MBB vs. Twitter
Hey WSO,
I have full-time offers from MBB and a hot tech company--think of it as the equivalent of Twitter back in 2011. The MBB offer is for entry-level consultant, with a class of maybe 40 in that office, and the Tech offer is for a non-technical rotational role in a class of about 60. (Yup, they're hiring like crazy.) So Sales, User Ops, etc. Pretty basic operational work. They're in the same city.
Tech Inc. has been doubling in every way possible for the past two years and can be expected to continue to grow like crazy until maybe 2016-17. It has a fantastic product with amazing people (tons of high-level defectors from MBB, GS, Google, Facebook, as well as recent grads who have turned down offers from MBB/high finance). It's really no longer a start-up but the mentality is still there and there are still unbelievable opportunities for the company ahead. There is no doubt in my mind that it's the Next Big Thing. There are already ~500 employees, but the company'll grow to be at the very least 3000, if not over 6000. By the time I join next fall it'll be around 800 to 1000 employees.
By the time I'm 30, I would love to end up in a high-potential early-stage start-up, but who knows. MBB is hard to give up, and so is Tech Inc. Both are great places to work, with the latter having the stereotypical fun start-up office. What would you advise?
Thanks!
A confused college senior.
PS You can probably guess the companies involved, but for the sake of anonymity let's call them MBB and Tech Inc.
It sounds to me like you already have your mind made up. Go with your gut feeling.
Tech Inc. You'll likely develop a network within the startup crowd and since that's where you want to be, it's probably best to develop your network there.
Hope this helped!
You mentioned the role is a non-tech rotation and mentioned sales, user ops. Is there sort of a strategy/bus dev type rotation as well? Assuming the roles you rotate into will provide you meaningful experience, then the Tech Inc. sounds like it's more aligned with your goals. Also, it's good to see that the senior and mid-level professionals are ex-MBBs,ex-BB IB and big shop tech firms.
One other way to look at it is working in a hot tech company not only gets you in a early stage start up field, which you're interested in, it can also be a good differentiator for b-school. You could go to MBB post-MBA and this gives you a chance to start out in startup early in your career vs. people that pursue it post-MBA (which I think is actually riskier since you have debt to pay and you're older and there's greater emphasis on building a career track vs. having less obligations coming out of undergrad with little/nothing to lose).
Other than that it boils down to your risk tolerance vs. potential reward. Unless I knew that I am going to get very meaningful experience (and maybe some form of option) at a tech startup and I strongly believe in the product, I might go with MBB (but that's just me because I'm a bit risk averse and not as savvy/interested in tech).
Palantir?
And yeah, take the tech offer. Also worth noting--the bar is much lower to getting an MBB job out of b school than undergrad, so it's not like you're really closing that door long-term anyway if you ultimately change your mind.
it's probably Dropbox BAR or Box's new rotational -- take it and don't look back if you have any strong interest in tech or VC, etc. down the line (which you should because it's a hell of a lot better than consulting and random other industry exits). if you really don't know what you want to do in the future though then obviously MBB is safe and can get you to tech to some extent anyway
Yeah my first guess was Dropbox too. They've got some people with pretty strong resumes there.
Anyway, congrats OP - you'll be fine with whichever choice you make.
OP here. Thanks for all of your advice. (FYI, good guesses!) I was surprised that so many people recommended Tech Inc. I ultimately decided to go with MBB, and honestly the two options were so close for me that I could've just gone with a coin flip. If you're curious, I chose MBB because:
(1) Tech Inc. would likely hire another 2000+ employees in my first two or three years there, and I probably wouldn't have the work experience to be promoted in that time frame, so they would probably be hiring people to manage me. I don't doubt that the program is going to be a leadership pipeline, but yeah. I'd be coming in too late and the timeframe is too short. Basically what redninja said. (2) I wanted to be able to navigate the murky waters of corporate America (helpful if I ever want to do Partnerships or similar at a later-stage start-up), and unfortunately Tech Inc. functions too well to teach me that. (3) Training-wise, MBB wins out. Especially presentation practice. That'll be handy for pitching to VCs... (4) Random, but I get the feeling that Tech Inc. might be already starting to hoard talent a la Google. I think most people in the program are overqualified for sales and user ops.
Thanks again.
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