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The Prestige Trap: finance, big tech, and consulting

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Re: The Prestige Trap: finance, big tech, and consulting

#31

Post by whimsicalism »

scarmig wrote: post #30
whimsicalism wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the typical Harvard student, tech is better paying than consulting unless you are an extraordinarily successful consultant. > It’s not uncommon for people in consulting to be making $500k-$1m annually by the age of 40 This is not "uncommon" in FANG either (just take a look at the salary charts), and if anything can be reached earlier. > there was a golden era of startups capturing value from the old guard, but th…

> If I could take a bet against this, I would Can't you, by starting or (much less favorably) joining a startup?

Betting on technology capturing value in general over "jack-of-all-trades" consultancy vs. betting on one particular startup capturing value.

Re: The Prestige Trap: finance, big tech, and consulting

#32

Post by dasil003 »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #15
samfisher83 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most people did ok. Enron had a lot of really smart people. Morally bankrupt, but very smart. No different than any of these big tech companies. People like money, smart people will be attracted to it. Companies like smart people so I don't think they will have a hard time getting another job.

As with many corrupt organizations Enron was full of good people who had no power and never did anything morally wrong. A select few held the power or agency to act selfishly and did so. It didn’t become apparent to many employees that something was amiss until shortly before the FBI raided them.

Of course we can't paint all employees of any company with one brush, but I don't think we should let the majority of Enron employees off the hook so easily. That kind of systemic fraud requires cooperation or at least a large number of individuals to look the other way. I realize some innocent people's reputation will be hurt, but there needs to be some social pressure for whistle blowers otherwise the risk reward is always such that "a few bad apples" will take the risk enabled by the silent majority "just doing their jobs".

Re: The Prestige Trap: finance, big tech, and consulting

#33

Post by jeffbee »

bla3 wrote: post #21

> For the majority of Ivy Leaguers, the most impressive thing they've accomplished is achieving admission to their university. Is this a common view in the US? In central Europe, the view is that ivy leagues are for people who need external validation so much that they are willing to pay through the nose for it. This view explains the rest of the article too.

Mostly you can't buy your way into an Ivy. You have to have the right social connections. When I worked for a New York broker half the partners were outright imbeciles with Yale educations. They got into Yale because of their ridiculous WASP names.

Re: The Prestige Trap: finance, big tech, and consulting

#34

Post by whimsicalism »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #28
amb23 wrote: post #9

The problem with prestige is that you, yourself, may not care about it, but those around it still do and still use it for social signaling. That affects the rationality of the decisions you make around your career in serious ways. I think one of the problems around targeting prestige vs. targeting excellence is that we know what it takes to do something prestigious, but excellence is hard to define, and generally com…

This isn’t a problem we as Americans need to fix. It fixes itself. For instance, the average Ivy League graduate only makes marginally more money than your public school graduate. By the time you’re making even low 6 figures, the idea of interacting with an Stanford grad who has done nothing of note with their education and makes something comparable to you is quaint. Generally speaking, distribution of US income as…

> the average Ivy League graduate only makes marginally more money than your public school graduate.

Sorry, what? The average Ivy League graduate makes substantially more than your average non-Ivy graduate.

I don't even understand what your second sentence is trying to say.

Re: The Prestige Trap: finance, big tech, and consulting

#36

Post by tmsh »

The reason people who drop out of prestigious schools to pursue projects become the most successful is because they are 0% concerned about credentialism for themselves.

The minute you start hiding behind / pursuing opportunities because of social status is the minute you start your descent into laziness and lack of useful impact.

Everything is a balance. I relate to how pursuing prestige in schools can lead to pursuing promos. But in general use Harvard or wherever for great learning, and with promo projects pursue actual meaningful work. It’s really the most sustainable way.

Source: it’s a lot more satisfying to pursue a promo project that helps everyone on your team (e.g., engineering excellence etc).

And yeah obviously students rarely have a correct idea about the real world (just haven’t seen enough of it yet). Interesting hypotheses though.

Re: The Prestige Trap: finance, big tech, and consulting

#37

Post by jeffbee »

samfisher83 wrote: post #7
config_yml wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As Steve Blank said, in 5 years, having FB on your resume will be like Enron. I hope he’s right.

I think most people did ok. Enron had a lot of really smart people. Morally bankrupt, but very smart. No different than any of these big tech companies. People like money, smart people will be attracted to it. Companies like smart people so I don't think they will have a hard time getting another job.

I've interviewed several smart people from Palantir and naturally I did not hire them. They might as well wear a scarlet letter.

Re: The Prestige Trap: finance, big tech, and consulting

#38

Post by scarmig »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #28
amb23 wrote: post #9

The problem with prestige is that you, yourself, may not care about it, but those around it still do and still use it for social signaling. That affects the rationality of the decisions you make around your career in serious ways. I think one of the problems around targeting prestige vs. targeting excellence is that we know what it takes to do something prestigious, but excellence is hard to define, and generally com…

This isn’t a problem we as Americans need to fix. It fixes itself. For instance, the average Ivy League graduate only makes marginally more money than your public school graduate. By the time you’re making even low 6 figures, the idea of interacting with an Stanford grad who has done nothing of note with their education and makes something comparable to you is quaint. Generally speaking, distribution of US income as…

> the average Ivy League graduate only makes marginally more money than your public school graduate

I'm pretty sure that's not true. I doubt there's much of an actual value-add in going to an elite school, but the average incomes of graduates of them are substantially higher than that of random public school graduates.

https://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report/bachelors

Re: The Prestige Trap: finance, big tech, and consulting

#39

Post by whimsicalism »

jeffbee wrote: post #33
bla3 wrote: post #21

> For the majority of Ivy Leaguers, the most impressive thing they've accomplished is achieving admission to their university. Is this a common view in the US? In central Europe, the view is that ivy leagues are for people who need external validation so much that they are willing to pay through the nose for it. This view explains the rest of the article too.

Mostly you can't buy your way into an Ivy. You have to have the right social connections. When I worked for a New York broker half the partners were outright imbeciles with Yale educations. They got into Yale because of their ridiculous WASP names.

This continues to be the case, but used to be the case more than it is now. Specifically for Yale, it has really become much less blue-blooded, WASPy in the last 2 decades.

Re: The Prestige Trap: finance, big tech, and consulting

#40

Post by notacoward »

ackbar03 wrote: post #13
notacoward wrote: post #6

I find two things to disagree with in this article. First is the premise that equally high compensation is offered elsewhere in each industry. I don't know about finance or consulting, but at least for FAANG it doesn't seem to be true. Second is the overlooked explanation that it's headroom - not prestige - that accounts for the difference. I'll provide an example that illustrates both points: me. When I went from Re…

In general though from what I read on hn I get the impression that it sucks to be an early employee at most startups, especially early stage. From what I've read a lot of compensation seems to be in equity and not cash, and unless it takes off like faang, you end up severely ubderpaid relative to what you could be making

> it sucks to be an early employee at most startups

Absolutely. I worked at ten, with employee numbers from single digits up to about fifty. As we all know, most startups fail. Even among those that succeed, few employees avoid all of the traps that founders and VCs create for them (e.g. dilution and special share classes) to get more than a modest payout at the exit. For most, even that "big payout" might not match the year-after-year premium they could have gotten by working and climbing the ladder at one of the already-big tech companies.

As one point of evidence, my two semi-successful exits did help me retire earlier and in more comfort than I otherwise might have. I'm grateful for that. OTOH, my three and a half undistinguished years at Facebook helped more.

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