I’m about to graduate undergrad at 28.
Top ten finance/accounting school in USA; 3.5 GPA.
Absolutely zero internship experience ever but I did run a small business that paid for college etc etc. technically it wasn’t a legal one but I never got caught so like yeah. Chilling hard.
What’s next for me? Original game plan was investment banking -> private equity. Kinda starting to question the possibility of me achieving this.
Fairly confident I can pass the airport test and I mean if I’m good at getting random girls to sleep with me I’d imagine I’d be good at sales.
I need to earn at least 100k+ and want good growth opportunities. If you were in my shoes what’s the fastest route to get to the real wealth where I can afford Ferraris and nice vacations and whatever watches I want :)
Lone_Ranger 2 1y ago
I read your post and I think you have a skewed view of what wealth is and how wealth is gained created.
You say you want to be wealthy, and you seem to have an Instagram view of what 'wealthy' looks like - Ferrarri and rolex watches.
I think you are confusing salary with wealth. You seem to want to go into finance because you think high salaries will eventually build wealth.
This is not how it works. Some people make good money in Finance, but the industry operates what I call a 'star' system. Its much more like the entertainment business than you realise. For every high roller in music, film, sports there are thousands of guys that are scrapping by. There a few stars in finance that make millions a year (I knew a few of them). But they are the exception that has every tom dick and harry (TDH) flooding into the business. Its the TDHs that do all the grunt work. They put in 12+ days, 7 days a week in the desperate hope that they will get to be a star. The usually burn out by 30 and leave. But there is a constant supply of fresh 22 year olds coming in the door. That's how the IB and PE market works.
The guys earning 7 figures are few and far between, and they only earn 7 figures IF AND ONLY IF they create 8 to 9 figure wealth for their companies. The second they don't, they get fired. That's how it works. Nobody gets paid 'what they're worth' in Finance - you get paid a percentage of the wealth you create for your company. That's the secret.
So........ the secret is to forget about salary and find out how to create wealth. Once you have the skill to create wealth, then you can decide if you want to do if for yourself or for others.
If you do if for others, be prepared to only get back up to 5% of what you create. ie. you will be need to create $20m for your company in profits if you want to get paid $1m in salary.
There are far too many NPC TDH's that walk into PE/IB expecting 'high salary' based on the fact that they studied finance. They also think that they will can just 'get experience' and their salaries will go up as a result. They read articles about what you should 'expect' to get paid as a 2nd, 3rd, 4th year analyst or trader. This is all nonsense and click bait. You should not 'expect' to get paid anything. You get paid a % of what you deliver. If you deliver nothing, or less than the other guy next to you, you're getting fired. This is not a system based on merit, its based on wealth creation. Its a % game.
BTW - this is also how it works in the consulting world (where I am). Nobody is paid high salaries for seniority or length of service. You only get paid big money if you create big money for the firm - that means if you are a partner. There is also a constant stream of highly educated 22 year olds coming in the door every September who will work 12+ hours a day for low salary for about 5 years, when they burn out and get replaced. Only 0.5% of them make partner.
Who makes partner in a consultancy / HF, PE, IB? The guy that can sell. That's it. You go on an audit, and you take out the FD for lunch, and you end up selling him an additional $12m of fees in systems? You're going to make partner. You know why? Because you can make it rain. The partners are you firm are going to get worried that you will go do the street to the other firm and start doing your magic for them. That is the only reason the partners will make you a partner.
It works this way in law as well. A college friend of mine who is making between £2-3m per year reckoned he was not getting a high enough % of the work he pulled in (sales), so he interviewed at a smaller partnership and made a deal - he left the big law firm and brought about 20 juniors with him, went from a decent salary of about £400k to partner, and is now getting between £2-3m per year, based on the business that he brings in. Went from wage slave at a large international to a partner at a mid sized and got almost a 10x raise. Because he is making it rain for the new firm. It's not what he's worth, its not what he deserves, it's a % of his sales.
TBH - i don't know how to say this without seeming rude... from what you are telling us, from what you write, I'm not sure you know how it works. Try and find some senior people to take you under their wing. Stop dreaming about fast cars and watches. The people that I know that have made big bucks don't work like that. The most succssfull guy that I know (a neighbour of mine) use to make between £5-15m per year (depending on the year) as a partner in a large IB, but he left because his deal was 'so bad' ie. they kept so much of the value he created. He has since formed a PE with other former colleagues and now makes much more 'decent' money, because he is keeping about 50% of the value he creates. He drives a ford. His hobby is buying land. He has a lot of land now.
The best thing you can get out of your next job is knowledge - find out how to create value and you will a % of that. Salary is for poor people. I'm not kidding. My salary wouldn't pay for my lunch money. My real income is dividends. Dividends come from creating profits. Do you see the difference? The wealthy people of NYC and London are not paid in 'salary'. They are paid in partnership fees, bonus and commission.
TRPDuryodhana 1y ago
Keeping it real. Good stuff!
What do you think is the importance of degree these days? I'm 25 and a lot of people are suggesting me take the next step and just do an MBA already. I don't think that's how I should go about it. It also doesn't help that competition for most top B-schools in India is cut-throat. Acceptance rate is like 1-2% and for the best one in the country, it is something like .25%. That leaves me with diploma mills selling shill certificates.
My plan is to grind my way up, work you creating more value for the company as you say. I'm also in a social club of sorts where I get to meet and network with tons of new people; Consultants, Sales Managers, CEO's, and so on.
Gaining experience and connections, and then moving on start something of my own seems like the best route to go about things. What do you think?
financehardo420 Should i (x1) 1y ago
No you’re absolutely correct. These are performance based roles and you’re definitely only getting paid a small percentage of what you bring in. Being partner/starting your own shop like your lawyer friend automatically gives you a bigger slice of the pie bc you’re paying someone else s percentage of what they’re bringing in.
Tbh despite the obvious ignorance in my post I’m well aware that rarris and watches doesn’t necessarily = wealth. But in my mind it’s like you can/should only buy those kinds of things when it’s rational (ie under 50% of your income or more ideally within 25-30% of income) while investing rest in stock/real estate. I was in Miami this weekend and met this older dude from nyc. Runs a pharmaceutical company n this fucking guy has a Tiffany patek (casual 3.5m watch), couple RMs, rarris lambos, etc. kinda made me think to myself that fuck I really need to make a lot more and fast.
My dad would more or less say the same thing about it. When you say dividends come from creating profits are you referring to like literal stock dividends or dividends in the sense of dividends from the skills you develop and profit %s you earn from said skills?
Lone_Ranger 2 1y ago
Good man, I'm glad you understood my post and didn't tell me 'to go fuck myself' (there is a lot of that on this site).
RE. the wealthy guy you met in Miami - When you say he 'runs' a pharmaceutical, I think you're still not probably getting the finer point here - he probably owns it or part owns it. Nobody gets rich from salary.
There is a great saying "Talent is as cheap as table salt". Think about that. It means that you will never be wealthy from 'being talented' and 'working hard' for someone else. Because you can always buy talent, really cheaply. I would rather own a pharma company and have zero salary, because I know that I can hire 1,000 people in the morning. They compete against each other to keep their salaries "low". Ownership is what makes the wealth.
Re. dividends: I hire consultants at X, I charge them out at 2.5X. My company makes a profits. All profits are paid out as dividends. I am the sole shareholder. So I get all the dividends. It's a small business but I am happy with the results. If I was less lazy, and more brave, I would simply level it up and grow. But I'm happy with my lifestyle, which has a great balance of freedom, down time but allows me to travel, live in a big house with land in a beautiful area. I go where I want and do what I want. Which is valuable to me.
I think you will grow out of the lambos and fancy watches. You'll grow out of them when you see what it entails to earn the kind of money that it takes to buy that sort of rubbish. I have enough in petty cash right now to buy a lambo but I choose not to - I drive around in modest cars. Which I own outright. For fun I ride my motorcycle.
Maybe have a bit of sit down with yourself and ask yourself why you want fancy watches and lambos. Why? Is it to prove something to other people? People that you don't really know? Do you see yourself getting a kick out of driving down the road based on what you think other people will be thinking about you? Why do you care what strangers think about you? Why do you fantasise about people that you don't know, don't care about having certain thoughts about you? Did you grow up poor? Are you trying to impress your own father?
All of these things are worth thinking about, in deep contemplation. Having deep conversations with yourself is the most rewarding thing you can do. You can be your own coach. I highly recommend listening to Alan Watts - see if that is interesting to you. Also, highly recommend The Century Of The Self by Adam Curtis. Very enjoyable. Maybe watch it with a friend, turn it into a study group.
Maybe unplug from popular culture for a while - does it give you a different perspective? We live in a consumerist society. We are indoctrinated from birth. The one thing that seems certain about consumerism is that it never satisfies. You will always want more. The minute you get a ferrari, you won't want it any more. You'll want something else - that is the nature of the disease.
I am fairly sure you're a smart guy, otherwise I wouldn't waste all this time writing to you. I'm not saying that it's dumb to be hankering after lambos and rolexes.... but try and look a bit beyond those things - look further up the road - why? why do you want them?
financehardo420 Should i (x1) 1y ago
That’s the whole point of this site - to learn from others who have been there before. I’d only tell someone to go fuck themselves if they were being extremely out of pocket. Appreciate you taking the time to reply brotha!
*yes definitely owns it and runs it as ceo. hence all the toys. I’ve kind of been considering skipping banking/PE and starting an accounting firm instead. But idk a big part of me really wants to build exp in those fields and eventually open up my own PE shop.
It’s more for myself; I’ve been into watches since I was a kid and having some crazy super cars has always been a lifelong goal. Is it to impress other people? Maybe extremely hot bitches but no lol I could care less of the opinions of others. Grew up dirt poor; more so fantasize about being able to spend that much on a car and drive it around. Definitely a bit of a chip in my shoulder from growing up poor. Also a lot of pressure on me as the first gen American (rest of fam is in the motherland and stuck being dirt poor there. It’d kind of be a giant fuck you to them since I got the chance to be in America and didn’t become rich.
I’ll check those guys out once school grind settles down. You’re not wrong w the consumer society I’ve already experienced it with watches haha. Got my first rolex and immediately craved my next. Got my second rolex and here I am drooling over my 3rd… and 4th and 5th and so on.
Hopefully I’ll outgrow it someday eventually much like I outgrew my obsession with buying designer clothes. I dunno. The book the great gatsby is one of my favorites; read it when I was younger and aspired to be like the real life gatsby (minus the dying part). I don’t want to be fake rich (ie going into debt buying these toys) but legit rich ie earning enough where big ticket purchases like that fit in the 25-40% of my after tax income
Lone_Ranger 2 1y ago
good man bro.
My prediction is that you will grow out of your lust of the trappings of wealth. The trinkets are not worth the candle. Wealth itself is defo worth having. But not the trinkets. You'll soon see - the trinkets of wealth just reduce your wealth.
One thing I have observed is that it's rare for guys who lust after wealth to get wealthy. A desire for money is not sufficient to get money. Often the guys that make serious money are not that interested in money at first - like Bill Gates or Musk. They are super obsessed with the thing that made them the money - the software. Money just comes as an afterthought, as a result of them being so good at what they do.
Perhaps you should shift your focus away from money and trinkets and try and find your mission, your passion.
For example, you mentioned accountancy as a business. Right now I am working with retail banks - I'm shocked at how crap they all are. THere are so many opps right under their noses and they're not interested in capitalising. Why is there no bank that has software built in that will analyse all my transactions and create a tax return for me? wtf? It's so easy to do? why am I am my wife spending thousands on accountancy fees that an Ai assisted software add on in my bank account could do in less than a second? Why is no bank brand doing this?
The first bank that does it will will biggly. But they are never going to do it - because they are all so retarded.
There you go buddy - i just gave you an idea. Team up with a software developer, develop a prototype app, which uses Ai to analyse an entire years of transactions, then puts them into a P&L ready to submit to inland revenue. That right there is saving me days of work and is worth thousands.
I have tried Xero, Sage and all the packages and they are all super super retarded and not suitable for non accountants.
Get busy dude!
financehardo420 Should i (x1) 1y ago
Ahaha I wouldn’t necessarily describe finance or accounting as fun per say; i find accounting to be naturally a lot easier (get high A/A+ on exams with minimal practice) whereas finance can make my head spin sometimes.
That being said I used to suck ass at math and hated it bc of it. My parents would beat the shit out of me and force me to study and eventually it got easy; I was like 2 grades ahead in math bc of it. Once it got easy I enjoyed it. I think same would apply to both finance and accounting.
In terms of passion… one of my favorite times in life was selling pot. I enjoyed a fair amount of success doing it but my favorite part was the planning. I was spending ~40k a month on inventory and I could pretty accurately guess exactly how long it would take me to sell out of everything. If I got it all off in exactly a month it was a win; if there were leftovers i viewed it as a failure. That aspect of predicting the turnover and etc is something that is essentially done in PE a lot. Which is what draws me to PE haha. It’s kind of like buying rental properties w/ a 20% down payment; the tenants pay off the mortgage. However instead of buying 200-400k apartments you’re buying companies that can range from millions to billions or trillions. Instead of tenants paying the mortgage, the profits of the business pay off the interest and eventually you build equity (and hopefully a higher valuation via increased efficiencies etc etc) and exit w some sexy coin. Partners/owners receive carry plus a portion of the initial investment. Fun stuff lol
Sidenote: with today’s ai tech that’s such a plausible idea
AsianDude 1y ago
I recommend you read "The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy" by Thomas J. Stanley Ph.D. (Author) and William D. Danko Ph.D (Author).
Honestly most self-made (low US$1M - 3M) millionaires don't own Ferraris, expensive watches, or go on frequent nice vacations... I certainly don't. You would need to be a multi-millionaire (US$5M minimum) to sustainably afford things like that, and a 100K+ job alone will not get you anywhere close to that amount before retirement age.
Lots of people want to get into IB --> PE, most fail or drop out after some years. Top 10 school with a 3.5 GPA is hardly special.
financehardo420 Should i (x1) 1y ago
I actually already read it; great book.
And yeah you’re right but if you think about it being retired at 1-3m nets you about 100-300k a year pre tax off investing your networth. While that’s nothing to scoff at it’s certainly not affording you multi million dollar watches or 800k+ sports cars. 20m networth (by retirement) would be much more desirable for me bc that should yield about 2m a year less taxes for fun coupons haha.
Right that is very true. But if you stay the course for a full ~20 year career or so and don’t engage in irrational spending habits I believe you can honestly expect to build a 20m networth minimum (also assuming you don’t get divorce raped in the process). Hardly special but every year they need to hire new analysts; think approx 10,000 top ten finance majors come out every year. There’s def 10k+ fin analyst roles that are available every year I think it really just boils down to how bad you want it/how ace you are on the technicals at the end of the day
AsianDude 1y ago
I don't want to discourage you but according to the USA Census Bureau, household wealth at the 90th percentile is only US$1,623,000 (source: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2023/demo/p70br-183.pdf).
Trying to achieve x12+ of a 90th percentile result over a ~20 year career, will be difficult. You will need to look at annual salaries/income in the 1M range and not 100+K range to achieve that sort of networth over a ~20 year period.
financehardo420 Should i (x1) 1y ago
You’re not wrong hence sticking long term w PE and not burning out. Eventually you can even invest your savings in projects that typically enjoy 20-30% roi instead of the typical 10
Intrepid_Place53900 1 1y ago
Ok, I'm an old timer, almost ready to retire after 35 years of working. Will retire comfortably, even after giving my ex 1/2.
I'm an engineer, in the US.
How did it accumulate wealth?
I lived "below" my means.
I could buy expensive new cars, but I didn't.
I could have bought a really expensive house, but didn't
I could have gone on really top vacations, but I didn't.
I did the 50/30/20 plan. well, kind of more like 50/25/25
Do not spend more than 50% of your salary on living expenses (combined), rent/mortgage, food, car expenses, utilites, insurance,etc.
25 for ( retirement savings)
25 for (wants) vacations, nice clothes, hobbys
Sounds boring? It works, it takes dedication and time.
I had nice cars, a few boats, did nice vacations and had a lot of fun, helped my kids with college. But, I didn't break the bank.
right off the bat you say, you "need" to earn at least 100K.
You could get that, coming from a top 10 business school. So, we'll see. salary is one thing, stock options, benefits, vacation time, matching 401k, etc, are part of the whole package. That doesn't even include , is your boss cool? Is the work environment good, do they have good learning opportunitys for growth,etc? Do they pay for education?
Much more important than maxing out the salary.
Focus on growth, what skills/experience are in high demand and keep ahead of the job market. I"ve switched (careers several times over 35 years, not jobs, careers). You have to be flexible and stay in demand.
also, I kind of like what I do. I know people who are miserable at work, hate their job. Don't be them. Find something you actually like doing and enjoy.
Hope it helps.
Boosted_Arrow 1y ago
Does your username come from the intrepid carrier in NYC?
Intrepid_Place53900 1 1y ago
no, but I've visited it.
financehardo420 Should i (x1) 1y ago
Living beneath my means is my middle name friend.
Much appreciated:)
ogrilla99 1y ago
So you may not like this answer, but here goes: you're probably not going to get into IB/PE. Because you're 28 and just out of college. You're way behind the eight ball. Most guys on that route get an analyst job straight out of college at 22, work for 2-3 years, then get their MBA, and return to the field at 25/26. Then work on a trading desk at an IB for several years before lateral'ing into a hedge fund or PE.
Unless you have a very good reason for applying for an entry-level job at 28 (the only good reason is: I was finishing a PhD in Math. That's just about the only reason that won't harm you when applying for an entry-level job in finance), you will be looked on as a weirdo or an idiot (I'm not saying you are; just that that's what they'll view you as, and they have hundreds of other applicants with perfect credentials so why would they waste time on you?)
If you really want it, I guess you can try, but be prepared to get zero interviews, or maybe some spots outside of the top spots like NYC or London. You can still make good money in secondary centers like Chicago but it's not like NYC.
The main opportunity I think that you might still get is consulting. If you can get into bulge bracket management consulting (like McKinsey, Bain, etc) you can start pretty high and go up from there. Plus, it's easy to get hired into a good spot in industry after spending a few years in consulting. But this also depends on what you did for the 6 extra years it took you to finish your degree. If you were working in an industry, that could be valuable and will give you a leg-up vs. a college grad with no real-life experience. If you were fucking around island-hopping in Thailand, then it'll be a black mark.
If you can't get directly into mgmt consulting, then your best bet, assuming you want to stay in business / finance, maybe to get an industry job (which will be
financehardo420 Should i (x1) 1y ago
I mean valid but there’s almost always couple exceptions here and there. One guy from my school was 28 and had a prior career as a backstage camera guy; ended up at Perella Weinberg in chi. I figure I wouldn’t stand much of a shot at nyc yet but something like regional or middle market banking maybe (if I send out like couple hundred networking emails a week). Year or two in somewhere like Chicago or Texas (preferably miami) etc; maybe then go to nyc?
Sadly have no such incredibly good reason; hoping to just be stone cold on technicals and behaviorals. Only sauce is 1st gen American; paid my way through school. Went to one school out of hs but dropped out; stayed in cc for 3 years didn’t really know what to do; then found my b school and earned admission after transferring there. Also had 2 shoulder surgeries from a rugby injury, a bit of a phase with seizures that have since stopped, grandma passed, + a (couple) breakup(s) w the oneitis haha. Black mark as in rip or black mark as in gonna have to be ace in interviews?
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financehardo420 Should i (x1) 1y ago
FYI I didn’t downvote this haha idk who did.
That is a bit of a fact but i dunno. I grew up w immigrant parents it’s my job to lay the foundation for my future kiddos so they can afford the luxuries of doing something satisfying to them vs creating generational wealth