4 ms·

Right place, right time, right skills, and sometimes the right connections.

by dav43 7y ago

texasbigdata 7y ago
I hate this argument. It's such an excuse. I have 5 friends in that bucket. And none of them had the "right connection". Some are immigrants, some are minorities, some were dirt poor and came from nothing. But all of them had some of the highest drive and grit and sometimes intelligence out of my friend group. These guys would have done well in absolutely any industry. 8 to 10pm x 7 days a week would be an absolutely pleasure. It's hard to convey how hours longer than that weigh on you with multiple back to back subsequent years of "service". But finance isn't special. 27 year old top attorneys make 300k. And suffer similar pain. Even in consulting like BCG comp is not as high but you get weekends off. But you're still elbow to elbow with ambitious people. But heres the rub. I did the math once. My calculation showed there were 4,000 private equity professions in the US. Maybe that's changed. That's an absurdly small number. How many bariatric surgeons are there? Like when you compare these very small knifes edge type quantities, sure, you see excess. So finance used to be 7% of GDP, up from 4%, so for a period you had the ratio of people to GDP skewed so smart people rushed to normalize it. And it normalized. Now you see the equilibrium hit. But that doesn't mean sometimes the equilibrium is high. There's no 28 year old making 500k in silicon valley? Or spending 20k decorating their office? Like it's just a matter of perspective. Sorry for the rant. But the connection thing drives me crazy. I'm sure the silicon valley guy has really hard to obtain skills and didnt network at a bar into his top engineering job. Edit: didn't mean for this to be combative. I've long believed humans are sort of fungible. You take a partner at an accounting firm and throw him in a consulting firm (and somehow roll back time) that same person will sort of get to the same spot. I believe when you're 14 or 16 or 18 or 20 and you sort of pick what you want to do you are so impressionable that it ends up being partly passion and partially luck.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  Getting advice on which fields to study, which schools to apply to, what friends to make who also know which schools to apply to, and which companies to apply to all count as “right connection”. And of course, getting an interview because your friend’s parent knows someone at a firm looking for someone. I know I like to hire based on personal recommendation of people I trust, it removed a lot of risk for me in dealing with random people. Hence “right connections”.
  - texasbigdata 7y ago
    Actually, you're spot on and maybe my comment is wrong. Recruiting has these crazy dance steps. Unless you know in October of your sophomore year what the door knock is on this special process it can be hard to get in. But you can get in later. Its just much much harder. I've been trying to figure out for a few years what that's called. It's not wealth, because knowing to apply is some sort of social/human capital, and its intergenerational. But I wonder like in the area where I volunteer...how much of the difference in outcome is related to just not knowing how the process works?
    - lotsofpulp 7y ago
      It is a type of wealth. There are different kinds of wealth. Having a good, supportive family is a type of wealth. Being born in a country with plentiful drinking water and other natural resources is a type of wealth. Being able to sell your services is a type of wealth. Having a network of contacts in many places around the world is a type of wealth. Learning how to do something is also a type of wealth. Some wealth you’re born with, or you come by from circumstance (many times relating to who you’re born to). Some wealth you can work on obtaining yourself.
  - airstrike 7y ago
    > Getting advice on which fields to study, which schools to apply to, what friends to make who also know which schools to apply to, and which companies to apply to all count as “right connection”. Or you can "just" get into a top 5-10 MBA. Still hard, but at least you're an adult at that point
    - storgendibal 7y ago
      It's actually really hard to go from sell-side to buy-side, post-MBA. I went to a top-5 business school in the US and everyone recruiting for banking wanted to eventually move to the buy-side. I think out of a group of ~100, <5 might have made it into a decent buy-side job. Top private equity funds put their best analysts through business school and then just hire them back. Breaking in at a post-MBA level is really hard. You really have to know "the path" early in college and get into a top bulge bracket right after college graduation, put in your two years of 100 hour weeks, and then get on recruiters' radars for PE and HF.

Right place, right time, right skills, and sometimes the right connections.

by dav43 7y ago

Right place, right time, right skills, and sometimes the right connections.

I hate this argument. It's such an excuse. I have 5 friends in that bucket. And none of them had the "right connection". Some are immigrants, some are minorities, some were dirt poor and came from nothing. But all of them had some of the highest drive and grit and sometimes intelligence out of my friend group. These guys would have done well in absolutely any industry. 8 to 10pm x 7 days a week would be an absolutely pleasure. It's hard to convey how hours longer than that weigh on you with multiple back to back subsequent years of "service". But finance isn't special. 27 year old top attorneys make 300k. And suffer similar pain. Even in consulting like BCG comp is not as high but you get weekends off. But you're still elbow to elbow with ambitious people. But heres the rub. I did the math once. My calculation showed there were 4,000 private equity professions in the US. Maybe that's changed. That's an absurdly small number. How many bariatric surgeons are there? Like when you compare these very small knifes edge type quantities, sure, you see excess. So finance used to be 7% of GDP, up from 4%, so for a period you had the ratio of people to GDP skewed so smart people rushed to normalize it. And it normalized. Now you see the equilibrium hit. But that doesn't mean sometimes the equilibrium is high. There's no 28 year old making 500k in silicon valley? Or spending 20k decorating their office? Like it's just a matter of perspective. Sorry for the rant. But the connection thing drives me crazy. I'm sure the silicon valley guy has really hard to obtain skills and didnt network at a bar into his top engineering job. Edit: didn't mean for this to be combative. I've long believed humans are sort of fungible. You take a partner at an accounting firm and throw him in a consulting firm (and somehow roll back time) that same person will sort of get to the same spot. I believe when you're 14 or 16 or 18 or 20 and you sort of pick what you want to do you are so impressionable that it ends up being partly passion and partially luck.

lotsofpulp 7y ago
Getting advice on which fields to study, which schools to apply to, what friends to make who also know which schools to apply to, and which companies to apply to all count as “right connection”. And of course, getting an interview because your friend’s parent knows someone at a firm looking for someone. I know I like to hire based on personal recommendation of people I trust, it removed a lot of risk for me in dealing with random people. Hence “right connections”.
- texasbigdata 7y ago
  Actually, you're spot on and maybe my comment is wrong. Recruiting has these crazy dance steps. Unless you know in October of your sophomore year what the door knock is on this special process it can be hard to get in. But you can get in later. Its just much much harder. I've been trying to figure out for a few years what that's called. It's not wealth, because knowing to apply is some sort of social/human capital, and its intergenerational. But I wonder like in the area where I volunteer...how much of the difference in outcome is related to just not knowing how the process works?
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    It is a type of wealth. There are different kinds of wealth. Having a good, supportive family is a type of wealth. Being born in a country with plentiful drinking water and other natural resources is a type of wealth. Being able to sell your services is a type of wealth. Having a network of contacts in many places around the world is a type of wealth. Learning how to do something is also a type of wealth. Some wealth you’re born with, or you come by from circumstance (many times relating to who you’re born to). Some wealth you can work on obtaining yourself.
- airstrike 7y ago
  > Getting advice on which fields to study, which schools to apply to, what friends to make who also know which schools to apply to, and which companies to apply to all count as “right connection”. Or you can "just" get into a top 5-10 MBA. Still hard, but at least you're an adult at that point
  - storgendibal 7y ago
    It's actually really hard to go from sell-side to buy-side, post-MBA. I went to a top-5 business school in the US and everyone recruiting for banking wanted to eventually move to the buy-side. I think out of a group of ~100, <5 might have made it into a decent buy-side job. Top private equity funds put their best analysts through business school and then just hire them back. Breaking in at a post-MBA level is really hard. You really have to know "the path" early in college and get into a top bulge bracket right after college graduation, put in your two years of 100 hour weeks, and then get on recruiters' radars for PE and HF.