What are you doing here?

Out of curiosity, why do most of you visit WSO?

I get it, a lot of people come here for advice on how to get into IB/PE/CRE, etc.

How about those of you whom are already in the industry?

I come for some of interesting dialogues about current events in the Off Topic section.

 
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I've been wondering about this for a while now. I suppose on some level, it's just a habit. I've been coming to WSO for 8+ years - not consistently, as I've taken long breaks - but still. I started coming as a dissatisfied office broker flirting with other industries, stayed through my hunt for a new job, stayed through grad school, and then stayed through my time in development.

A major reason why I post here is that there is definitely a strong pay it forward mentality in real estate. Some of my personal mentors offline are so wildly successful that it really touched me when I was young that they took the time to not give me generic advice, but genuinely help me and take an active interest in my career. These people have guided me over the years and are even invited to my wedding because of the bond we've built over time. Similarly, I've devoted a good bit of my time in real life to mentoring younger people - giving advice, helping with their resumes, putting them in touch with others to help them network, etc. because people taking the time to do that for me made me who I am today.

I have tried to transition that experience to WSO. I get PMs daily asking for advice. I try to check in on the real estate forum at least once a day. It's not all that much of a time sink comparatively either - other people waste countless hours on social media or having dumbass conversations with coworkers.

It also isn't only a one-way thing - I get a lot out of it too. People like Count_Chocula were tremendously important in helping me navigate a move to a new market. He gave me insights into companies, people, the market in general and put me in touch with various people in the industry my age so that I would know some people when I started - one of which is both a buddy of mine to this day and someone I worked on a massive deal with. Someone like Ricky Rosay is at a completely different place in his career and is doing exactly what I hope to be doing in 5-10 years. His perspective on things is as helpful to me as I hope I am to all the 20 year olds out there. I continue to meet great people like Dry Dropper and so many others that I would feel bad if I started listing them all and left someone out.

Now why I regularly argue politics in the off topic forum is a better question that I have no real answer to other than "I enjoy arguing politics," but I decided to make a conscious effort to push back against the barrage of alt-right propaganda posted here leading up to and following the 2016 election and I suppose I got sucked in. People called this BreitbartOasis not that long ago and it frustrated me as someone who has put a lot of time into the forum and gotten a lot out of it. These political debates have become increasingly in bad faith and personal though, not to mention the small minority of people posting literally racist and anti-semite garbage, so I doubt I'm going to put as much energy into them. Who knows though - there is an election coming up.

All in all, WSO has been a part of my life for nearly a decade, through all different aspects of it. It doesn't have to be, I suppose, but for now it is.

Commercial Real Estate Developer
 

This resonates really strongly with me. Separate from the point on politics, thanks for always showing up with a 'how can I make it better here' mentality. It stands out and I have always appreciated you for it.

I am permanently behind on PMs, it's not personal.
 
CRE:
I decided to make a conscious effort to push back against the barrage of alt-right propaganda posted here leading up to and following the 2016 election and I suppose I got sucked in. People called this BreitbartOasis not that long ago and it frustrated me as someone who has put a lot of time into the forum and gotten a lot out of it.

I think I gave it that name, and it was well deserved for awhile, though it seems it’s balanced out in recent months. I appreciate how helpful and impressionable this site can be as a former college kid who credits my IB career to WSO, and wanted to defend the site from the alt-right drag after giving back for several years. As an older user, I haven’t gotten much utility nor seen a unique interesting question inquite some time, and now that I seemingly only argue politics with the same five posters (hey Brady!), I’m also planning to phase out this year.

"I don't know how to explain to you that you should care about other people."
 

I originally joined to participate in discussions about investments. However, the number of investment topics seems to have fallen. As a result, now, I mostly participate in the political threads but would still rather talk about investments.

 

Four reasons:

1) Posting my insane political beliefs on this here forum

2) People tend to be less triggered by disagreement but also more normal than 4chan or whatever the fuck

3) The occasional shitpost is cathartic

4) I like to help out the younger kids trying to break into CRE. I had basically zero help breaking in and it was a scary ass grind.

 
  1. Learning more about other's thoughts on the direction of the fin. industry.

  2. Interesting conversations with a generally intelligent user base. You don't get this kind of dialogue in many other places on the internet.

  3. Offering advice I wish I had gotten when I was in school/paying it forward.

  4. Comedic relief, interesting insight, unique conversations.

"Out the garage is how you end up in charge It's how you end up in penthouses, end up in cars, it's how you Start off a curb servin', end up a boss"
 

Got addicted to it around 2014 when I was in college and thinking of getting into finance. Worked in a back office role from 15-16 and got into something else, but still like to check in and read about various topics. I also still find the finance industry interesting, and now sell a SaaS product to the BBs/Global Banks. If you want some data prep, predictive analytics or real time streaming hit me up (shameless plug).

 

Wow blast from the past! I haven't heard that name in years, but I used it as far back as like 2005. Completely forgot about it.

“Doesn't really mean shit plebby boi. LMK when you're pulling thiccboi cheques.“ — @m_1
 

I still come around for two reasons on opposite ends of the spectrum:

  1. The cringe comments of hardos asking shit like "What's the best tie pattern to wear if I want to intern at GS?"

  2. Then you have the savage wit from veteran users, typically turned against those in part 1.

 

WSO was critical in my professional development as an undergrad. Although I've aged out of the content a bit, it's a community that resonates with some informed perspectives that are usually grounded in the quantitative. I pretty much split my time between WSO, HN and ZeroHedge as time has progressed. WSO is where I grew up; I'll be here for a while

 

Here to get info from people I would otherwise have no exposure to, I have a very non- traditional background. Pretty sure I ended up here from googling random questions a few years ago.

 

I love internet forums. Have been posting on them since the original Splinter Cell game came out. For some reason my dad told me to join a forum and find help there instead of a walkthrough.

Anyways, joined this forum specifically to figure out how to allocate + learn about PE. Have met 4 or 5 people on here either in person or had good calls with them! I really like the community Patrick put together and I think everyone can learn from it. If you're a senior, you can figure out what kids getting into your line of work want and use that to optimize recruiting efforts for example...or just nerd out about finance.

 

My four most frequented websites on my iPhone are: political news site that is critical of the POTU, WSO, a mainstream news site, and my favorite sports team’s message board (University of Hawaii football). I guess these are my main vices. I came to WSO from TheVault after they changed their message board, although I’ve visited this board more frequently over the past 5 years. I went to TheVault as I was a Big 4 accountant in a prior life.

I like to give back and pay it forward. It’s a hallmark of the CRE industry - and its a small world. I find my WhatsApp conversations with my friends less relevant (or less about my current work/industry and challenges). My fiends do interesting stuff, but we hardly go in depth and anyways we just talk to chill (they are mainly in tech, law and trading) and playing golf and betting on sports.

I don’t gamble, but I do take big risks though with money.

I’ve been unemployed twice on two separate times in my career so I’ve been through the Jungle. I’ve also help folks get jobs and at least encouragement and I love doing that.

I do feel out of the loop with other sectors of real estate so it’s great to learn what’s important to them

I went to Business School and love learning about people’s rationale and goals.

I found that one mark of a great education experience is the culture of success from your fellow students. I like reading stuff from people hungry, smart and capable.

I am someone who thinks people need to pay their dues.

Lastly, the Off Topic section. I’m married for almost half my life (to the hottest and smarted girl in school) and have a great family. I like reading about how some of you cats live. It’s like my romance novel.

Thoughts on COVID-19, race relations, hobbies (I have none other than work and occasionally workout), working aboard (always wish I could, a bit hard being a mono-lingual American in CRE), all interest me. I find some of the subject area expert insights and thoughts to be really fascinating. There is no way I would “meet” this many folks in my day to day - and variety.

  • A month ago someone wrote about the Haitian Revolution and I spent an afternoon reading up on the history.

And I like hearing about the underdog stories. Keep it up. Although I never felt like an underdog in my career since I didn’t know about how bad the odds were stacked against me, I could only be the best I could me in my little world. So i some ways stop comparing yourself so much and be the best you can be. Knowledge is a double edged sword (mainly good)

Have compassion as well as ambition and you’ll go far in life. Check out my blog at MemoryVideo.com
 
odog808:

Lastly, the Off Topic section. I’m married for almost half my life (to the hottest and smarted girl in school) and have a great family. I like reading about how some of you cats live. It’s like my romance novel.

Got a kick out of that. Good stuff Odog, wanna make a post of us dudes chasing our unicorns? Referencing this legendary video

Go all the way
 
TheFlyingKiwi:
odog808:

Lastly, the Off Topic section. I’m married for almost half my life (to the hottest and smarted girl in school) and have a great family. I like reading about how some of you cats live. It’s like my romance novel.

Got a kick out of that. Good stuff Odog, wanna make a post of us dudes chasing our unicorns? Referencing this legendary video

That’s hilarious and analytical at the same time. Thanks for sharing!

Have compassion as well as ambition and you’ll go far in life. Check out my blog at MemoryVideo.com
 
odog808:
My four most frequented websites on my iPhone are: political news site that is critical of the POTU, WSO, a mainstream news site, and my favorite sports team’s message board (University of Hawaii football). I guess these are my main vices. I came to WSO from TheVault after they changed their message board, although I’ve visited this board more frequently over the past 5 years. I went to TheVault as I was a Big 4 accountant in a prior life.
Long live the vault messageboards. I was a notorious shithead on there (mostly intentionally), but met a lifelong friend on there (still friends).

I remember a vault.com article, probably when I was only in HS, titled something like 'Fast Cars and Fat Wallets' about wall street bonus spending. That was an example of one of those 'eye openers' you get when you're young about how better-off people live, and it was kind of an inspiration for me to escape suburban mediocrity. Have tried multiple times to go back and find it for nostalgic purposes, to no avail.

 
prospie:
odog808:
My four most frequented websites on my iPhone are: political news site that is critical of the POTU, WSO, a mainstream news site, and my favorite sports team’s message board (University of Hawaii football). I guess these are my main vices. I came to WSO from TheVault after they changed their message board, although I’ve visited this board more frequently over the past 5 years. I went to TheVault as I was a Big 4 accountant in a prior life.
Long live the vault messageboards. I was a notorious shithead on there (mostly intentionally), but met a lifelong friend on there (still friends).

I remember a vault.com article, probably when I was only in HS, titled something like 'Fast Cars and Fat Wallets' about wall street bonus spending. That was an example of one of those 'eye openers' you get when you're young about how better-off people live, and it was kind of an inspiration for me to escape suburban mediocrity. Have tried multiple times to go back and find it for nostalgic purposes, to no avail.

TheVault really screwed up their message board and I left for WSO. Helped expose me professionally to beyond the place I was living (Hawaii).

Have compassion as well as ambition and you’ll go far in life. Check out my blog at MemoryVideo.com
 

I come to pay it forward, I used to come here in grad school and at various points during job hunts looking for intel on firms. I like giving advice as many (but clearly not all) are very genuine seekers of advice, and it does feel good to help.

On a secondary note, I actually read some posts to keep a pulse on the desires of the finance/real estate workforce. Our firm has to hire and frankly this is a good place for intel on desires, salaries, expectations, etc. I can tell that many HR people, headhunters, and other managers come on here to read about their firm and competitors and get intel to use.

 

I got on here about 8 years ago when I had just finished college and was trying to learn about different careers in finance and what potential paths I could go down based on the different options I was considering at the time. WSO was instrumental in helping me figure out what I wanted to do and how to network with professionals in that field. Now that I have some experience in my field I come here to pay it forward anyway that I can and to learn about different industries that might interest me in the future.

 

For me, it's a mix.

I come here to get insights on financial products/websites from time to time - I think anecdotal commentary is far more helpful in understanding how user-friendly a particular data analytics platform or news source is.

I come here to help, if/when I can, based on my own experiences, both personal and professional. As someone older and female, I like to think I can offer different insights from the mostly younger and mostly male crowd.

The range of topics here, both financial and off-topic are interesting and I enjoy the humor as well.

 

Have only watched a handful of episodes of Billions from Seasons 1 and 2, definitely identify with Wendy on a sartorial level, but I don't think my Machiavelli streak is wide enough to do her justice though. Whoever dresses and accessorizes Wendy/Maggie totally gets how a woman can dress feminine in the workplace without tipping over into slutty or too sexualized.

The only fictional character I probably whole-heartily identify with professionally, intellectually, sartorially and hopefully on some level personality-wise [and comically too, on a good day,] is Katharine Hepburn's Bunny Watson from "Desk Set" a movie made waaaaay before most WSOers were even an itch in their parents' private bits. :)

Of current fictional characters on tv or in film today, Polly Gray, of Peaky Blinders is more my speed, including and beyond fashion, working behind the scenes, artist's muse, to name a few. Two of my favorite Polly quotes: "You don't punch above your weight" and "If I come for you, and I still might yet decide to come for you, I will wear high heels so you can hear my approach on the cobblestones and have time to repent. You listen for my footsteps." … the fact that she made that threat to a nun soooo speaks to my years of Catholic high school, LMAO.

 

Opportunity cost. Time spent browsing WSO is far more rewarding and invaluable towards learning about insider's take on their firms, industries and future outlook in their respective cities. Far better than Reddit and other forums. A lot of successful, knowledgeable men here that I can learn something from. And to take the piss and not take life seriously with finance bros.

 

I’m in the prop/hft world and so I like to learn what other parts of the industry are up to. I also look for any “gossip” on other firms. I do my own networking to get details about competitors but plenty of people publicize information I’m interested in on here, Twitter, etc. And a bit of it is the pay it forward mentality.

 

For the great Q&As on the CRE forum. The undergrads on the IB forum are insufferable sometimes but I get why they're here. This site offers amazing industry insider info not available on any other site. Now if they could just fix the damn mobile app so I can see what I'm posting past five lines.

 

The rationale for spending time on WSO has evolved over time for me. Back in 2006, I had just landed my investment banking job and had little to no idea what I was in for. Information on the industry was incredibly sparse, which is probably why the opportunity existed for Patrick to drive WSO’s success. So for the first few years it was mostly about learning.

The next few years was about helping folks break in and learn about the industry. I was in my mid-20s, so ridiculously young, but relatively seasoned for that point in WSO’s evolution. I enjoyed offering a perspective that few on the website had at the time. Nowadays, the website attracts a ton of people at this stage in their career or even further.

In my late 20s, it was primarily about helping Patrick out to improve the site. A lot of new features were getting added (I still take credit for the post preview you see when you mouse over the link to a thread)! Heck, a newcomer to the website today would barely recognize the website from 10 years ago! I also enjoyed writing a few lengthy “articles” to help out the broader community — my favorite of which was [To Anyone Considering an MBA] (https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/to-anyone-considering-an-mba) which was unexpectedly picked up by BusinessWeek.

I stopped posting with frequency after graduating from business school five years ago. Life kept changing for me and I was frustrated with the prevalence of troll posts. It also became increasingly frustrating to answer the same darn questions each year for 8+ years (not surprisingly, the advice is nearly identical for almost everyone trying to break into the industry). I also felt far enough removed from the investment banking scene that I was no longer very qualified to advise folks on how to break in — that was best left to others in the community.

Fast forward to today. I like to stop in from time to time to get a pulse for what is going on in the industry. I primarily read the PE and MBA forums but don’t post often to avoid the onslaught of PMs that typically come afterwards. Most of my unique insights pertain to very specific scenarios that the majority of folks on these forums will never encounter in their career and therefore just aren’t relevant. I did use WSO for our junior investment professional recruiting process last year which was highly successful. If you are an applicant or even a PE firm looking for candidates, WSO is a stellar place to turn!

Who knows, maybe this quarantine will provide me with the motivation to start posting again regularly. Strange times indeed.

CompBanker’s Career Guidance Services: https://www.rossettiadvisors.com/
 

1) Quality posts. Braverman, Brofessor, Infodominatrix to name a few, there are plenty. 2) Generic industry info 3) Banter: Isaiah,Lloyd Blankfein, RealSkankhunt etc. 4) Dunking on the libs. It should be a national sport.

Never discuss with idiots, first they drag you at their level, then they beat you with experience.
 
  1. The AMAs or better, Q&As (thanks Reddit!). Just invaluable first hand experiences from folks who have no vested interest in "selling" you their product/market.
  2. The obvious contribution of more senior folks such as thebrofessor , Sil , CompBanker , @TNA" , CRE and many others
  3. The Business School forums, definitely better than the GMATCLUB ones and the profile evaluations there too

I kinda wish we could do away with the whole anonymous posting thing but i get why it was implemented, I just dont think it helps with the trolling/shit posting

 

I can definitely repeat a lot of things that have been said. Providing advice/info/etc is probobly the most common thing. Sometimes it's just to add my two cents in where I think a relevant point can be made. Other times, it's nice to have a good discussion. Occasionally, it's just to keep tabs on the industry and stay abreast of things. It's also hard to be active as you get older and life gets in the way, so it definitely comes in spurts, being involved and posting.

CRE, CompBanker, APAE , thebrofessor and other old foagies like myself who have been here for a long time (jeez... now that I look at it, I've been on and off on WSO for a good 12+ years) all have a pass it on mentality. Just thinking about what's happening right now, a lot of people are thinking about things that happened in 2008 and have some good insights that can be passed on which a lot newer (and younger) users have never experienced in their careers.

 

My comments were pretty much captured by comments above but heres my story.

1) Site helped me get out of premed and into finance. It was great motivation as I chased from BO to MBA to hopefully IB 2) I like how people argue on this site without discriminating against each other (I joined post-BreitbartOasis pretty much right after the election) 3) My advice has been able to help others like myself who had no shot at any FO role at least get their foot in the door in this industry and make the most of it from there 4) A lot of people started giving me these silver bananas and I am still trying out how to transfer them to my ETrade account

 

Given that I'm a recent member I'll just post why I came here. I'm sure that 8+ years down the line the reasons I stay will be wildly different. What first made me aware of WSO is the fact that now many google searchers about banking, finance and the markets will direct you here, so that solidified it in my mind that this place was worthwhile and the people were knowledgeable. A while after I knew this place existed I made-up my mind that my next long-term career move should be making it into one of the big players in the world stage (I'm from Latin America and work for a regional bank) either through their local representative offices or at their main locations abroad. So as you can imagine I'm here to see how the people in the center of the financial world interact, what they care about and what they know.

So far it has been a worthwhile experience as I've been able to get some pointers to achieve this goal just by reading other people's threads, haven't made my thread asking for specific advice yet but I'm sure I eventually will.

 

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