Here's what it all boils down to: aside the quants, the genuinely alpha traders, and few other wonky actuarial types, most of the grunts (you know: the "analysts"... and the vast majority of the IT types) don't seem to be there, or to have any other propelling motive in life, other than: (1) the above-average salary, and (2) once you're in, you're pretty much guaranteed to do alright -- as long as you're willing to fit in, never even think of rocking the boat, and be ready and willing to continually supplicate your superiors at all times.

Hence the ridiculously subdued style of dress (the dainty dress shoes, the blue and bland off-white shirts), and the curiously submissive demeanor of about 80% of the people you'll meet working there.

Oh, and that drug test, that everyone snickers about below their breath? Including your hiring manager? As everybody knows, it certainly isn't there out of any concern that you'd be abusing intoxicants (after all, you're more than welcome to get shitfaced on alcohol every night of the week -- which most nights you'll find yourself more or less needing to, to drown out the pain, and there sheer inanity of what you're asked to do).

It's there as a gesture of supplication and obedience -- nothing more. Getting you to drop your trousers, whip our your gear, and provide a "specimen" upon demand -- just because your superiors told you to! -- isn't an unfortunate side aspect of drug screening; it's the true purpose of the ritual -- the very end goal, in itself.

And now you're graduating from undergrad. And there's a wild, crazy world out there. And many processes in it are not judged by meritocratic competitions.

#%(& that noise. Come do our program. It's like everything you've ever done in life, except this time you'll be paid. Here's the application form, format for the essay, and description of the interview.

For a certain psychograph of young people, surrogate teachers at surrogate schools offering surrogate classes after surrogate admissions processes are incredibly compelling. (I rush to say that I fit this to the nines after graduation. My first job was an academic appointment and my second used exactly the above playbook to sell a job opportunity I would never have had any interest in as a quasi-study abroad option.)

1) The money. The potential to make $500k-1m/year before 30. The odds of getting to that stage aren't high, because of the culling at each step, but are probably better than making comparable money through a start-up exit.

2) Substantive responsibility. It depends on what precisely you do, but my brother is a year in and has a ton of autonomy and responsibility in his particular area. You can get this in Silicon Valley, but most of corporate America will not let a 24 year old do anything important.

3) Exit options and signaling. If you want to be a venture capitalist, the highest-probability route is through an NYC bulge-bracket bank. A stint at Goldman/Morgan Stanley/etc almost guarantees admission to a top business school, and from there a wide range of careers in corporate finance/development.

The only salient aspect of the article is the bit about risk: it is true that the folks on Wall Street generally aren't risk takers. They often make big bets, but with other peoples' money, and in any case if they are not successful there's a soft landing for them at Harvard or Wharton.

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).

It's the money, stupid.

> I talked to one guy who's a former Goldman Sachs guy who left to go to the tech industry who said the adage in the tech world now is "be wary when the pretty people show up."

> [College students want money, structure, and sex appeal.]

But I’ll add another motivation to the laundry list, that draws smart grads to selective/prestigious programs (including Harvard, Goldman, Google, and even YC): Smart grads want to be surrounded by other smart grads, because they want to build peer relationships with future co-founders and business partners.

Some quotes from the article that you should remember:

1. "so many kids who could seemingly do anything choose to work 120-hour weeks"

2. "something like a third of Ivy League graduates going to Wall Street"

3. "They're not just getting finance-minded kids but they're getting the smartest kids from all fields."

4. "give us two years of your lives, don't see your friends, chain yourself to your desk, but we will give you this glorious life where you're making many times what you could ever imagine."

These are kids really really smart, socially adjusted (enough to be accepted by Ivy League), and hard working. If they entered science/medicine/engineering/etc, they would've added great positive impact. Probably not immediately but eventually years down the line. And now they are abandoning these vital industries that actually produce something for an industry that is basically pushing papers around and printing money in the process.

Seriously, WHY would anyone choose to enter a field where you have to work up the ladder (or spend years in grad school and in poverty life) and possibly live in some small towns with a hope of making a few million a year salary ONLY near the end of your career, when you can enter Wall Street and live in NYC (great city but really only for the super rich) and start making 6-7 figure salary/bonus almost from the beginning?

Other major economies do not have Wall Street equivalent and so their top engineering/science graduates don't join finance but instead actually enter the vital industries. And these smart kids actually produce something that is tangible. I think we are already seeing the effect of this trend showing its result slowly.

I know we live in free economy society and all that but I think we need to find a way to 'regulate' how the wall street recruits.

Lastly, I believe the ratio of liberal-arts majors entering Wall Street is way lower than the article seems to suggest. From what I hear, overwhleming majority of the graduates entering Wall Street after graduation are science/math/engineering majors.

That said, I'm happy where I am now, working on growth and customer acquisition at a really cool YC company, where I actually want to work all the time. I wouldn't be here had I chased banking dollars.

> They're going because they hate risk and are terrified about what to do next and Wall Street has figured out a way to calm their anxieties.

This is somewhat accurate, but it doesn't seem different from other careers. Not all of friends know exactly what they want to do when they graduate. So it's logical for them to pick a job that is well-paying, will continue to exist for at least a few years, and offers good exit opportunities. For this reason, most of my intelligent friends in computer science are looking to work at Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc. Similarly, most of my intelligent friends in finance are looking to work at premier investment banks (or premier consulting firms like McKinsey, Bain, BCG, etc.).

> So they created the two-and-out program. The idea is you're there for two years and then you move onto something else. That let them attract not just hardcore econ majors but people majoring in other subjects who had a passing interest in finance and didn't know what else to do.

This is absolutely correct; it's well known that you'll stay for 2 years and then move on to another finance world (Private Equity, Hedge Fund, Venture Capital) or perhaps business school. But the way the article describes this feature makes it sound as an evil trick. Maybe I'm the only one who gets that vibe, but I think this is a great feature for students who aren't yet ready to commit to a career (again, not exclusive to finance).

> And it's amazing, anecdotally, how often you see college seniors deciding between making huge money on Wall Street or making almost nothing with Teach For America.

I had a conversation with a TFA rep a few months ago, and he told me that my school was the largest feeder into TFA. Yet, I have never met someone deciding between investment banking and Teach for America -- obviously two very different career options. The TFA rep also said the major with most students applying to TFA was Accounting, which makes sense because the entry job for an accounting student is not as high-paying or "exciting" as the entry investment banking job.

> Being a young banker seems like an incredibly miserable existence. The people you follow are beyond unhappy.

Yes, some of my friends who did investment banking internships (it's near impossible to get the full-time offer without an internship) ended up being miserable. However, some enjoyed the internship very much, and they return for full-time. Again, this isn't unique to banking. I'm had an engineering internship at a top tech firm, and I haven't enjoyed it as much as I expected either. Nevertheless, some of my friends in similar roles at other tech firms are probably enjoying their experience.

> I talked to one guy who's a former Goldman Sachs guy who left to go to the tech industry who said the adage in the tech world now is "be wary when the pretty people show up."

This is not common. I'm majoring in Finance and EE, so I'm one of the few people who would potentially be making this decision. If we're talking about choosing between banking at Goldman Sachs and working on the acquisitions team at Google, then sure, that's a legitimate argument. But the only time students are making the decision between being a software developer at a tech firm and being an investment banker is when they apply for college and decide on their major.

Overall, I didn't think the article was horrible, but there were a few things I wanted to clarify. And although I don't plan on working for an investment bank, I hate to see the career ridiculed by misconceptions. I saw in another comment that it doesn't really take intelligence to work at an investment bank or it's not really difficult to do. Please don't insult a career if you've never really experienced it. Some bankers may not be very smart, but others are ridiculously intelligent and great at their job.

Isn't it a bit far-stretched. It's clear to me they're going because it's by far the most lucrative path. It's not surprising that 1/3 of ivy grads are looking to make as much money as they can.

> Being a young banker seems like an incredibly miserable existence.

When I graduated, many of my school mates went to work in the financial industry (not investment banking though) and they didn't look miserable to me. Retrospectively, it looks it was a good career choice.

This article sounds biased. It'd be interesting to have a more objective account about this type of jobs.

http://www.quora.com/Investment-Banking/Why-are-there-so-man...

PoliSci major here. You don't have any skills you learned in school that can help you get a job. However, if you went to a good school, you should at least be able to demonstrate that you can learn fast, which is one of the more useful skills out there. A lot of jobs require skills that simply aren't taught in school, so being self motivated and a quick study can be more valuable than anything.

Insecure is an important one, without it, I clicked thinking that the "how" should be obvious, and the the right question is "why."

What kind of salery do they get after 1 - 10 yeard of working

You get the sex appeal and allure of the tech industry

Lolwut. Sex appeal? Maybe Mad Men's Michael Ginsburg was on to something.

Now it's people who are well adjusted, good looking graduates of elite institutions. It's gone from weirdos in pocket protectors to the guys who used to go to Wall Street.

Carpet-baggers. And they aren't any better (or worse) looking. Same with bankers. On average, they're average looking. What they are is more assertive, while engineers tend to be meek doormats. True-blue engineers don't get driven out because business people are better looking, but because they're more assertive. Blaming it on "pretty people" is refusing to take responsibility. Gates, Jobs, Bezos, and Ellison are average-looking at best.

Ok kids, so here's what the analyst program is really about. When you're in school, deadlines are easy to meet and well-tested. If you miss a deadline that 20 of your peers made easily, then either something bad happened or you fucked up. People coming out of school tend to have a "deadlines is deadlines" mentality, because they've spent 16 years in a world where almost all deadlines were well-tested and could be met by anyone with a work ethic (and a stable home, and no health problems, but we're sampling from the upper-middle class here). The difference, in business, is that many deadlines are untested and arbitrary. Some deadlines you absolutely have to meet. Most are just some guy's opinion, and as long as you aren't personally responsible for the miss, it doesn't matter.

Soft-side finance and biglaw have larger-than-normal proportions of deadlines that actually matter and want to put people through a wringer to see who has the unconditional (again, "deadlines is deadlines") work ethic and who doesn't. In some businesses that are heavily relationship-based, having at least one person on the team with an unconditional work ethic can be a lifesaver.

It's bad for tech that it answers to such people, though, because the sorts of people who tend to have an unconditional work ethic are a disaster in any line of business that requires vision. It's the tradeoff between subordinacy, strategy, and dedication (pick two). People who are subordinate and dedicated (unconditional work ethic) will never be strategic, which means they'll be poor at choosing what to work on. They're great in analyst positions and maybe as VC-funded founders (because the VCs are the true executives) but absolutely useless in decision-making roles.

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.

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.

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.

Thus, the complaint that Ivy-league grads flock to banks is confused. If the banks are correct that Ivy-league grads are the best and the brightest, to the point where it's justifiable to almost not recruit at all outside a small set of "target schools," then the young kids are quite justified in going into an industry that appreciates their qualifications in a way science and engineering don't. On the other hand, if the banks are wrong about ivy-league grads being so much better than everyone else, then nothing much is lost that they go into banking!

Wall Street does not overpay technical people. It pays fairly. Everyone else underpays.

Banks recruit ALOT of people and have offices across the country, they are very accommodating to your needs.

Applying for a bank seems much less intimidating than applying to a big tech company. The view is that only the very best even have a shot at interviewing at a company like Google/Amazon/Facebook, this puts people off.

Banks are at every school actively recruiting.

Banks host events like hackathons and advertise them. Amazon also do this in our area to be fair to them, but that one is usually after the academic year. Banks host theirs round about November time, and competing can allow you to skip portions of the interview process.

The offices are stunning and the entire place (Canary Wharf) has a feeling of being important when you're a kid in jeans who has never had a real job, and lots of important looking people are walking about in their expensive suits.

They pay very very well.

One other motivation that is personal to me but slightly different. I don't really want to work in banking. I want to run my own business, but I'm not ready to do that yet. I feel if I work at a company like Google that I'll never want to leave, and that's not how I want my life to be. So a bank is a great option. It's good money, I'll learn a lot, and it's a respected name, and I will never be so happy with my field of work as to never want to leave.

This is a common misconception, but not true. It's not true on an absolute scale (many people in NYC survive on what are modest salaries elsewhere) or on a COLA-adjusted scale (NYC has a salary-adjusted lower cost-of-living than many other "cheaper" cities).

> and start making 6-7 figure salary/bonus almost from the beginning?

Even when you factor end-of-year bonuses into the equation, an entry-level I-banking job pays about as much as Google or Facebook would pay an engineer right out of school. The hours are also a lot longer than at Google (not to mention less flexible).

It takes a long time to work your way up to even half of seven figures, and that's if you get there (the vast majority burn out, change professions, or have their careers stagnate).

IMHO I believe the kids the banks are stealing from science/medicine/engineering/etc, are not kids that would truly follow those paths. Personally once I found IT I didnt want to leave and nothing was going to deter me from it. Not even a big salary from another industry (I'd take a fat IT salary though).

Sometimes these kids are so smart they just choose a smart degree with no hopes of pursing a career in that field. I lived next to a very smart and talented guy getting his MBA at Emory. He was some sort of risk accessor for a company but imagine my surprise when I learned he had a Mechanical Engineering BS, he told me he never wanted to do Engineering he thought it was a good degree to have instead of a straight Business Major.

Hardly anyone will ever make even a "few" million dollars/year salary.

Honestly, this is an unrealistic dream and if that's your aspiration, you're setting yourself up for disappointment.

You might as well decide you want to be President or a platinum-selling music star.

I agree that students may be able to have a stronger impact as a doctor, scientist, etc. But this is more a criticism of K-12 education, not the wall street industry! I've never heard of a high schooler thinking "should I grow up and be a doctor, or should I be an investment banker?" What I have heard is "I'm smart but not very good at math, so I'll major in business." We do NOT have many students choosing investment banking over STEM during their junior year of college in the midst of recruiting. These decisions are being made during senior year of high school when they're thinking about what to major in.

> And now they are abandoning these vital industries that actually produce something for an industry that is basically pushing papers around and printing money in the process.

Basically pushing papers around and printing money? Are you kidding me? If investment banks are so useless, why would essentially all large corporations (including Apple, Facebook, Yahoo, etc.) hire investment banks to assist in raising debt and equity or to facilitate mergers and acquisitions? By suggesting that investment banks are "printing money," you've shown that you aren't well-informed on the industry.

If your criticism is coming from the recent financial crisis, then sure, the investment banks due deserve some of the blame. But anybody who says investment banks are exclusively responsible and refuses to point out the mistakes by credit rating agencies, insurance companies, the federal government, and even US citizens needs to find an objective source and study the events leading up to the crisis.

> I know we live in free economy society and all that but I think we need to find a way to 'regulate' how the wall street recruits.

Is someone being harmed? Given that the students entering investment banks are fairly intelligent and coming out of prestigious universities, they are also intelligent enough to find another job if they don't like working at the bank. All of these banks also have well-structured internship programs, giving the students an opportunity to test the experience. Yes, the lifestyle can be very difficult for two years. But it's a trade-off; students work very hard in exchange for a high salary and great exit opportunities.

> Lastly, I believe the ratio of liberal-arts majors entering Wall Street is way lower than the article seems to suggest. From what I hear, overwhleming majority of the graduates entering Wall Street after graduation are science/math/engineering majors.

That is certainly not the case. STEM may be a majority of the graduates entering fields like high-frequency trading, but STEM is a very small minority of the students entering investment banks. And investment banks are much larger (in terms of # employees) than HFT. I'm not defending high-frequency trading -- I agree it's billions of dollars being spent on something that's socially unproductive. But it's inaccurate to make a blanket statement about "wall street" and apply it to any finance-related career.

TfA it serves a similar purpose as these 2-year finance jobs: resume padding for the next hop. TfA just has less salary.

The experience as a banking intern is a far cry from what the experience is as a full time analyst, at least psychologically. The internship is a 10 week sprint, you're not really expected to be producing much of value, it's during the summer when things are significantly slower, and the group is careful not to grind you down too much, because they still want you to accept the full time offer. Once you're a real analyst, they ride you hard, and there's no end in sight. That pain is just your life now.

> This is not common

Sure, it's still not terribly common, but it was pretty much unheard of pre-crash. I know several who have made the jump. And the decision isn't strictly developer vs banker, later stage tech companies have pretty substantial finance and biz dev divisions. Banking to biz dev used to mean you were 2nd tier and couldn't land a PE or hedge fund job (or couldn't take the pressure). It's getting much more attractive now.

Its not an evil trick, but it is playing on human emotion, and our inherent decision weighting when presented with uncertainty and risk.

You look at what its like being a college grad, realize how much trepidation there is about graduation and finding a job, and you shape an offer that:

a) Lets you get rid of that uncertainty very early (compared to normal hiring cycles) b) Makes the "commitment" not seem very severe. c) Alludes to financial stability (another big source of uncertainty, particularly with how big college loans are now) d) Promises to make future risks less severe (good references from a prestigious job)

The only thing it doesn't really cover on top "What I Want from a Job" lists is "will I enjoy the work?", and most new grads are still so inexperienced that they have no idea what kind of work they would actually "like".

It still amazes me a bit how much of life and getting people to do what you want basically boils down to uncertainty / risk mitigation. You don't need an active carrot or a stick, you just need to change the landscape so your choice is the only, or obvious, low-risk choice that makes them feel more "secure".

In some ways, YC even plays to this, as it offers guaranteed initial funding (lower entry risk), a beachhead to a wide range of funding sources (lower future risk), and low commitment risk (you've only got a small window of 3 months). They may even have ways to lower the pre-decision uncertainty or to make YC more competitive with other options that I just don't know about / recognize.

Serious question; how old were you in 2008, or 1989?

How well informed are you about BCCI, GS, Lehman, BofA, Wachovia... LIBOR etc...

There is MUCH to ridicule, condemn and convict.