Is Apollo that bad?
Serious question, how rough is life at Apollo? Long hours obviously to be expected at any MF, but would love any first or recent second hand input. Everyone seems to chuckle and describe it as a horror show but how awful is it really?
Mod Note: see a related post on Apollo: https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/from-a-lev…
Yeah its pretty fucking bad lol. Know a guy who developed stomach ulcers from the stress of working there.
Not to be a dick, but if you're actually a principal in PE shouldn't you already know the answer? Odds you are you would know someone or know someone who knows someone who's worked there, or maybe come across them on a deal when you were in banking, etc...
Is the PE community really that small that virtually everyone who works in PE would know someone who knows someone who works at Apollo, or has dealt with them?
Maybe not everyone but PE is really small. Probably 70% of the time I am going to talk to someone in PE we have a mutual contact and I haven't been in it very long. I don't network that much either.
It is an incredibly small world... To not know someone who has worked at one of the larger funds would actually be more unusual than not.
A few people from my bank are going to Apollo. When I was gearing up for PE recruiting and asked them about the no b-school required and ability to just stay this is what one said:
“if you can make it through your 4 years as an associate at Apollo, who cares. Most people don’t finish their first 2-3 years because of how bad it gets. I don’t know if I’ll even make it to the finish line. For them, if you can get through that hell you are absolutely welcome to stay”
Long story short: yes it’s fucking that bad
how difficult is it to do your associate stint elsewhere and then switch at the principal level?
without relationships, fucking hard
Well stated.
Have heard that it doesn't get much better at the principal level either. Hours are still insane plus it's just an incredibly intense culture.
So is the comp just that insane that people deal with it?
I'm sure it's a combination of compensation and a trajectory of career outlook. If you can make it at Apollo, you can make it anywhere. It is one of the best private equity platforms after all.
Is it worse than H&F?
Yes.
When I interviewed at Apollo, the guy interviewing me literally asked me "Are you sure you want to work here? We work really hard on really hairy, complicated deals that other funds don't usually look at" and continued to make sure I knew what I was getting myself into. Definitely gave off some intense vibes.
What do you mean by hairy deals?
nuanced, complicated, complex, novel
There's frankly not a justification for going to Apollo over other MF/UMMs unless you immediately need an extra 30-60K post-tax, plan on focusing purely on your career to the detriment of your life for 6-8 years to make an attempt to climb up, or have no other options. Apollo-style investing and experience can be done at other, high performing large funds with a better associate experience. As a place to work, there are few to no redeeming features.
Frame Apollo as a place that has to pay more to sucker in the best analysts that could and should go elsewhere rather than a place that chooses to pay the most. And given the relatively little support in finding exits after 2 years, you are relying on the Apollo brand and experience to help you find something else once you burn out. It's the kind of place that unfortunately breaks some of the weaker associates causing longer term psychological and career damage. And if you are doing your DD after receiving an offer, I implore you to reach out to former associates that had good exits coming out of their associate years.
What other sorts of funds offer a generalist PE / distressed investing platform? Particularly at the Apollo level?
Centerbridge is probably the closest to Apollo. From a MF perspective, Apollo's pretty unique - you have to give them that. From an LP marketing perspective, Apollo is the "contrarian" PE part of a portfolio.
Still, if you'd like to do distressed, there's tons of great shops out there. Distressed MF PE is pretty niche though.
Seems like you almost need to take a sabbatical after a stint at Apollo then try to recruit during that since recruiting while working sounds impossible
there’s something to be said about the above market pay but the lifestyle has such a terrible reputation. my bank group sends 2 kids to Apollo annually and it’s been hit or miss on the experience. one so far has stayed until principal but most leave after 1-2 years to go to Tiger Cubs
What is it that you’d say about the above mkt pay? Everyone who’s worked there already has cast the verdict, it’s not worth it by a mile. They don’t pay Associates 30% over street because they’re generous. They do it because without it, no one would ever go work there. It’s now well known that even those that do take the money to go work there, figure out pretty quickly that it’s still not worth it.
5 hours of sleep or less, 7 days a week, on calls nonstop for 3 live deals, screening 3 new things, and managing 4 portcos, all of which are hairy, complex, and challenging, for years straight, how bad could it be?
Do you work there dude? Thats mad
this is the shit I don't get. what's the point of making all that money if you're sleep deprived working 7 days a week? I'm sure you get 2-3 weeks off a year, but is it really worth it?
No one takes time off, especially in LA. Sometimes go a whole year with no time off.
They work on Shabbat?
There are many self-described Jews that work there, including the founders.
Bump. Gonna be a first year next year and will recruit for PE. Did you ever find out what the deal is w shabbat at Apollo/Other MF's? Obv they cant force u to work on shabbat, but how is it received?
Is there a difference in culture between their PE and Credit arms?
curious on this too.
bump
have a close friend who worked for one of their US performing credit teams. His lifestyle seemed okay (probably worked 60-70 hours a week).
This is a super late response, but yes there's a big difference between their PE and credit arms. I know a credit MD there, his team works 60 - 70 hours a week. He told me that the PE team consistently works 80+.
Difference in comp too?
speaking as someone who has been purely sell side (lev fin), they are the one sponsor I would pay part of my bonus to never ever work with ever
Lmao from reading the rest of the thread, I'm guessing their people have some tough personalities?
To say the least because very tough to work with. They’ll take every mistake or opportunity to try to bury you, either as a person or as an underwriter / lender. To put it more mildly, they’re not as collaborative as other sponsors.
You should read about the legal war that was carried out between one of their now-ex-employees and the company. It was over their portfolio entity, Athene.
Have a friend that agrees too much with this
During my time in IB, I've worked on 3 deals with Apollo, two being pretty large take privates. On 2 of the deals, we did some M&A advisory, and lead left financing on all 3. Their deal teams are slim (2-3 people from PE, 1-2 from cap markets negotiating terms with banks) and the associates were always plugged in until around 3-4am, including weekends.
A lot of people have been asking about what hairy actually means in Apollo context. It is often taking a very contrarian view of a situation and peeling back numerous layers of crap to find a gem within a business. For example, if a business is meaningfully declining in overall revenue, but there are 2-3 core segments that are growing, Apollo will figure out a way to divest the underperfoming assets and focus on the core business. Additionally, they often will do simultaneous LBOs and merge 2 competitors together, in their eyes yielding a ton of run-rate cost savings (not always achieved, but great for getting a ton of financing and putting up lower equity in a transaction). Most of their purchases are sub 9x EBITDA, often purchased through broken sales processes or take privates where the equity markets see little to no hope for a business.
Might get a lot of MS for the candid picture painted above, but the strategy clearly works. Apollo has been extremely successful; there are a lot of ways to make a return.
Re- value, its more common to sell the high mult assets and keep a cash flow generative ShitCo
What's an example of this? Not many ShitCOs make money, regardless of what you do to the cost structure,
it's so obvious that you're referring to SFLY
Surprised you missed their extremely aggressive synergies.
Very helpful description of Apollo's business model, which has its roots in Milken, who was the ultimate contrarian during his days and made a lot of money by buying, issuing and placing bonds of hundreds of Shitcos in his day. Leon Black was one of the most fervent Milken disciples and in a way, Apollo is a continuation/evolution of Milken's Drexel.
Yes, as others have mentioned, it’s really bad. I’ve worked with Apollo on two deals. Both extremely complex. The associates were both incredible and were pretty much running the deals from the Apollo side. Think it’s an incredible learning opportunity, but there’s no doubt it’s extremely brutal.
Can anyone comment on the extent to which the prevailing sentiment rings true in LA? Also, if anyone can comment on what industry verticals/roles are staffed from that office, it would be greatly appreciated!
bump
LA is the worst office of Apollo. Huge turnover for good reason. Associates have just a miserable experience there, made worse by the fact that recruiting away is almost impossible. Basically a nightmare for most associates.
I generally agree with this based on having two acquaintances that went through Apollo LA.
The churn is real and it's easily verifiable. LA is one of those megafund offices where every year there is at least one recruiter search that happens for a lateral associate position. Like clockwork, the posting comes up every single year.
Others have already thoroughly covered the lifestyle points. One thing I will add though based on keeping in touch with these guys--which I found a little surprising--are the other stressors present as an associate. Basically these guys were constantly worried their heads were on the chopping block and they could lose their job there any day. Both are hard-working, intelligent people that earned their spots there, so it was surprising to hear this. Neither of them lasted more than 2-3 years.
I think a work environment like that would be extremely demoralizing coupled with the extreme hours and commitment to your job. You'd think if you're working that hard and doing a good job, you'd at least feel somewhat valued and could even see a bright future for yourself there. Pulling those kind of hours and constantly worrying about the prospect of getting canned has to be psychologically tolling to say the least.
Why is the LA office worse than NYC?
This sounds brutal... what's comp for associates?
Historically, $400K has been thrown around for associates. Not sure what the number is now.
for a second-year associate?
had a two friends working there just after IB, they only stayed for 1-2years and 300-400k all in is the comp range they said
It's definitely an odd place to work. I know some people there and most people either stay for a long time or exit early to a hedge fund.
It definitely feels like the epitome of banking 2.0 as it clearly opens up a path to the top hedge funds, but it also is a life draining place to live. I'm sure it's probably the #1 place to work for work experience, but for what cost.
If you survive and become a partner at Apollo, how much could you earn per year?
https://www.ft.com/content/7f43b824-aa07-11e9-b6ee-3cdf3174eb89
Partner here was in early forties and made $20m/yr
Jesus Christ a bunch of pusses on this forum
Lots of alums, current employees, and advisors in this thread confirming it’s a burnout-inducing hellscape, but by all means, continue jerking off to their ‘prestige’ and/or the thought you’d somehow fare better.
IB at it’s worst can’t touch the depths of PE, especially at a place like Apollo. 99.9% of the time when you’re getting “crushed,” it’s brainless work that you can mindlessly do half-tuned out with music on. You’re changing every instance of green in the deck to a slightly brighter shade at 3AM. The guy at Apollo is building out, substantiating (at micro and macro levels), and preparing a business plan for a new downside case. And he’ll have to be sharp for the 8AM call to present and defend it all.
Aka making educated guesses. Always lol at iNsAnE fiNaNcIaL mOdElInG
“Analyst 1”
Current Apollo guy. Yes it's that bad. It sucks, culture is awful with egomaniacal dudes who create an incredibly political atmosphere (again, only guys) and run you to the fucking ground with arbitrary deadlines, verbal berating time to time, and basically a banking 2.0 on steroids vibe. It is not for anyone without a thick skin. People can say if you can't / don't want to handle the culture you're a pussy, but that just isn't true. Try dealing with it day in day out including weekends. And it's not banking where you have a bunch of downtime to bullshit around with colleagues and whatnot. It actually is nonstop so do beware if you are considering signing.
That being said, what people above have said is right. If you can cut it in this shitty culture, you will be fine wherever else you go.
Also, this is a megafund, you will likely work on a TON of opps which don't go anywhere but are a fuck ton of work. If I could do it again I'd go to a MM fund.
EDIT: I can't make an APO complaint post without mentioning how shit the hours are. I honestly miss banking hours sometimes. The unpredictability in my schedule has actually worstened thanks to principals / newly minted partners who want to make their make their mark or present opps to IC
Why don't you recruit for a hedge fund? I would assume you'd get pretty top-tier looks.
LBO PE is what I like and I'm not super interested in public markets. I would rather have a more hands on PE role
Why'd you go threre to begin with and why do people stay on there past associate years this all sounds awful?
I went there because it was a prestigious, large megafund where I convinced myself that people's experiences I had heard of, would not be applicable to me or that I was stronger than everyone else. Would rather work at a place I can smile walking into the door of rather than rolling my eyes with a "here we go again" type of attitude
Why an MM fund out of curiosity? I'm at another MF (admittedly with a better lifestyle) but almost think there is a lot of value into getting the number of reps you would get at a H&F / APO for a couple years and then going to an MM instead of either starting at an MM or an MF like mine which is more laid back.
So for me it's a lot of frustration rising from not being able to see entire transactions through and having no closed deals under my belt, even though I spend so much time balls deep in diligence or evaluating new opps. My friends at other MM funds have seen not only the closure of platform deals but additional tuck-ins which, in my mind, must be so much more satisfying seeing the actual platform strategy pan out. Maybe I'm of a grass is greener mentality but the grass ain't anything close to green here
Are there any specific MM funds you wish you would have targeted instead?
Do these descriptions of Apollo apply to all of their business lines? Wondering if their Real Assets group functions in same way.
Yes. Real Assets Group (“RAG”) especially
On a serious note though, how do you do those hours? 3-4am including weekends - how many hours of sleep do you get a week? Do you need substances or short runs in the morning or something?
Also curious, on the constant berating etc, that's gotta wear you down - how do you cope with that? Paste VPs face on a punching bag back at home?
Just determination but that's been waning quite a bit if I'm honest. I enjoy the have-nots outside of work but definitely do not use any kind of substances at work other than cold brew and water.
On the berating, I"m not sure. It sucks and there's no way out of it really. The berating tends to come mostly from the same people but they also tend to have quite two-faced personalities so you learn to adapt and get out of interacting with them as much as possible, granted it may not always be in your hands. Don't have a good answer for you on this
Does a business model like this make sense in the long-term? Having such high turnover? I get it for BBs because they are huge and have an endless supply of talent to choose from, but is this sustainable for Apollo? Different industry, but I've seen over the years this didn't work out for LEK (at least in Europe). People wanted to go there, but the brutal hours forced management to implement a culture change as having the majority of your best and brightest consistently leave after 18-24 months is not great for business.
.not necessarily
Lol scrolling through and just had to point out, comparing Apollo to LEK is like comparing a Victoria Secret model to an 80-year old grandma because (i) there is just no comparison, and (ii) LEK is almost dead
Is the culture in direct origination different than PE?
Cheer up mate, there could be worse places and LEK comes to mind - consulting sweatshop without the glamour or pay of PE, same arbitrary deadlines, rude managers, unhelpful partners etc etc
Maybe a bit crazy to ask, but does anyone actually enjoy the experience? Of course no one would really love their life given the horror stories mentioned above, but would like to know if there are some odd-balls there that secretly enjoy the intensity/seem to be "okay" with the crazy hours (are those the ones that end ups staying?)
Not at all really. Made good friendships at the associate level though most of it was formed over drinks while complaining about work whenever we got the chance. I personally didn't know associates who "loved" the intensity or the culture but it was certainly prevalent at the principal level and up. Lots of senior guys loved late nights and even loved coming into the office on the weekends so that they'd be able to talk about it later on in the week or in IC lol. Lot's of statements like "we were grinding through this all weekend and were up all night finalizing yesterday" which were thrown around as a form of validating work / general circle-jerking.
Can't speak to other offices but have heard from a friend that LON and LA are sweaty too.
What do you mean only dudes? I notice a bunch of women on LinkedIn. The environmental co-head is a woman, for example. And at least one of their undergrad hires last year is a woman.
Is this culture similar in other Apollo offices such as LDN/HK/SG and across the different business lines PE/Credit/Real Assets?
I guess so
Aside from Apollo, curious to hear what other PE firms have a reputation for bad hours and culture?
For example, former analysts of mine who went to KKR and Silverlake have said that it was really bad there. Said it made the hours in banking look like a walk in the park. One former analyst went to Apollo. Said that he hated it for all the reasons above. He exited after two years to bschool and is now at a UMM PE firm, where he has been for a long time and is quite happy.
Most people's PE careers get derailed here.
What does that mean? Can you share some examples?
I've heard KKR sees a lot of variation depending on the group, ranging from slightly better thank banking to much much worse. Have also heard Silver Lake (more so NY office, not sure about Menlo) is a rough place to be.
Which kkr groups are the ones to avoid?
What about Blackstone?
KKR is known for being facetimey jackoffs, especially at middle levels. Senior guys even admit it’s a problem and are (sorta) trying to rectify.
I think it’s hilarious/scary that a KKR principal got awarded a 30 under 30 award a few years ago, and then she got canned literally two months later. Maybe office politics?
Who are you referring to? Both the recent 30 under 30 people from KKR are still there
The real question is can you have bad hours, but good culture? Has anyone seen this play out well? How can this be done when you're expected to work 24/7 on multiple investments and you're leading diligence processes?
If your deal team (of cool people) is genuinely biting off more than it probably should chew, then it can be a high-hours/good-culture experience. Senior guys super-involved (and instructory), deadlines process-forced rather than arbitrary, people encouraging rather than berating, etc.
In short, if everyone’s “got your back” rather than “take my fall,” same amount of work feels a lot different.
Yeah, I think it's much more sensible/acceptable at smaller firms where workload can change very quickly and resources aren't nearly as plentiful.
But it really does come back to what you said re: culture and working together/collaboration.
Great point. More servant leadership.
Also sounds like Bain consulting culture. “A Bainie never lets a Bainie fail.”
Would rather have bad culture and good hours over bad hours and good culture.
That is because you haven't gone through bad culture, my friend.
To those in PE, is it possible to get an interview without a headhunter through networking?
Not really. If you network successfully, they’ll just put you in contact with their HH, even if only to handle the logistics.
Those guys (gals, really) get paid an arm and a leg, may as well put then to work.
I got an interview and ultimately the job for a MF through LinkedIn application for last year, so it’s doable with a strong resume.
Man... not that I'd have a good chance at MF anyway, but all this talk about the culture and hours at MFs make me strongly lean toward MM for PE recruiting
Is Apollo the PE firm that does not hire post MBAs without PE experience?
Tbh that's most pe firms
I think you mean the MF that doesn’t require its associates to get MBAs in order to move up. And the answer seems to be yes, they don’t require an MBA for promotion.
.
they hired summer associates this year who didn’t have pre-mba PE experience and they promote without the need for MBA
No... all three summer associates in PE had pre-MBA PE experience
To be fair, most UMM/MF PE firms will not hire post-MBA candidates who do not have PE experience prior to business school.
When I worked in HY sales/cap markets, one MD said that Leon Black is the Emperor Palpatine of private equity after we placed an especially shitty loan for APO. I sorta picture all the associates and junior employees as storm troopers and partners as imperial admirals. I have heard nothing but the worst things about working as a associate at APO. The senior guys at Apollo are really smart and there is a reason that APO has been around as long as it has and has grown as much as it has. I would also that any debt APO raises for its portfolio companies trades with an APO discount because you know that Apollo is going to fuck you over.
Details my man! How do they fuck you over, why are their portco debts bad? If they fuck you over don’t you get to fuck them back harder as a creditor? Enforcement etc
They use weak credit docs that give them holes to exploit while preventing the creditors from taking actions. Apollo debt trades at a discount, and you have to go in prepared to fight.
I have heard similar things about their portco debt. Sentiment has always been “don’t touch Apollo debt because they will find a way to fuck you”
Would expect nothing less from a guy that commissioned a Bloomberg PR touting himself as "RUTHLESS...no one makes money like Apollo's Leon Black." Like really?
I loled at this
APO and their portco's has used very loose covenant language. They have good latitude for Divi Recaps, M&A and asset sales. They will also target distressed exchanges and pit different tranche holders against each other.
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