What is so enticing about PE/HF?

For most people, the idea of actually making investment decisions on the buyside (PE/HF) trumps the service/advisory nature of the sellside (IB). In many cases, the hours may be the same (or often less unless you end up at a sweatshop which most MFs are at the junior level) but the content of your work is generally more intellectually stimulating. Sure, you still have endless hours of modelling, memo/deck drafting, etc. but you get to think about companies in a much different way (i.e. should we invest, how can we improve operations, how can we lower the overall cost of capital to drive growth, profitability, returns, etc.) as opposed to how many different/meaningless changes can I make to a deck so that I can try to help my MD sell a company, raise capital, etc.

Besides the above, the biggest draw for me was that assuming you are able to climb the ladder there is tremendous upside potential in the form of carry participation and salary, opportunity to build an expansive network of investors, etc.