Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:04] Welcome to the WSO Weekly wrap up where I talk with my team about the five most trending discussions in the Wall Street Oasis community. Enjoy.

Matthew: [00:00:14] So first things first, everyone. Goldman Sachs layoffs is what was trending the topic as number one for this week. So guys, feel free to give us your opinion here. What does it say about the work culture of Goldman and how does it affect the employees? Patrick, you go first.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:28] Yeah, I don't think this really has much to say about anything about the culture of Goldman. I know some people in the forums were pissed off because of the way people were let go. They actually I think some of them went into lobby and they couldn't their key cards weren't working is what I heard, which is kind of crazy. Nabila, have you ever seen that or heard anybody?

Nabil: [00:00:44] Yeah, I mean, that's the usual stuff in finance, right? They just take you to you. I mean, they don't even take you to your desk. Sometimes they just like you can. You can. I mean, they'll take you to the office and they'll be like, Yeah, you can get off now. I then usually, I don't know.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:52] Yeah. The box and the escorted by security is pretty normal, but yeah, I don't know. Sarah How did they do it in Lebanon? Did they kick you out right away?

Sara: [00:01:08] Plenty of layoffs here.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:11] There's what? There's a lot of people laid off. Yeah. Do you know how they do it or. No.

Sara: [00:01:18] They are doing well, actually, they used to.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:22] They're used to it. Okay. Yeah. So, I mean, we basically like, I think in the US, I remember in the great financial crisis, like Lehman, I think everyone just had to go in and get their stuff, but they were, I don't think their key cards didn't work. So Goldman maybe could be a little more smooth around, like letting people know, because I think that's pretty.

Matthew: [00:01:38] Pretty tough. I got some I got some insider info here that I actually know someone from Goldman in NYC working on their Southern trading desk. And what they said happened last week was actually just a simple tap on the shoulder. They walked through the aisles there on the trading desk and if you get tapped on the shoulder, that pretty much means you're you're one of the few that's going to be let go. So they tap you on the shoulder, they bring you into a boardroom with whatever it was specifically on the S&P desk, maybe 50, 60 people. And then in one shot, kind of let them let them know. I think it's extremely organized the way they do this for the main thing around, you know, not wanting to take any information with you as you're leaving, because naturally, Goldman's laying off people. There may be some firms that are, you know, looking at that and may want to poach some some top talent there if they are still maybe in a hiring mode. So they want to make sure they really mitigate that risk. But yeah, from what I heard, it's simply just a tap on the shoulder. And then I'm pretty sure your heart sinks and you know what's coming next within the next.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:36] Yeah, I think I think Goldman was in the same position as a lot of their banks. They were hired and now they're kind of stuck in this position where the crazy deal flow in 2020, 2021. So now they're kind of cutting ranks and I don't think it says much about the culture. I think it's a very commonplace. I think just people haven't lived through a recession in so many years that it's kind of like they forget. But it was very similar back in 2008 when I was still I was around and got the grades to show for it.

Matthew: [00:03:00] But let's actually yeah, speaking on that, actually, I mentioned that, you know, a lot of the workforce hasn't really been around since or at least participated through a recession around the incoming analysts. Now, how do you think these are these incoming analysts are going to be affected by these layoffs or seeing these headlines or seeing it in the forums, us talking about it right now? What do you think that means for them in terms of their career development and then even just entering the workforce?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:24] I think they're just going to have to keep much more open mind. I think basically the intern offer rates are going to plummet from, you know, eighties, 90% in some classes down to 50%. And or the number of summer analysts is going to drop a lot. And I think some firms will decide just to lower the offer rate. Other firms will decide, hey, let's just cut our intern class in half so we don't have a low offer rate. But either way, it's just going to be more competitive to get in. So.

Matthew: [00:03:49] You in terms of what about even just the psyche of these analysts coming in? I'm in the boat that they already know what they're getting themselves into, kind of getting into going into Goldman. It's going to be cutthroat. And that's just how it is. I think Goldman's kind of known as the big leagues, like you've made it type thing, just like being in the NBA and NFL.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:11] I think it's just harder to get in. I think once you're in, it's like I think there's a little bit more of a maybe appreciation of having the job in the first place rather than just looking to hop right away. I think it's maybe a little bit harder to hop, but maybe not. I mean, if the private equity funds still have a lot of dry powder to put to work and they still have a similar number of associate spots with smaller analyst classes, it might actually be a little bit less competitive for private equity recruiting, which would be kind of an interesting dynamic to play out. But we'll see. Let's jump let's go to the next.

Matthew: [00:04:43] All right, guys, great conversation. It's the next topic that was in the community. How many people actually make it so specifically here? You know, a lot of people are actually trying to figure out, is there longevity in this career of investment banking? So how does the expectation change as people get older and more experienced in the field specifically? Any comments there?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:02] Yeah, I'd like to read one of the top comments from Poff because I think I really kind of agree with it. It says this doesn't fully answer the original question, but with the exception of a few professions, the best way to make it in quotes is through ownership. That doesn't mean you need to be an entrepreneur necessarily, but you eventually need to position yourself where you're given the opportunity to be an equity partner. Some of the professions, like law, are easier to distinguish these types of roles because they have partner in their title. But there's also a fair amount of small or mid sized companies that offer equity to key employees and leadership. So startup early stage companies hand these types of packages out more easily to lower level employees, but have a higher degree of uncertainty. Parfitt said that he thinks the sweet spots are privately held or PE backed companies in the 100 to $500 million revenue range. The already established and profitable businesses that are competing for talent with larger, more well known companies and willing to give equity in lieu of public company asks. You know, 1 to 2% of equity at the right company at the right time can prove extremely lucrative, especially if you're fortunate. Lucky enough to do it a couple of times once you're at a more senior level. And he points out that these roles are much more achievable versus hoping you'll be at a Fortune 500 C-level exec. So I'm obviously biased as an entrepreneur. I think I agree. I think your path to wealth is much easier when you have when you're obviously.

Matthew: [00:06:24] I think that's the thing there where it's like, how do you define wealth, right? There's people that in this world, you know, making 3 to 400000 a year, which to them are going to think is, well, they're wealthy and other people in other parts of the world or even just within North America, I think that's the dream. But what I like to challenge now is I think that's definitely not enough, and especially in today's times, to consider yourself wealthier, to really, quote unquote, make it feed up and not really have to do anything. I think it's there's actually a really good conversation and unfortunately, I can't remember it now in the form with all about owning assets, but specifically like revenue generating assets in the forms of businesses. And that's where you really have that generational wealth or even just wealth for for your immediate family where you truly make it. I think at the end of the day, you could be getting paid a salary of 3 to 400000 a year. But if you still have that obligation to show up at work every day, report to a boss, report to owners, I don't think that's necessarily making it personally, in my opinion.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:22] Yeah, maybe. And there's people who are making 200, 300 live paycheck to paycheck, believe it or not. So they still.

Matthew: [00:07:29] Feel that swiping that credit card.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:32] Yeah, drinks at the bar every week, lifestyle creep, whatever you want to call it, it happens. And so and kids happen and they're expensive. Trust me.

Matthew: [00:07:42] I heard.

Sara: [00:07:43] Something.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:44] Yeah, go ahead.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:44] Go ahead, sir.

Sara: [00:07:47] Actually, when I was reading about this discussion on our website, I came across a comment that said, You really make it when you reach the human status on that one straightaway.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:05] Yeah, that's another. When you have enough silver bananas that you actually Yeah. You reach human status. That's the true making it right.

Sara: [00:08:12] But the question is how hard do you think or when do you think it is when you make it as an investment banker?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:27] I think once you have your own clients, I think if you're an analyst, even an associate, even a VP level, until you're generating your own business and your revenue generating banker, I think you haven't really made it. Nabeel is nodding. You agree to Bill. Because then you can still be cut and you can still be let go in these layoffs. Perfect example. A lot of the mid-level or the people who are cut, they keep the cheap labor, the analyst level, and they keep the MDs who are generally.

Nabil: [00:08:47] Yeah, but then like bouncing off what I was saying, like even if you are like a partner, you still have to run behind people getting those. It's not like a steady stream of revenue. You could be letting go once you stop, like bringing in that revenue. So like, you still have to put in like a lot of go on these meetings fly cross. Yeah, but then if you look at like some other like more passive investments like. Then you don't have to, like, work as much. You don't have to worry about getting.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:03] I don't agree that spanking is not the end all, be all of making it.

Matthew: [00:09:19] And even as a stepping stone. As a stepping.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:21] Stone. Yeah, exactly. Stepping stone. Yeah. But even as an MD, like I remember at Rothchild, MiMedx is probably bringing in 5 to 10 million a year. But did he ever see his kids? Probably not, because he was there at 4 a.m. telling me to put a comma in Footnote number seven on page two 448 about this book. Like not exaggerating like that's literally what what it was. And so when there's that much you know there's not not as much balance work life, it's just really work. Work.

Matthew: [00:09:49] It's tough. Well well, for anyone, I guess. Anyone that's probably curious here, Anyone that's crazy enough to want to become an MD, an investment banker, and really sign away your life. How how would you guys say you position yourselves within a within a firm to eventually get the opportunity to become an equity partner? Any thoughts on that?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:07] I didn't learn. Yeah. Learned. Stack your skills become indispensable. Just bring value. I think revenue generating, cost cutting, whatever it is, I think that's always going to be attractive to an owner.

Matthew: [00:10:21] Is there a worry that where maybe an analyst or an associates overstepping and trying to do too much? Maybe you.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:27] Don't want to be in.

Matthew: [00:10:27] Manhole?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:28] Yeah, you don't want to be a managing analyst. And I think that's where like self not introspection what's the word? A self awareness. A good amount of self awareness. And knowing what you don't know is actually really valuable. Because if you go in there like, I know how to save, you're like Goldman. You're like, Let me just tell you how it's going to be. I know how to save operations.

Matthew: [00:10:47] Or I've heard good things of having a mentor, but like a proper mentor, right? There's ways to go about having a proper mentor, not blasting out thousands of emails per call for four coffee chats. I think there's the importance of having a single mentor and treating that as almost like a a proper relationship with that individual. And I've heard that that pays dividends in personal life, but also career life specifically, for sure.

Nabil: [00:11:10] Find the best person, really like find the best MD just try to work with them. Really.

Matthew: [00:11:14] Anyways, guys, are you out there? Let's take a pivot here along the same lines, actually. I mean, talking about what your life we know, obviously MD's are not seeing their kids as much as as Pat mentioned based on his experience. But there's we're hearing some rumblings here that, you know, as an analyst at one not being allowed to take vacations. Is that normal? Obviously, in the investment banking realm, it may seem normal for anyone working as an accountant and audit, you know, pretty normal. They're going to be holding their vacation cards close to them. But you want to take this one first. What are your thoughts around not being allowed to take a vacation as anyone?

Nabil: [00:11:51] I mean, that CEO and you're like trying to prove yourself. So honestly, I come from that field. So I'm like, yeah, I mean, that's what's expected to be honest. And it's more competitive now. So like, what's that one thing that sets you apart? Is it like turning up to work day after day when your colleagues want to? I mean, they want to take a vacation or like, what are you doing extra? So it's just those extra hours you put in in the early years that actually matter, Like that's what carries you longer. But then is it healthy? Like, I don't know. Yeah, it's not healthy like, but then that's what you know, nothing.

Matthew: [00:12:22] Nothing is healthy nowadays. Nothing. Everything. There's something you could find. You could find an avenue to find that everything. There's something bad and everything for you. I'm not for what you're saying. Sweat equity is the way to go. Prove yourself. You know, that's just how it is. I'm in that boat.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:38] It depends on the culture of the bank. Like some. Some banks they like force you to take your time off. Other banks, they're like, What do you mean? You're going to take a day? Like, come work on Thanksgiving, come work on Christmas.

Matthew: [00:12:49] You to take your time off. But are they really happy about that? Yeah. Let's be real here. Are they really happy about that?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:56] No. And so, like, I think that being aware of like, you know, it sucks that that's the I mean, that's the reality. We're actually going to release our working conditions survey soon for I be out to the community to kind of track see how things are trending. But my guess is things probably haven't improved that much. It was when we released it in 2020. It was horrible. It got a little bit better in 2021. But I don't I don't suspect it's really moved that much. No matter how many protected Fridays and protected weekends there are, there's ways around it. And I think some of those initiatives have slid a little bit since their initial introduction a few years ago.

Matthew: [00:13:32] It's also it's also the famous line, right. Money doesn't sleep. So if something needs to get done and although, you know they say you know things, yeah, sure Thanksgiving you have off but hey, if there's a crazy client out there that wants to do some business and a deal needs to get done and that VP starts hitting up their associate to the associates, reaching out to analysts, that stuff's going to pay. It's going to be remembered come time when you know, there's that promotion cycle coming through or open headcount. And who do we look to grab? You have to be relied upon. I think at the end of the day, and I understand there has to be a healthy balance, but also at the same time, you pick and choose when to have that healthy balance.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:09] Understanding are there any jobs where you where you're at, where like they won't even let you go to your parents birthday or your sister's birthday or like a wedding? Well, they would cancel it or call you in the middle of the wedding.

Sara: [00:14:20] I think most of the jobs even make you work during vacation. If you took a vacation, you may receive many requests that you have.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:33] It's the same thing. It's the same thing.

Sara: [00:14:35] Yeah, it's the same thing.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:37] That's interesting. How about you, Nabeel?

Nabil: [00:14:40] Oh, it's the same thing. It's pretty competitive now, if anything. Yeah, it's just crazy. People are just willing to work, but they do have, like, monetary. Yeah, exactly. And they have mandatory offs, like by law. But then at the same thing, like even if you're off, you're probably working. I mean, in finance has just been that way.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:56] Like, why? I don't feel bad. It's the same thing for me. I come back from a week off and I'm drowning in emails for two weeks.

Matthew: [00:15:01] Or you're bringing your laptop with you. Pat. I know you say you bring your laptop.

Sara: [00:15:07] Depends on the firm as well, on the culture of the firm. A few employers are afraid that the employees will make burnout or something. So.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:24] They force you to take it or they'll try to force you.

Nabil: [00:15:28] Yeah, but then with with with the recession that's coming up in the layoffs. What do you guys think? Like, is it going to be like, is this going to be the new normal? Because just before the recession, you had people just like they gave a lot of importance to work life balance, mental health, all of that. And I'm just thinking like it's probably not like all that's no longer like at the forefront of our HR wants to do. They just don't care anymore. Like you have less people working the same amount of jobs.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:43] Yeah, I think it's it's probably going to be I mean we'll see what the survey how it comes in. But my guess is it's probably not improved much. If anything, it's getting worse because there's more pressure and there's more pressure and there's less employee kind of leverage. It becomes just naturally more. Even if even if the employer is not trying to, it becomes more of like, nobody wants to take that vacation because it makes them feel more vulnerable.

Sara: [00:16:19] Yeah, and I think that employees shouldn't take vacations in their own time. If there are pressure, worker pressure or something, I think they should choose the proper time to take their vacation.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:34] Yeah, unfortunately, the first year is usually not a really good time. If you're drowning and you're understaffed. Like if if the whole group is understaffed. And that's that's the whole thing. It's unfortunate. It's not healthy. It's the dynamic of a sell side job, though unfortunately, it's.

Matthew: [00:16:49] Not healthy for personal health, but it's healthy for the bank accounts. It's a trade off.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:54] Give me that bonus and I'll do it. Yeah, right. It's a trade.

Matthew: [00:16:57] Off. It's a trade off at the end.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:58] Exactly. Yeah.

Matthew: [00:16:59] You're working, you're working crazy, but you're seeing your you're getting paid.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:02] Over 200 k your first year out of school. I mean, there's going to be some pain for that.

Matthew: [00:17:06] Yeah. And then just maybe think a little bit long term on what your life is going to look like going forward once you have that foundational base there. Cash. Right. As long as you're not living paycheck to paycheck. But anyways, I think we could all agree that obviously sweat equity is important. It's pretty normal in the finance realm, but it's actually a perfect segue because naturally, as everyone here knows, you put your time in investment banking. The exit opportunities are just amazing in terms of just personal career development, but also, again, some of the roles that you get from a financial perspective as well for your own personal finances. So to very common exit ops for investment banking specifically is both the hedge fund space but also the private equity space. Curious to hear, I guess Pat will start off with you, given you have some experience making the jump from IB to PE, why would maybe someone choose PE over hedge fund or even vice versa? If you have a different point of view now, maybe someone choosing a hedge fund, the hedge fund space over the private equity space?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:02] Yeah. I think this decision is actually not that hard to make in terms of like personality and what you like. You can think of like they're both by side technically, but they're very different, like hedge fund being short term time horizons. You're you're pitching your ideas to your your portfolio manager. Putting executing trades depends on the strategy, whether it's long short, all this stuff. Whereas private equity, it's much more slow, much more deliberate. These are all private companies, not publicly traded companies, and it's like a much more structured process. So hedge funds a little more cutthroat in the sense of like you're getting your score every single day, whereas private equity, it's a little bit more like, do you have the skill set to drive a deal and like start a deal, close deal, help kind of bring do all the diligence, bring the whole process. Like are you good at managing processes versus hedge funds? It's more like just pure. Like pure kind of horsepower in terms of like, okay, what can you, what ideas can you generate? And are they good? Are they good consistently?

Matthew: [00:19:05] Would it be fair to assume hedge fund space, higher risk, bigger upside, private equity space, and again, risk being could be defined various ways here, but still higher risk. But in terms of like the wheeling and dealing every day.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:19] The much higher risk that hedge fund. Much higher risk. Yeah. And then at the top end of it, yeah, you get some crazy outsized rewards for people who are really good consistently. And so that's the hard part is like, do you want to bet on yourself that you can beat the market consistently? Most people can't.

Matthew: [00:19:35] Well, as Warren says, no one beats the market or I'm there. There's that thing Warren Buffett came out and said.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:41] That's like blended. Like if you take a blended group of hedge funds as as a there are people who, there are funds that consistently do beat the market.

Matthew: [00:19:47] He was he was challenging hedge funds and placing his own capital and saying in a BET format, saying, you know.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:54] That was a basket you won't beat.

Matthew: [00:19:56] You won't beat the ETF like an S&P 500 ETF, right?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:59] Yeah. And he won. He crushed it. He crushed it.

Matthew: [00:20:01] He the ETFs won. And he said, yeah, exactly. Donate to a charity because he doesn't want anyone's money. He's got more than enough for himself. But yeah I remember that was that was.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:10] But my point is there are funds out there that do seem to have an edge.

Nabil: [00:20:14] Yeah. Renaissance and all that, right?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:17] Yeah. Like they're using both algo fundamental and algo kind of blended strategy, stuff like that. You know, SAC Capital for a long time with all the insider trading, I think had a good edge.

Matthew: [00:20:28] Well, there's even I don't know if anyone's been seen it came on Netflix I think about a week ago the Bernie Madoff doc which has been incredibly interesting.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:36] I haven't seen yet. Is it good?

Matthew: [00:20:38] Yeah, very good, actually. Very good. I'm only I'm on a two out of four, so it's still very introductory, but man, just an absolute complete liar. Just broad statements. Just it was crazy to see, but that's a whole different conversation. It's own. But yeah I mean any what do you think if you had to choose right now say you spent 3 to 4 years in investment banking grinded grinded your tail off, what are you choosing or the hedge fund space?

Nabil: [00:21:06] Honestly, just depends on stability. I think B is just way more stable comparatively. Like h.f. like, like Patrick was mentioning is like super cutthroat. So like I said, your risk adjusted returns are better with P I'd say. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. How do you I mean, unless I'm like super good at something that like it's going to bring in money and I'm confident and then I don't have much, I mean many responsibilities, then I'd probably go hedge funds, otherwise I probably pick private equity any day, just much less. I mean, it's more stable. It's not you, it's your team. So, you know, you kind of like, you know, like who's got the single responsible?

Matthew: [00:21:44] Who has the bigger ego, though, of someone that's an all star hedge fund employee or fund manager or an all star hedge fund? I think that's.

Nabil: [00:21:54] Fun. You need that for hedge funds. Yeah. It attracts a certain kind of people. Yeah. And those people tend to believe a lot in themselves.

Matthew: [00:22:04] As long as you weren't a crypto hedge fund in 2022, as long as you or I'll meet a I'll meet a capital. Yeah, I need a research. I think they.

Nabil: [00:22:16] Were. Yeah, but it's funny how most of the all stars from back then still continue to say they're pretty good. So you can kind of like imagine the ego or whatever that comes with that that rule. Right. They'll still say like the best. Well you're managing the dollars and it's like you're moving markets, you're making speeches on why you're shorting certain companies, like what's his not green, not green, blah. What's his name? Einhorn Very, very yeah very saying the whole markets. Sure, he's calling it that, but yeah, let's move on.

Matthew: [00:22:52] Yeah. Last last topic here, guys so ridiculous by side requests so obviously more so with the PE side of things here. I mean everyone obviously with the PE side, you're dealing with clients on a daily basis, businesses wanting to sell or you guys are positioning different M&A sort of activities for your clients. How do you handle clients who are unreasonable in terms of the requests with your workflow? Again, actually ties into it's easy.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:21] There's a strategy. It's called slow down, Don't be so responsive, just like the customer.

Matthew: [00:23:28] You want to manage the customer service that you're providing to your clients. I guess obviously that's not as apparent as other sort of businesses, but obviously we want to set an expectation and not have too much of a a perfect cadence. I guess if you.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:45] Want to say. Yeah, I mean, a lot of these a lot of these private equity professionals were former bankers. They know the drill. So if you're not being super responsive right away because their requests are getting ridiculous, like, Hey, can you sort this for me? And it's something where they could just open the Excel file and do it themselves. I think if you just don't jump right away, then it's okay. Especially if especially if their requests are ridiculous. I think there were some funny ones through the forums, but we'll put the links in the show notes to all these all these top discussions and you guys can check them out.

Matthew: [00:24:21] Or what even What do you think guys I won't even like. Obviously you made it's p your all star idea individual had a great short career their study draft ass off in school But then you have a client that has a massive business $500 million business but could barely use computer and barely use a computer which were is not as weird as it sounds, to be honest with you. So how would you guys deal with that? You obviously don't want to come off too condescending to your clients because you want to keep them happy because there's a competitive space out there. But any tips and tricks on how to manage that without getting too pissed off when you're already working upwards of 80 hour weeks?

Nabil: [00:25:04] These. I don't have any ideas on how to. I mean, it's just people managing deep breaths like, Yeah, take deep breaths, put it like somewhere reasonable, get it to them if it's. But then like nice quick like what Barrett was saying and then it depends on urgency too. You could tell them like when you show them you've done some other work that's more important. They generally don't like push you or like take it in a bad way, but then you shouldn't like stand up and say, Oh, I'm not going to do it. Like that just rubs many people off the wrong way, really. So you can't just be like, Oh, I'm not going to do this. Like, especially when you're like, they can ask you to do whatever they want. They're paying you millions. Exactly. Like.

Sara: [00:25:43] I think that the most important thing is that you shouldn't make them feel stupid, that they cannot handle small tasks.

Nabil: [00:25:53] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Matthew: [00:25:55] Yeah. I know you spent some time in PE prior to really kicking off things with Wall Street Oasis. Have you gotten a crazy, ridiculous request that you could you remember?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:06] Um, well, I think I think the question I think the thread was about bankers getting ridiculous requests from the buy side clients. I think that's what it was. Right? So weren't banking like getting PE people be like, Hey, can you do all this work for me? You know, I wasn't working in in the P when I was doing restructurings and stuff. So like I wasn't our clients weren't P funds, but. Yeah, I could definitely see, like if you're sending them something that isn't like, fully, fully bedded, they're just going to ask you to do it for them because they like. They see you and they see you as the person providing the service. So if you if they can outsource it back to you, like if they don't have the format of the model or the Excel the right way or for whatever reason, like there's not an analysis, they'll do that. I mean, usually the ridiculous requests come more in diligence. They're like, Hey, give me here, here are the 45 questions we have specifically around customer concentration and mix and all this stuff. And it's more around that than that. Sometimes you just don't have that data. And so I think it makes it harder.

Matthew: [00:27:10] Has there ever been a situation where counterparties kind of like talk down the investment banking team thinking they're better than them?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:17] Yeah, it's like, yeah, I was a little.

Matthew: [00:27:19] Bit ahead of you.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:21] There's a little bit of that sometimes, but I don't think I think people try to keep it. At least if you're professional, they try to keep it respectful and stuff like that.

Matthew: [00:27:27] Because emails are all monitored.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:30] You know, because the PE funds depend on the banks sometimes for for deal flow. And they want to make sure they're getting they're getting, you know, they're getting in front of deal. So they don't want to burn any bridges or anything like that. So. Yeah. Got it. I think that's.

Matthew: [00:27:43] It. All righty. Well, yeah. Great. I think that kind of wraps up top five discussion topics again for this week. Great conversation. And I guess we'll see you guys next week.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:52] All right, guys. Thank you. Cheers. And thanks to you, my listeners at Wall Street Oasis. If you have any suggestions whatsoever, please don't hesitate to send them my way. Patrick at Wall Street, Oasis. Dot.com. And till next time.

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