Why the heck do you have over 1,000 banana points?

I hit 1,000 bananas about nine months back, went inactive, and now am back for the time being. When I reached that milestone, I couldn't help but ask myself: How the hell did I spend this much time on WSO?

So, to the ~400 or so users with 1,000 or more banana points: Who are you? Why are you here? How did you get that many points?

Cheers, and I appreciate all the help I've gotten from this site and hope I've given a bit of insight myself.

 

I started on here when I needed information on my field(real estate).

As I progressed in my career I wanted to give some information/advice back and help people since I never had this sounding board.

I like the topics, there are a bunch of funny and bright people on this forum and I enjoy reading questions and answers on any topic from commercial real estate to the more esoteric.

It keep me relevant in some areas of the industry which I am not directly focused on. E.G. it is great to hear what a PE guy says vs a Brokerage Guy.

 

I've been hanging around in some fashion for about three years, as I started looking at going back to business school. I'm graduating from school in a week and on to bigger and better things. I have ups and downs in my activity, but I'm pretty sure I have ~500 bananas from my top 5-10 posts. Classic Pareto action going on with my contributions to the site.

I come for the stories, mostly. Interesting anecdotes from people about things they saw on the job or in school-- best days, worst days, ideal clients, nightmare clients, and some pretty funny sights. Especially from the more experienced posters, there's some great stuff here.

I leave when I see the latest variation of "how do I break into..." or "which [school/group/firm/internship/industry/preschool] sets me up for..." threads. Once the next few months shake out, I'd like to tell my story, but I shudder at the number of "rate my profile" requests I'll get.

"Son, life is hard. But it's harder if you're stupid." - my dad
 

Honestly, I was only here to ask trading or quantitative questions. I already work on a trading desk but it's good to get some feedbacks from people with different product knowledge. Working in trading, this job is very broad. From trading at a bank, hedge fund, prop trading, commodities firm, market making firm, agency trading... this site is unbeatable in terms of user base.

People are on here for many reasons but the biggest I say, is so he or she can better their future. People who are hungry and works in a high-flying finance job usually carries a negative perception in the public's eye. So I like to mingle with people who are close in mind like me. Unfortunately for me, aside from co-workers, I don't really have finance friends.

 

Amen - this is why I think we should be throwing more happy hours around the world. Bring the community offline a bit and build stronger relationships. We had the WSO conference in NYC 3years running and it was awesome, but it was also a MAJOR drain on time and resources that I thought would be better invested into the site.

Anyways, the NYC happy hours, Paris and some other cities are still going strong, but would love to get more going! AndyLouis

It's as easy as choosing a place, date and time and we'll promote it for you to our city specific lists: http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/events

 

You haven't even got 1k bananas lol. Sit yo a** down boi.

Just joking, I completely agree with you. I also like some of the stuff you write.

Absolute truths don't exist... celebrated opinions do.
 
<span itemprop=name>BobTheBaker</span>:

I get on here during work to argue with @TNA about politics.

No truer statement has been said here.

I get on here to read the news from TNA and BTB.

GoldenCinderblock: "I keep spending all my money on exotic fish so my armor sucks. Is it possible to romance multiple females? I got with the blue chick so far but I am also interested in the electronic chick and the face mask chick."
 

Haha. Try as I do to avoid those topics, I usually get sucked in.

I enjoy helping people and this is a good time killer with people who are, on average, rather intelligent. Not many forums are like that.

 

How else are you going to find out what is on business insider and read up on the complicated world of drug testing?

Only two sources I trust, Glenn Beck and singing woodland creatures.
 

I've always found both of you to be quite similar. Dunno why the hate.

GoldenCinderblock: "I keep spending all my money on exotic fish so my armor sucks. Is it possible to romance multiple females? I got with the blue chick so far but I am also interested in the electronic chick and the face mask chick."
 
<span itemprop=name>realjackryan</span>:

But for real, 3 pts for a sb makes it pretty easy to get to 1000 of you contribute at all, and I just like this forum and the people on it. Even @CanadianEnergyBanker

Yeah, I just earned 81 bananas from saying "*senior associate"

Make Idaho a Semi-Target Again 2016 Not an alumnus of Idaho
 

First found WSO when I was learning about the whole consulting, IB, S&T world in '07. Remember seeing Bondarb's post about money markets seizing up and hoping he was wrong. I can clearly remember thinking that that post in addition to the news stories about sub-prime at the time mean things were going to change big time.

Didn't end up getting an S&T job out of college in 2008 and spent a ton of time on this website while I was at work as I was trying to find a way to break into special sits or macro investing. That's where most of my bananas come from.

Then I finally started piecing together what commodity trading was in the lead-up to Glencore's IPO (I had heard about Louis Dreyfus years before and could not for the life of me understand what they did). WSO is probably by far the best source for physical commodity trading careers out there.

I'm at a top shop in metals know and I feel like I owe it to people to answer some questions from time to time. And get into the odd political fight lolz.

 

It's a fair question - I think the tough bit is that at work I don't allow myself to check anything that's personal (God forbids my employer would be able to link me with my account here, some of the things I say are completely stupid and only anonymity lets me write them)

In all honesty, I still check WSO every week when I work, I just come here on the weekend and not during the week. What keeps me on the page is if there is a forum topic promoted that gets my attention, it's those 15 seconds when I go on the front page that will determine how much time I'll spend on the website reading/commenting. As long as you are able to keep interesting and attention grabbing topics on the front page you will probably keep most of us clicking. There is a weekly market recap I saw a couple times now that I find really good - especially when you haven't been reading the news for a couple of days.

 

I started on here becuase I liked Eddie, Midas, and a few others back in the day. Although the names change it's probably one of my favorite ways to waste a little time, and the occasional smartass comment got me past 1000 pretty easily after 4+ years

 

It's just another forum to talk shit on and sometimes reddit is boring.

The answer to your question is 1) network 2) get involved 3) beef up your resume 4) repeat -happypantsmcgee WSO is not your personal search function.
 

Shit piles up when you've been here a while.

WSO was a hell of a great resource for me when I first started my foray into finance. I've put that life behind me for now, but I like to hang around to give whatever input I can where relevant. I like to think that I've got a slightly different perspective from the usual HYPS to 2+2+2 or whatever less prestigious variation of that that you see so much of over here.

 

idaho joined this site years back when I had a call with a family friend at JPM and told him I wanted to join IB / S&T, proceeded to make myself look like an absolute dumbass and never spoke to him again. Realized I needed to get to work and understand the industry. Did some basic research and spoke to a career advisor at school and realized I needed to be more aware of the different industries and their functions.

Ended up being a great resource for me as I made several different career decisions - moving from wanting a more IB role to ER to Consulting, now gearing to go to Consulting / Corp. Strat work but working in the defense industry in the mean time.

WSO helped me meet some cool people while living in London and acting as one of the WSO London coordinators. Got to meet Asatar & AndyLouis . Even took Andy to a futbol match.

More so, it allows me to stay in the loop about what is going on in the Finance world. Finance was one of my majors at my non-target, but I don't read nearly as much as I used to. WSO helps me not look like an idiot when people talk about current events in markets and world news. I also get to sound knowledgeable to the many friends I have in the banking world.

I have also used the Company Database (really helpful tool for people early in their career) and the WSO IB Prep Pack.

Now I mostly get my banana points from offering very basic advice to new kids on the site (Which is better between X & Z school). Not that I love those posts or think the content is great, but because I remember being in their shoes and wondering many of the same questions a few years back. Probably should have asked more questions when I think about it. I like to read the political pages, because it makes me think in new ways - I don't read more than a snippet of any link to XYZ study that Bob and TNA post, but that little bit is more helpful than 98% of the bullshit I hear at work.

Last, I like that when I use the site at work, people have no clue what the hell I am looking at. So I can kind of blend things in.

...

1) I'm over-inclined to procrastinate via internet argument, especially about economics/finance/politics - doing it here is more likely to result in me learning something and less likely to make my real friends recognize me for the argumentative asshole I am.

2) Some of the shit is funny.

3) On a rare occasion, I see a post that is informative and presents a world view you're very unlikely to hear someone express at work (or even outside of work) if you work in your standard high-finance / NYC environment. That's valuable stuff.

Life's is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
 

For me the banana points are more a function of longevity than anything else.

I actually started following WAY back in the ibankingoasis days (anyone on here remember that?), but I forgot my username and rejoined at a later date under this moniker. In the early days, even though the site was more rudimentary, I learned a LOT. I was just a kid from a nowhere school with an accounting degree who decided M&A was interesting. In the beginning it was all about education for me.

As I absorbed information from the site and eventually moved to corporate finance WSO became a place to read some current events and get insight from intelligent people. I am definitely not the active user I once was and don't find the content near as compelling as I did before, but I still see things that occasionally pique my interest and when I do I still find the discussions interesting. I also try to give back and help the younger guys/girls when it's an area I'm knowledgeable in.

twitter: @CorpFin_Guy
 

I have no idea how I got so many banana points, honestly. Made this account 5 years ago after graduating undergrad and being unhappy with my first job out of college. Kept coming back while bouncing around a variety of corporate finance/strategy jobs to both answer questions about the non-financial services side of finance and to think/talk/ask about the moves people made and the other opportunities out there.

I then started thinking about business school and my usage skyrocketed. I then got into business school and it was even worse as I no longer paid attention to my job and started engaging in a lot more off topic threads. And now i'm entering investment banking and i'm sure my usage will drop off again... until I decide to move jobs and get bored again and come back to this timesink.

Plus, the company database actually has some good info and can be perused for a long time without regurgitating info.

 

Lots of good material on here in general, but I stick around because:

I like getting the finance/econ perspective on certain trends or business news updates that I may not have considered

-I like to offer up B-school and GMAT advice because I gained 200 points(!) and saw a bunch of reach schools open up that I wouldn't have considered going in-despite a subpar GPA. I re-set my expectations after reading Bankarella's epic post on the right mindset for the exam.

-Eduardo Braverman (sp?)

-Laugh at some of the out of touch elitism. Makes me appreciate what I've achieved that much more.

-Read anecdotes from successful people on the challenges they face in real life/family/work.

-Great career discussions. I'm always trying to figure out my options, trajectory, pathways, etc. at each step. Learned about some interesting roles on here.

WSO is pretty useful all in all.

 

As a non-business major who has always been interested in the markets, I found WSO to be very helpful in outlining the different 'cookie cutter' paths and more importantly, what different jobs/roles entail. My path is by NO means cookie cutter so I enjoy hearing the insight and stories of others.

What has caused me to receive actual bps (banana points) is the mentality of 'pay it forward.' I am not your typical Ivy --> IB kid. That being the case, I like to provide outsider/human to human insight that some people are actually looking for, not your typical "HYP or bust."

..disclaimer: bps = banana points is my intellectual property.

 
Best Response

Like most, I joined this site as an undergrad interested in breaking into the industry. I don't come from the familial or socioeconomic background that many in the industry have. One trait I've always had is a tremendous level of curiosity and motivation for the things that interest me most. When I identify a goal, I work toward it with an uncommon level of intent.

I was that kid that read every single guide, did every single career accelerator type of program my career center or school offered, attended every externship or immersion program a major bank offered, and got a BB summer gig two years ahead of cycle.

When I found WSO, I both read every single thread religiously and also regurgitated everything I'd learned offline and elsewhere online. My initial post caliber was pretty low. I alternated between the typical undergrad bullshit of force-ranking schools and banks and groups within them, talking about suit and shirt choices for interviews, and the like ... and also trying to interact meaningfully with Midas Mulligan Magoo, Eddie Braverman, happypantsmcgee, monty09, and the original cadre of guys here who were successful in their careers.

As I went through each of my successive summer roles, I developed a latent network that fed me a lot of fascinating information. I also realized that I was in a bit of an uncommon position, and for two reasons. One, by nature of how competitive they are, there are few people who get seats in the groups that people on this site idolize so seriously (the MS M&A, GS TMT, GS FIG, BX M&A, etc.). Two, people usually get one summer role before they graduate, not two or three.

Since I had multiple summers and was in more than one group of that caliber, the natural mechanisms of my network (kids I interned with, kids I was in the same year as, guys 1-3 years older who I developed relationships with either during networking or because they were analysts or associates while I interned or worked, etc.) gave me all kinds of color.

Since all my experience came at the best firms, the color that I could share was uncommon. One, the diaspora of that network was largely concentrated in firms of similar caliber (e.g. a kid who summered at GS and didn't return would end up at an Evercore or Moelis and that relationship meant I had color there). Two, people in those firms go on to the more selective buy-side roles.

My post frequency began to fall off, but the caliber began to rise. I participated in the threads that asked harder-to-answer questions. Since my answers were substantive (and often corroborated by someone registering a new 'burner' account simply to quote my post and say "I can confirm" on tough topics like bonuses or placement out of the best groups), my post-to-banana ratio also improved.

Some of those threads were on more nuanced topics that required more than a simple datapoint answer. Things like whether the boutique model would continue to succeed the farther from the crisis we got (and buyout activity resumed, where the ability to offer leverage might spring back as a real factor behind who wins advisory mandates), how to succeed as a PE associate who wanted the return offer for the partner-track position after b-school, or how to get your mind right when three-and-a-half years into an unending nightmare of 90-hour weeks of BB IBD and MF PE.

Some of those replies were miniature treatises. AndyLouis and WallStreetOasis.com would message asking me if they could front-page certain posts as a standalone thread. I agreed only if I could expand or tweak them a bit first; I firmly believe that most ideas don't work well if they're transplanted out of context and represented as if they're fully-formed on their own. (Still aggravated AndyLouis front-paged one of mine on diversity without giving me a heads-up.) I fleshed a couple out, but my attention to detail (and the corresponding time each took) really limited how many I did.

It's interesting to see so many people talk about how their participation has shifted. Mine obviously has. I get PMs about it. It really boiled down to getting a greater level of responsibility. I've always had a strong commercial instinct, and as I developed greater personal liquidity, I began investing and operating outside of work. With some success I found myself fully free at a young age and walked gladly off 'the track'.

Simply put, I don't have any downtime to pull up WSO on a school computer or iPad like I used to during my school, summer, or analyst years. When I do, it tends to be either in a car, an airport lounge, or the odd time I get strangely nostalgic and pull it up on my desktop. I have a pretty powerful voice transcription protocol now that lets me bang out a post as long as this in just a couple minutes, and then I spend a few more going through to fix punctuation.

Secondly, what I have to offer is less of a fit for most of the forum content. I mentioned this in a PM to scooters: I don't have the same level of insight on various groups' / banks' hierarchies today because I'm further along in my career. The overwhelming bulk of content here is for and by aspiring students or entry-level employees. That's not me any more. My insight on those things is a bit dated the same way I said 10xleverage's was in my David vs. Goliath post.

The few times I'm on, I'll jump in where I see someone's really stuck on a philosophical question, in a morale slump, or dealing with anything more existential than 'how do I get through a superday' or 'I'm not getting recruiter attention for PE roles'.

I keep telling myself I'll start doing more frequent front-page mini-sermons (and I have a dozen great topics pipelined), but given the choice between pouring my energy into that or into new deals, overseeing or supporting existing ones, exercise, taking a meeting with someone, traveling for fun, learning languages, reading even more ... the forum loses every time.

Tremendous kudos are due to Patrick (WallStreetOasis.com) for creating such a meaningful thing. It's truly amazing to think how many people here owe a real debt of gratitude for their career success to this site and all its resources, whether people, guides, or posts. I'm one of them. While the inescapable shitposting that any web forum presents seems to be increasingly more of a thing here, it's nuts that the community here is as robust as it is.

Here's to more success for WSO in the future.

I am permanently behind on PMs, it's not personal.
 

Really appreciate the detail APAE. I do think there is a natural evolution of members in the community. While some of our top members like you still lurk from time to time and will share some wisdom, I think it's normal for posting frequency to wax/wane.

I think we may always be anchored to a slightly younger demographic, but we are open to making the site and content more valuable to certified users and more senior members of the site as well. I think it's very critical that we have at least some certified members that can deliver truth and wisdom to the young members seeking answers. Since you've been with WSO for so long, would love to hear how you think we can make WSO better?

One thing we just started yesterday is to require all new forum topics to be tagged with a "seniority" level. This way, we know if the topic is related to college/intern level, young employee level (0-4yrs on job), mid level employee (5-10yrs) and senior (10+yrs)...The goal being that in a few months, we can turn on some filters in the Recent Content table here: http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/tracker that allows members to filter by "level"...so if they want to help out the youngins, they can filter by intern/college. If they want more senior related topics, they can filter by that as well.

Of course, it won't be perfect (since some topics are related to all levels or none), but it should help give members more of what they specifically want (especially when this filter is applied to specific industry forums).

...and of course, the mini-sermons are always welcome, even if it's years from now :-)

-Patrick

 

WallStreetOasis.com

I went off for a couple months again, but I came back with a couple long-form comments before the weekend. One new thread that Andy front-paged.

Here are a couple suggestions off the top of my head.

Replies. I understand why you went to the nested UI (where User B replying to User A is visualized as indented). It can be tough in really long threads seeing who is replying to whom, so it can be a helpful addition to contextualize mini discussions within the main discussion.

My gripe is that the indents only continue to a certain extent (two or three deep). If you're going to do this, you should run it with no maximum limit. Think of how Reddit does it; if people keep replying to each other (and thus creating new sub-parents), it keeps indenting. When it gets to be too much to track, it gets compressed after the eighth (or so) indent and a clickable button appears titled "continue this thread".

With a max number of indents, you can get a whole bunch of people stuck at what's visualized as the third level of replies but might actually be a higher level. This makes it hard to parse out who is talking to whom, and sadly, you often only reach this level of depth when it's a complicated topic or two heavyweight members of the forum are exchanging ideas (the time it matters most).

Drafts. This is a bit selfish as the number of people this affects is probably low, but I'd love to see a function where you could save posts without publishing them.

Back in the day people like Eddie Braverman and Midas Mulligan Magoo and CompBanker used to write great long-form content that was really engaging. Most of my stuff is similarly lengthy. It'd be great to see a 'save' function in addition to the 'post discussion' that currently exists. Props if this could also be done for comments, not just threads.

Auto-hyperlinks. I get that it reinforces your site stats and helps people find more of the content you've worked so hard to create a home for, but it's really annoying to see a long post suddenly populate with 18 URLs because words like 'Accretive' get recognized as matching the name of a firm in the WSO Company Database or 'leverage' as matching a term in the dictionary and the html code gets automatically applied.

Featured content. As Disjoint said, if you could promote the best content better, you'd probably retain some of the more time-pressed individuals. It's an inescapable fact that the people with some of the most valuable insight to offer are the ones least likely to stick around.

I think it's two-fold and self-reinforcing. If you could highlight more prominently the most meaningful content that's most likely going to be rewarding for them to engage with, they'd stick around; if they stick around, they then create further meaningful content. If you recognized them for that, there'd be an incentivize to do more of the same.

I know I have limited time. I know I also love to give back. Sometimes it's disheartening to know I spent time writing a lengthier thing that just disappears into the bowels of the site.

You've got the 'most popular content' feature over on the right. It rewards threads that blow up. There is an option to sort for most popular comments, then filter by all-time/year/month/week, but that's almost half a dozen clicks all of which are out of the way. In short, you could consider changing how accessible the selection of good comments is.

Some great stuff you've done lately:

  • user mentions
  • revamped forum navigation at the upper righthand portion of the site
  • new front-page layout
  • 'follow' function

I appreciate everything you do for everyone here, Patrick.

I am permanently behind on PMs, it's not personal.
 

I like to pop in and fuck around for a couple minutes as a break from doing shit. Most were acquired during my last college internship where I was super bored. I'm not even in finance.

heister: Look at all these wannabe richies hating on an expensive salad. https://arthuxtable.com/
 

How many of you are in NYC? I showed up to the meetup and 90% of the people there had never actually posted on WSO. Great people regardless and I had a good time, but I need to grab a brew with some of y'all and pound some shots in honor of FratLord

Make Idaho a Semi-Target Again 2016 Not an alumnus of Idaho
 

The site helped me when thinking about business school and recruiting for banking internships, so I enjoy paying it forward to the next generation. Also I think being one of the only active users from Los Angeles helps provide a unique perspective to the site.

Be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes.
 

In LESS THAN THREE WEEKS, I collected 1000 BANANA POINTS. My rise to the top was SWIFT and UNMISTAKABLE. And when I see the breadth of my domain, I weep for there are no more worlds to conquer.

 

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"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

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