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>The banks care less about their qualifications than their work ethic. Being a Rhodes Scholar doesn't make much of a difference when you're a young banker. More

>The banks care less about their qualifications than their work ethic. Being a Rhodes Scholar doesn't make much of a difference when you're a young banker. More of it is being willing to stay at the office for 120 hours a week. This is very, very true. In my experience, investment banking is by no means a particularly difficult thing to do, given enough capital to play around with. Quants aside, the concepts that are used (take, for example, "mezzanine capital") are mostly buzzwords used to give a professional air to really very simple processes/ideas. It is a far cry from the serious, dedicated abstract thought demanded by fields such as software engineering/machine learning/data science etc. However, what large financial institutions need are people who are extremely assiduous to small details, have a work ethic in which 7am-11pm hours creating powerpoints are no big deal (and have good sounding qualifications to impress investors).

w4 12y ago
> Quants aside, the concepts that are used (take, for example, "mezzanine capital") are mostly buzzwords used to give a professional air to really very simple processes/ideas. This is incredibly accurate. Aside from the guys who come out of MIT and Caltech to do quantitative analysis, almost everything on Wall Street is smoke and mirrors hiding what are incredibly simple ideas. Even a lot of the ostensibly esoteric and complex products (that a lot of the Wall Street guys don't understand!) hide a really simple core concept once you peel back the layers of jargon.
- ProAm 12y ago
  > almost everything on Wall Street is smoke and mirrors hiding what are incredibly simple ideas This is true for the majority of jobs out there.
  - gaius 12y ago
    Especially programming jobs.
- hnnewguy 12y ago
  >"almost everything on Wall Street is smoke and mirrors hiding what are incredibly simple ideas" Because Google, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram and Farmville are complex ideas? Nearly every good idea looks "simple" in hindsight. That's what makes it a good idea.
  - ProAm 12y ago
    These all started simply, I promise you
a_c_s 12y ago
How necessary are the 7am-11pm hours really? Could the banks do just as good of a job if they hired more people who worked 40 hour weeks? (Increased salary costs notwithstanding)
- thecage411 12y ago
  "Working insane hours is a sign of commitment, of willingness to sacrifice for the job; the personal destructiveness of the practice isn’t a bug, it’s a feature." http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/20/three-piece-suits-breakfast-meetings-and-overwork/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0 http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/20/three-piece-suit...
- nymph 12y ago
  Everyone knows the hours are bullshit, and actually impair productivity and judgement. But they're there to serve a Higher Purpose: to engender classic, Stockholm Syndrome endearment -- and unquestioned obedience.
- Spooky23 12y ago
  Not very. I knew someone who did that for awhile. He basically spent most of his time screwing around with his iPhone.
- seferphier 12y ago
  I work at a law firm specializing in IPO. I had the same thought in mind when I joined. Hiring more people does help but there will still not be 40 hour work weeks. In many instances, some people in the team has built up the knowledge on a particular part of the deal that it is difficult to outsource since it would be much faster for the person to complete the work themselves. Hiring more people also means that the information is diffused around. If one person working on a deal it means that he knows 100% about the deal. If 100 people is working on the same deal, efficiency would greatly decrease as knowledge management becomes important (lots of emails).
  - rdrdss23 12y ago
    Sounds like they need oil-rig hours. 2 weeks on, 1 week off. Or something to that effect. Make people work insane hours, but give them 2-3 months of vacation a year.
gaius 12y ago
It is a far cry from the serious, dedicated abstract thought demanded by fields such as software engineering/machine learning/data science etc. 99% of software work is straightforward too. Here's a form for entering data. Here's a report for formatting data someone else entered. Every website is just these two concepts that have been around since the 60s. Don't kid yourself that a "full stack developer" or a "rockstar ninja" is anything special.
- jpfuentes2 12y ago
  There are lots of programming jobs out there that are outside of the web/CRUD development realm.
  - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
    But there's a lot more that aren't.
dba7dba 12y ago
You see, with enough money and some buzzwords, anything can look incredibly important/hard.
dba7dba 12y ago
> However, what large financial institutions need are people who are extremely assiduous to small details, have a work ethic in which 7am-11pm hours creating powerpoints are no big deal (and have good sounding qualifications to impress investors). The problem is Wall Street is sweeping up a THIRD of Ivy league graduates. This no doubt causes harm to US economy. Can you imagine what a young really bright scientist/engineer can do putting in 120hr/week at a stretch? They probably couldn't produce something amazing soon but learn enough skill that they can be producing something that really adds value to the society. But that's not happening because Wall Street sweeps up so many.
- austinz 12y ago
  A "young really bright scientist/engineer putting in 120/hr weeks at a stretch" is a recipe for mental illness, low-quality output, and burnout.
  - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
    That doesn't mean it isn't normal for the early stages of a STEM career (grad school, post-doc, pre-tenure professorship) to demand such work-ethic.

w4 12y ago

> Quants aside, the concepts that are used (take, for example, "mezzanine capital") are mostly buzzwords used to give a professional air to really very simple processes/ideas. This is incredibly accurate. Aside from the guys who come out of MIT and Caltech to do quantitative analysis, almost everything on Wall Street is smoke and mirrors hiding what are incredibly simple ideas. Even a lot of the ostensibly esoteric and complex products (that a lot of the Wall Street guys don't understand!) hide a really simple core concept once you peel back the layers of jargon.

ProAm 12y ago
> almost everything on Wall Street is smoke and mirrors hiding what are incredibly simple ideas This is true for the majority of jobs out there.
- gaius 12y ago
  Especially programming jobs.
hnnewguy 12y ago
>"almost everything on Wall Street is smoke and mirrors hiding what are incredibly simple ideas" Because Google, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram and Farmville are complex ideas? Nearly every good idea looks "simple" in hindsight. That's what makes it a good idea.
- ProAm 12y ago
  These all started simply, I promise you

a_c_s 12y ago

How necessary are the 7am-11pm hours really? Could the banks do just as good of a job if they hired more people who worked 40 hour weeks? (Increased salary costs notwithstanding)

thecage411 12y ago
"Working insane hours is a sign of commitment, of willingness to sacrifice for the job; the personal destructiveness of the practice isn’t a bug, it’s a feature." http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/20/three-piece-suits-breakfast-meetings-and-overwork/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0 http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/20/three-piece-suit...
nymph 12y ago
Everyone knows the hours are bullshit, and actually impair productivity and judgement. But they're there to serve a Higher Purpose: to engender classic, Stockholm Syndrome endearment -- and unquestioned obedience.
Spooky23 12y ago
Not very. I knew someone who did that for awhile. He basically spent most of his time screwing around with his iPhone.
seferphier 12y ago
I work at a law firm specializing in IPO. I had the same thought in mind when I joined. Hiring more people does help but there will still not be 40 hour work weeks. In many instances, some people in the team has built up the knowledge on a particular part of the deal that it is difficult to outsource since it would be much faster for the person to complete the work themselves. Hiring more people also means that the information is diffused around. If one person working on a deal it means that he knows 100% about the deal. If 100 people is working on the same deal, efficiency would greatly decrease as knowledge management becomes important (lots of emails).
- rdrdss23 12y ago
  Sounds like they need oil-rig hours. 2 weeks on, 1 week off. Or something to that effect. Make people work insane hours, but give them 2-3 months of vacation a year.

gaius 12y ago

It is a far cry from the serious, dedicated abstract thought demanded by fields such as software engineering/machine learning/data science etc. 99% of software work is straightforward too. Here's a form for entering data. Here's a report for formatting data someone else entered. Every website is just these two concepts that have been around since the 60s. Don't kid yourself that a "full stack developer" or a "rockstar ninja" is anything special.

jpfuentes2 12y ago
There are lots of programming jobs out there that are outside of the web/CRUD development realm.
- eli_gottlieb 12y ago
  But there's a lot more that aren't.

dba7dba 12y ago

You see, with enough money and some buzzwords, anything can look incredibly important/hard.

dba7dba 12y ago

> However, what large financial institutions need are people who are extremely assiduous to small details, have a work ethic in which 7am-11pm hours creating powerpoints are no big deal (and have good sounding qualifications to impress investors). The problem is Wall Street is sweeping up a THIRD of Ivy league graduates. This no doubt causes harm to US economy. Can you imagine what a young really bright scientist/engineer can do putting in 120hr/week at a stretch? They probably couldn't produce something amazing soon but learn enough skill that they can be producing something that really adds value to the society. But that's not happening because Wall Street sweeps up so many.

austinz 12y ago
A "young really bright scientist/engineer putting in 120/hr weeks at a stretch" is a recipe for mental illness, low-quality output, and burnout.
- eli_gottlieb 12y ago
  That doesn't mean it isn't normal for the early stages of a STEM career (grad school, post-doc, pre-tenure professorship) to demand such work-ethic.