Military jargon in IB

I’ve noticed something recently when looking to retain advisors - quite a few of them use weird and cringe military-type jargon in their pitches.

Some examples:
- Referring to themselves as “hired guns”
- calling themselves and their team “operators”
- “tactical” decisions being made throughout a process

My question - why do you guys make yourselves sound so autistic saying shit like this? You’re sitting in an air conditioned office making PowerPoints, not kicking in a door in syria

13 Comments
 

I mean hired guns has entered the common lexicon, operators isn’t referring to special forces but an operational focus and unless you consider the notion of business strategy as a whole to be odd, tactics and being tactical are relevant.


There’s lots of crappy jargon, but it’s the business buzzwords that kill me e.g. boil the ocean, 30,000 foot view.

 

Yeah, this project was a goat rope.

"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
 

This type of shit has been happening for years. John Mack was shouting “There’s blood in the water. Let’s go kill!” in the 80's. 

If it isn't military jargon, it's sports jargon, or calling spreadsheet junkies "rockstars." Office cornballs have existed in every era. 

Commercial Real Estate Developer
 

Some other reasons military jargon got into IB:

  1. Plenty of vets go into banking post service. I’m not personally a vet but both my parents are and they supported me going into banking
  2. IB especially at the BB and big banks is hierarchal and relys on commad and control organization structures. MD tells VP to do X. VP to Ass and Ass to anal. Etc.
  3. IB can also be very boring and mind numbing so sometimes the allure of adventure excitement, conquering etc that the military provides can be aspirational to some holed up banker who hasn’t had sunlight touch their skin in a decade. 

    Peace ✌️ 
 

CRE

Hags28

Ass to anal

Poetry 

haha

"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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"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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