) of finance minds, you're wasting your time talking about making that much money in this industry... but then again, if you are THAT smart, why would you do finance in the first place (seriously).

If you are as brilliant as your aspirations make it sound you are, I suggest you become a serial entrepreneur.

 
Best Response

Once upon a time people in trading could make ridiculous amounts of money. Think Solomon Brothers, Goldman and Drexel in the 80s. Over time, increased competition and more access to info has compressed spreads / fees and made it harder to make a lot of money with trading.

Occasionally, you'll read about someone who made a huge killing and traded billions (or sold billions of something) and got 8 digits. These are very exceptional circumstances.

I don't see how you could expect that much money without being partner-level and thus benefiting from combination of carry and participation in earnings.

Even people who run their own firms a lot of times don't make that much money... Here's basic math: 1. Say you work at a 2 and 20 fund 2. You get 10% IRR, which over the long run is better than a lot of funds 3. If you manage $1 bn, your firm as a whole will make $40 mm 3.1 Pay all your associates, VPs, directors, etc. Cover all expenses of the company - marketing, $$$ in research, Bloomberg, rent, etc. 3.2 How much is left? How many partners you have? 4. I'm inclined to believe the above lets you net off just around $10 mm. For that to happen though, you needed a lot of money and great results. This is so very hard.

You'll say: "yeah, but that's $1 bn. Bridgewater has hundreds of billions." Yes. And hundreds of employees and expensive real estate and expensive IP, etc. Is Ray Dalio making $10 mm? Sure, probably 10x that. He's Ray Dalio though and BW is BW.

You asked "so I have to run my own firm?" No. You have to do more than that. You have to kill it. You have to run a great firm, and generate great returns, and have enough capital from before that you don't need a lot of partners. Running your own firm is the easiest of the hard parts.

But hey, what do I know - I'm just a guy who's content not setting his sights in a 8 figure pay check.

 
ThatBankerOverThere:

A "few items for sale" is making you 75k/year? Been watching too much Narcos?

When will you grow up? Learn ecommerce? It's not complicated. Start with the term "Dropshipping" Not no narcos drugs stuff. But legit items can easily make you money.
 
iBankedUp:

I was just wondering whether people like you still exist in the world post 80s. You sound like a troll.. You're the type of person to screw people over so you can make a quick buck.

Look at yourself, your commenting on threads online, talking shit Congratz. You played yourself.
 

$75k a year without a degree is a lot of money . congrats. I would focus on building that before I would think about banking

You say the $75k a year does not have security, while "a job does;" however, if your $75k a year relies on a broad customer base, I would argue that is more secure than relaying on one source of income (normal job).

The people who make $10 million a year generally have produced something incredibly valuable (drug cartel, professional athlete, facebook or other company founder, F500 CEO etc.).

Quit saying "a lot of people make $10 million a year" .. that's like saying there are "a lot" of people in the top .001%. It's asinine. A lot relative to what? relative to the number of planets in the solar system? sure. A lot compared to the number of dreamers who hope to break the top 1% of income earners? no.

 
Brosef Stalin17:

$75k a year without a degree is a lot of money . congrats. I would focus on building that before I would think about banking

You say the $75k a year does not have security, while "a job does;" however, if your $75k a year relies on a broad customer base, I would argue that is more secure than relaying on one source of income (normal job).

The people who make $10 million a year generally have produced something incredibly valuable (drug cartel, professional athlete, facebook or other company founder, F500 CEO etc.).

Quit saying "a lot of people make $10 million a year" .. that's like saying there are "a lot" of people in the top .001%. It's asinine. A lot relative to what? relative to the number of planets in the solar system? sure. A lot compared to the number of dreamers who hope to break the top 1% of income earners? no.

Then you are mistaken. Ever heard of wholesale? I know people bringing in 10 million a year.
 

You know who I actually think legitimately makes 10 bucks? My LASIK surgeon. That dude had like three offices; two in LA and one in SF. He would line up all the pre- and post-op appointments through other in-house eye docs, and this guy literally saw me for a grand total of 15 minutes. A couple minutes before the procedure and then the procedure itself which lasted about 12 minutes. I'm guessing dude books 15-20 operations a day, ~4300 a year, x $6,000 bucks a pop. That's $25.5mm revenue. Take out $3mm for office expenses / laser equipment leases, and another $5mm for staff of eye docs, techs, hot admins, and deduct $5mm for uncollectable accounts, and dude still probably clears $12mm a year! That's the life right there man...

You want to maximize your odds of making eight figures, start studying optometry and biophysics now my friend!

 
jankynoname:

You know who I actually think legitimately makes 10 bucks? My LASIK surgeon. That dude had like three offices; two in LA and one in SF. He would line up all the pre- and post-op appointments through other in-house eye docs, and this guy literally saw me for a grand total of 15 minutes. A couple minutes before the procedure and then the procedure itself which lasted about 12 minutes. I'm guessing dude books 15-20 operations a day, ~4300 a year, x $6,000 bucks a pop. That's $25.5mm revenue. Take out $3mm for office expenses / laser equipment leases, and another $5mm for staff of eye docs, techs, hot admins, and deduct $5mm for uncollectable accounts, and dude still probably clears $12mm a year! That's the life right there man...

You want to maximize your odds of making eight figures, start studying optometry and biophysics now my friend!

I love you for having a brain unlike most other's who think 10MM is impossible.

But, i'm just not a medical guy.

 

NewLife: as I'm sure you noticed, I've tried to keep pretty genuine and answer your questions and all that. I will say one thing though, and although I can guess how you'll react, try to take it somewhat positively.

Your post has a bit of absurdity to it, which you know to be the case since you preface it as "no troll". Most of peoples comments, even the ones "negative" have been fairly moderate. And yet I've seen you slash and dash and take on a quite offended approach to people's comments.

Look, I'm not gonna waste my time telling you to change your personality. You do you. Honestly though, I'm not sure finance is the place for you. The level of push back you experience here is very minor and in no way comparable to the shit you'll have to smile through as an analyst. If this post (and people's responses) have gotten you so worked up... and you have a good way of making money on your own... I honestly think you're better off doing other stuff man.

Take as much or as little of it at you'd like. Just know that it's coming from a genuine place and I have no stamina to get out of my way and insult you.

 

If you really want to make a lot of money, there are a lot of things to consider. And there is no such things as "the path" because in order to advise you, I need to know a set of variables:

1) How old are you? What is the time frame? 5 years, 10 years? 2) What is your exit strategy? US$10MM as net assets (or in cash)? Clean money or Shaddy Money? 3) Are you married? Will you consider marrying into wealth to get a jumpstart? 4) Are you good looking or charming? To work on question 3. 5) What sort of wealth are you looking at? You want to be on the Forbes list or you want to be like Putin where most of his wealth are held through proxy? 6) Are you passionate about anything? Or do you just want to make money? 7) Are you willing to travel exotic/difficult locations to make money where you may die? (i.e. Middle East, Southeast Asia, China, Latin America, Nigeria?) 8) Do you need a work and life balance? 9) Are you born rich? Or belong to a high net worth/elite circle? 10) Is morality an issue for you?

 

Arrogant youthful optimism :). I can tell you're a really smart person but you're probably just not experienced enough. Either you're with going to kill it or be extremely disappointed with your lot in life.

Some advice:

  1. Don't become a banker. It's a professional service industry which simply means that you work for the people making 10MM a year and you eat the crumbs off the table.

  2. Whatever you're doing now sounds like a great business. Keep doing it and try to expand. No security = entrepreneurship. The same way that no risk = no reward. College you can always go to at any point. And it's mostly useful for those who aspire to 1 above.

  3. If you yourself are a troll. Congratulations, I've wasted 5 mins of my time.

 

But why? Nothing about your post, troll or otherwise sounds the least bit appealing. It's like you just threw out a number and decided that's what you needed.

If you had $400-500k invested in dividend players you could retire in Chile or Thailand or some other corner of the world and want for almost nothing. It'd be so terrible to want for nothing in SoCal weather like that. What if you had a house in the states paid off, rented it out and also had a comfortable dividend portfolio? How well could you live then?

What's the goal? Are you trying to own a bunch of Ferraris that you can drive around at the speed limit? If the point is "Fuck you" money, then you don't need anywhere close to $10M, but you do need to know what you actually want.

But that begs the better question, the actual question you should ask yourself: If you know what you need to retire, what kind of work and lifestyle would keep you from 'checking out' and actually saying 'fuck you'? Find a well paying field that you'd be good at and could learn to love, the rest will fall into place. Especially if you have an idea of what you need to actually 'check out.'

 

Here's a (hopefully) helpful guideline and somewhat of a life lesson. I hope my fellow monkeys can build off it.

In order to achieve the top tier in ANY professional, it is primarily about creating, building, and maintaining relationships with other people. For example, Mike Piazza was the 1,390th pick of the MLB draft. Why? Because the manager of the Dodgers manager (Tommy Lasorda) owed Mike Piazza's father a favor...he ended up being the greatest hitting catcher of all time. An outlier? Of course.

Your freshman year college roommate may end up being a MD in 20 years and willing to vouch for you at his firm.

Now, here is what you need to truly consider and I hope that you're trolling so I what I am about to say is not a true reflection of who you are as a person. Solely based on the way you have approached this, the manner in which you have responded to other people in this thread and the simply way that you have carried yourself - you are going to have one hell of a hard in creating, building, or maintaining any type of relationship with something that is not your dog. I would never want to work with you, I would never vouch for you and I surely would never want to allocate any of my resources to helping you.

Harsh? Yes. However, if how you have presented yourself is who you truly are, I bet I speak on behalf of most people in saying that it is the god's honest truth.

There are thousands upon thousands of intelligent, motivated, humble, and caring people who would go out of their way to help one another. I just don't see that in you.

Best of luck, kind of.

 

If the only reason you are considering going into finance is for the money, you will hate your job and be unhappy. Many of the people that makes millions in finance are the ones who have a genuine passion for finance. The ones who don't burn out before they can get to that point.

The most successful people in anything are the ones who have passion.

If money is your passion, you can make it in finance, but it is people like you that give finance a bad reputation. Your greed will overtake ethics and you WILL F$&% PEOPLE OVER for you money.

Read the "Millionaire Mind". It gives plenty of insight into the common traits of people who became millionaires. The majority of them are entrepreneurs that live under their means accumulating wealth over a lifetime.

 

"Stock trader" "Million Dollar Cuts" "Inside information" I try to be constructive in my advice/criticism of others- especially on here, where we all do our best to help ourselves and each other out- but this is the most cringe-worthy post I've seen in a while, assuming that this isn't a troll.

This post reads like you got really hyped while watching "The Wolf of Wall Street" on Vyvanse and decided that you wanted to clear 10mm and be "the next Jordan Belfort, yo". If you think that finance/banking is a rock-solid way to crack 8 figures, you're either too stupid to understand the cost-benefit, too lazy to do your research before asking substantive questions about the industry, or an extremely unfortunate combination of the two.

I also read a few of your comments, just to make sure that I have a decent idea of who you are: " 8 figures is fairly possible......many people all around the world do it wholesale? Agriculture?"

Confirmed: You know nothing.

My advice: Do some actual research, throw those misinformed opinions about how easy it is to make 10 mil away, and get rid of that ego. You appear to be both ignorant and thin-skinned, as evidenced in your responses to hearing that you're wrong on certain things. If you were ever to make it into finance or banking, you have to get used to hearing that you're wrong. You will hear far worse. Your response will either demonstrate that you have potential and are willing to learn/grow, or will confirm that we have you dead to rights on your shortcomings and flaws. I look forward to seeing whether it will be the former or the latter.

 

I've never seen a negative account before on here.

If you want to make 10MM a year your'e going to do it through entrepreneurship. Not through finance job exclusively.

"It is better to have a friendship based on business, than a business based on friendship." - Rockefeller. "Live fast, die hard. Leave a good looking body." - Navy SEAL
 

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The fool thinks himself to be a wise man, while the wise man thinks himself to be a fool.
 

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