This is spot on, but its missing a few important aspects: Banking used to be a boring, low paying profession. PE was basically non-existent. The whole of banki

This is spot on, but its missing a few important aspects: Banking used to be a boring, low paying profession. PE was basically non-existent. The whole of banking and Private Equity fire machine has been fed by 2 factors that were absent ~50 years ago: 1) ultralow interest rates for extended periods of time 2) de-risking of hubris via bailouts (most recent case: SVB). 3) Regulation creep. If you look at the industries where PEs are investing heavily, its not where competition is fiercest, but instead they look for captive markets, particularly those with licensing requirements (Like healthcare). Its easier to buy into a company when competition is not likely to show up organically next door. If you take that secret sauce off the dish, you can't quite cook the stuff that we have going on today.