I have no idea why would anyone want to sacrifice their health and social circle putting up with ultra long hours just to get a few more bucks, believing it gives them prestige and having girls surrounding them.
I have this one friend who worked in IBD calling me at 3am crying and telling me he brought the girl whom he has a crush on to his VIP exclusive clubs. but the girl eventually got picked up by some dxuchebags there instead.
So why investment banking besides the paycheck? And no... getting into ibank won't get you the girl.
I left investment banking for real estate and then for commercial banking, but I can tell you why people want to do it--they want to work in high finance. Working on Wall Street (or at investment banks in other big markets that do essentially the same thing as their Wall Street counterparts) is like playing baseball in the major leagues vs. the minor leagues. You work with the smartest and most driven people in the financial services industry, you work on interesting deals, and you get an insider's look into how real, man-on-the-street capital markets works.
And after you've put in 2-4 years of pain, you've learned a lot, earned a lot, made some wonderful contacts, and built a powerful resume so that you can enter into something else that may interest you that also pays well. A select few actually like investment banking and make it a career.
1) Money
2) More interesting work than quite a few other potential jobs
3) Money
4) Exit opportunities
5) Money
Because it's a great platform to do what you want afterwards, and it's one of the very few ways to get into private equity or hedge funds. You get paid more than almost any entry-level position, and it is prestigious.
The bagels are awesome.
Power, Prestige and Dominance. I have been competitive all my life, and nothing makes me happier than being in an industry that, at least to me, feels like a sport.
damn that's a sad story. these hoesss. i think ibd can help, but you have to have SOMETHING going for you other than "mods and bodsss come to my VIP club r. kelly"
Also real estate is where stupid people go to get f*ck you rich. don't know why we don't all do it to be honest.
What makes you think that?
It's basically true. I'm in real estate myself and I can attest to the fact that some of America's dumbest people are making a killing in real estate.
The answer is that too much money is just not enough.
Why would anyone want to do banking besides the analyst stint? (Originally Posted: 11/16/2010)
I've always wondered this but never posted it as I don't mean to sound like a douche, but why would anyone ever want to go into investment banking after, say, the ripe old age of 26?First of all it's pretty commonly known that the main purpose of banking is for exit ops and that as an analyst you really are learning vast amounts of knowledge and technical skills within a short 2-3 year span. After that 90% of the people leave to go on to greener pastures.
So why is it that there are so many posts of trying to break into banking by doing something else for 2-3 years and going for a top 10 MBA? I'd be curious to see how many people actually follow through with that plan. Banking itself seems like a very boring career trajectory as all you're doing is try to pitch and win deals (as the senior role, i think most people would agree that corporate development or strategy is much more interesting). Furthermore even by breaking into banking post-mba you're just "that associate" who doesn't know jack but passes work down to the smarter analysts. I don't mean to diss on associates with pre-mba finance experience or direct-to-associate promoted guys, but I think the newly minted Top 10 bschool associate without pre-mba experience is generally seen as incompetent. I guess maybe if you're an MD you have a decent life, but you're still working longer-than-average hours, and when you're post-mba do you really want to be slaving away to get there?
So is it purely for the money, prestige, or what? I'm just wondering because it seems like if people want to break in out of undergrad but can't, they want to try again after bschool. But by then it just seems not worth it to me...
You're vastly underestimating the amount of people whose sole goal in life is the big paycheck, at any cost. Thats what banking provides.
Perhaps you should ask Ken Moelis.
i, for the most part, agree with the sentiment expressed in this post. i would never stay on past analyst.
You mean past the least paid and most over-worked and under-sexed position of investment banking?
This sounds strange to me, considering that many people directly avoid the analyst route b/c it's a pretty painful experience, and for those reasons go to IBD as post-MBA assocs. Not that their lives are much better, but they're better and in a good year, well-comped too.
Your thesis is ridiculous on its face
Some people likes sales and IB is the pinnacle of Sales. Sales is a drug. Making a deal happen is a fix. Your questions have been answered.
Some people likes sales and IB is the pinnacle of Sales. Sales is a drug. Making a deal happen is a fix. Your questions have been answered.
I think it is a combination of these two posts above. Additionally, you may be underestimating many people's obsession with prestige. It seems many believe IBD it is the most prestigious division of finance and therefore they Must be a banker.
Prestige (Just imagine if you're an MD who worked on a multi-billion dollar deal that makes the front page of the WSJ.)
Relatively low-risk (as long as you're bringing in some revenue, you're ok. after developing many relationships over the years it shouldn't be that hard to do)
Money $$$
i wish life was this easy... just 2 years then on to bigger and better.... we would all be retired by 35
I agree with the sentiment in this post as well...
My reason was relatively prosaic: I liked it better than I thought I would like venture capital or private equity.
Don't make the mistake of getting caught up in generic terms like investment banking or private equity. I think people tend to overlook the fact that my job is very different than my job was fifteen years ago, despite the fact that both are technically investment banking.
While private equity sounds great as a job description, the choice was one that opened itself up to me as a mid-level associate. When I thought about the relative job description, it seemed to me that the role I would be leaving for involved more of what I found relatively less interesting - the grind of conducting ground level diligence on a potential investment. In return, I would be trading off what I found to be the relatively more interesting part of my job - the deal advisory and interplay with opposing bankers.
That calculus may have been different if I was a PE partner vs a banker, but the truth was that I wasn't going to be making any investment decisions, any more than I'd be leading an advisory team in banking. But between spending my time learning by getting familiar with deal structuring, deal execution on the banking side, and even the deal marketing versus being neck deep in the nitty gritty of a particular company's contracts, or pipeline, employee benefit plans, or the millions of other questions you want to understand if you are actually going to own it - well, the answer for me was that I'd rather be a banker. At the associate and VP level, it just seemed like a far better place for me to be spending my days and nights.
Because it's hands down one of the most lucrative career paths in the world...I'm amazed this question can seriously be posed here.
Different question, not sure if I've seen it addressed before- isn't the associate position pretty repetitive for an analyst who has been working for 2-3 years? Analyst-to-associates must be light-years ahead of the post-MBA associates who haven't done an analyst stint. Anybody experience this frustration or am I off target here?
fixed that for you.
.
I definitely noticed there's a certain degree of resentment of newly-minted MBAs from those who progress internally. It takes MBAs a couple of months to catch up, but in order to be successful, they can't just "pass the work" to smart analysts. They need to be able to understand the work to check it, as it's their asses on the line. In the beginning it's tough, but most are driven enough to succeed.
This article is from a lawyer's point of view, but I think it does a good job of explaining the deal making mentality.
http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2010/12/06/an-ma-junkie-kicks-his-all-consum…
The REAL reason why people want to become investment bankers! (Originally Posted: 01/25/2012)
Ladies and gentlemen,
In one short read, here is why so many people, including in this forum, want to join the business, ie an investment bank. Both a very accurate post and a fun piece. It pretty much covers most reasons and motivations for vying for a role in that arena.
Those who are 1) in the business and / or 2) have friends working in ibanking will particulary like it.
If you like it then please digg this story!
http://digg.com/news/business/why_people_become_investment_bankers
Gracias!
lol people still use Digg?
Not sure but the founder, Kevin Rose, had an offer for $80 million or something for an asset sale. Sometimes I wonder if I'm in the wrong industry. You got flip-flop wearing techies in Silicon Valley doing some great stuff. If you put in the same effort you do as a banker you can turn a hot dog stand into a social media company! ;)
Literally: VC backed grilled cheese stand
Is the author trying to show off his knowledge of the french language?
Keep wondering why some people do banking, hate it but carry on, then finally quit and bitch in retarded social media sources.
Don't do what you don't like, it's always been like that.
@damngringo,
you're right but it's sometimes not clear cut. I was attracted to the business for the wrong reasons. Having said that, i've learned a lot and think i've gained transferable skills to help me do whatever it is I want to do. Personally, I don't think it would as bad if there weren't so many pricks in the system. Some people say it's a useless service (ibanking) and it does not add value but in fact it does. I've seen from the side of the corporate world. The problem is you've got a bunch of sharks heading the show and they're pockets get fatter and fatter so the environment ends up lacking humanity.
Then again it can be fun to work on a multi-billion dollar capital raise :)
For the easy money.
Digg is worth nothing...
gsam22, you are right as well, but there is definitely a chunk of people who misinterpret the signals, continue be tools and then bitch around. It's good to re-shape your thoughts and expectations, means that you think and understand things. Where are SBs to give out?
why would you want to be an ibanker? (Originally Posted: 11/02/2010)
really am interested in why you high schoolers/freshmen or whatever you are want to do ibanking... i really can't figure out why there is a big hype around it.
i also think that theres a big problem if our best and brightest want to do corp. finance. back in the day only the worst students went that route...
i can understand if you want to do buy-side finance, but corporate finance is boring as FUCK.
and ibanking is not the best way to get into buy-side...you get there directly if you're actually smart. or working in a job that requires you to think. ibanking has historically (through the 90's) always been for dumb kids who couldn't get into buyside or weren't good enough to start out in a management role for a F50 company and always will be.
I have not learned a lot in life. But I have learned a little bit. And one thing I have learned, though through much regret. Thrown shit has a tendency to get flung back.
LOL this is one of the better posts I've read on the boards in a while. I actually debated between a silver banana or monkey shit for this...
Looks like someone else went with monkey shit.
THE MONEY
I'm doing banking right now and I don't know why....I am truly regretting it and will probably leave in a year
Well if you don't want the gig send it my way.
You are an idiot. No reason to explain why. Good luck working with all the smart people at a management role with Walmart while us dumb bankers learn nothing while living paycheck to paycheck.
Don't jinx yourself, a lot of bankers do live paycheck to paycheck.
@ the OP you are absolutely right. I'm dumb as hell, I'm only good at adding and subtracting, and Im also good at reading things 10 times and underlining my mistakes with red pen. On the other hand everyone I meet likes me and I can sell sex to a whore. thats about it.
All the smart kids should stick with inventing shit and should stay out of wall street. they are only fucking things up. (HFT, quants and their formulas etc.)
I've had a lot of bankers tell me that the job really sucks and it's not worth getting into, but for all the groveling and bitching I've heard, there hasn't been a whole lot of quitting, at least from the people I know. Banking is brutal, for sure, but the doors that open after a 2-year analyst stint are worth it for a lot of people and the pay isn't too shabby, either, especially for kids straight out of undergrad.
Investment Banking isn't about the money... (Originally Posted: 03/12/2010)
...according to these kids anyway:
http://dealbreaker.com/2010/03/budding-bankers-at-princeton-claim-to-no… .
Discuss!
Read comments from the original article: http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2010/03/08/25465/comments/
They are really something. Here is my favorite:
By Harvard'07: "you haters shouldn't be ragging on the kids in this article, who at least made it into a tough school and did decently well enough to get internships. The bank I worked at did have an analyst class mainly drawn from the Ivie, and the Princeton kids all had great GPAs/SATs. The real retards were the single kids from seemingly random state schools and privates, who I suspect made it in either through minority programs like SEO, or had a family connection. That's the real rub - the privileged idiot who is too stupid for an Ivy, ends up at a school like Colgate, but has her well-connected father get her an interview with his buddy outside of a formal recruiting program."
Princeton is so fucking cut-throat kids are blowing up over someone spending $300 for a cab.
Investment banking is only exciting when you're on the buy side. On the sell side you're a document processor as an analyst/associate and a sychopant as a VP/MD. Few firms offer their Md's and Vps the dignity to be advisors rather than salesman half the time.
Now, if you were in private equity, analyzing business and valuing them for takeover bases etc, that's exciting.IB is not totally about the money, it's about the glorious exit opportunities. However, if it paid anything less than a 100k all in first year I would abstain, my sanity and soul cost a little more than that.
pathetic and embarrassing article published in the newspaper of a respectable institution. it almost reads as a satire.
Article could be satire and someone being overly subtle in describing what the kids in banking are really like. Or just a terrible article.
Kids quoted, on the record, for the piece are definite tools though.
Banking isn't about the money...
It's about making the world a better place.
Sure the 100 hour weeks of mind numbingly boring work can be tough, and make you feel a little less human.
But I don't do it for the 18kt white gold and diamond Rolex I'm wearing, nor for the Saville Row bespoke suit that stands against my Prada loafers. It's not about my central London studio apartment, or the 4 golddiggers I've manged to fuck this year through overt demonstrations of my superior status.
It's about the kids.
Some kids don't have a father, or even worse, some kids father's work at places like Accenture and KPMG. Experiences like that can really scar a child; they don't have anyone to look up to and admire as a male role model.
I just want to show them that they don't have to settle for mediocracy, working in outsourcing or audit.
I just want to inspire the kids.
hahhaahah so money @rodneymullen
Awesome
Your son will feel insecure standing next to the kid whose daddy is at a PE shop. I feel sad fir your kid. Just kidding man.
Even if yous say exit opps, you are still in it for the money, because those opps lead to more money.
The Daily Princetonian is pretty awful for a college newspaper (much less a college newspaper for a good school). I wouldn't read much into it.
Asian girls are evil little golddiggers. That Rebecca Yu bitch is lying out of her ass.
How the fuck did a sophomore get 18 ibd interviews?
My general advice to undergrads is as follows: if someone comes up to you asking questions about investment banking, do not utter a single word in response, rather sprint in the opposite direction and do not look back. When have these "how do you like banking?" interviews EVER ended well?
Pi did a banking internship as a freshman.
“Last summer, I spent 70 percent of my internship making spreadsheets,” Pi said. He said that it was the other 30 percent of his work — what he called the “thrill of the hunt” — that kept him going through the time he spent doing grunt work.
“No one likes working 100-hour weeks,” Pi said. “Last summer, I pulled multiple all-nights, and I worked for 12 weeks. So I basically had no summer.”
If you read one of the comments on the Daily Princetonian site, it says something about taking a year off to do more internships or something. No idea if that's actually the case though.
Would anyone do investment banking if it wasn't well paid? (Originally Posted: 07/08/2011)
I'm not talking about taking a low paying analyst job or an unpaid internship. This thread is about the long-term.
If the average mid-career salary in banking was merely average, say around 100,000/year, would you still want it?
You bet they would, who wouldnt want to sit behind a desk for the better part of the day doing menial tasks? Sounds like a life you can only dream of
if i could own a business myself rather do that.
If it gave you the same exit opps, of course. That's all people spend 2 years in banking for...
I'm guessing you just read the title?
Staying in banking long-term because of the exit opps is a bit of a contradiction.
Fuck no
I'd do it like 8, maybe 10 hours a day. No chance you could keep me in the office 'til 2 or 3 AM making $50k a year.
If the hours were not so bad I would do it.
I
Not a chance
one of those jobs you only go into for the money, exit ops, and for some people a perception of prestige. Although allot of people may try to piss on you if you tell them you're a banker these days.
No. I'd rather go to medical school. And I'd never introduce myself as a "banker". I'm an analyst at an investment bank. To me, banker is someone further up the ladder where you start to managing clients and etc. At that point the hours are much better and I'd work as a banker then for 100k salary.
Fuck no..I'm still here on a Friday fucking night. Banking sucks. period.
If lesser hours, then yes. With the same amount of hours, no.
Frankly, I'd like it be like that..at least it would save me from working with stupid kids who are only in it for $$$ and have no interest in finance whatsoever. What is more, it would also kill the crazy lifestyle culture of 80hr++ weeks because nobody would be willing to do it..so all in all, banking could be a good, reasonable career choice. Pretty sure most of you don't even get my point.
fuck noooooooooo
nope, you get what you're paid for
N-F-W
Let's ask it like this -> why WOULD someone stay in banking long term if they didn't get paid? If you can think of a real reason, there's your answer....
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