The Prestige Trap: finance, big tech, and consulting • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by Gunax » Sat, Nov 14, 2020, 10:18 PM UTC

I don't think a lot of people know what they want. There is just as much guessing as to which job to take as employers have choosing who to hire.

Taking the most prestigious or most compensation is the safest bet, given that you don't really know what you want to do other than 'I like coding and interesting problems'.

Partly I think that Harvard students have been adapted to seek prestige (else they probably wouldn't be there), but I also think the author is missing that it isn't so much a drive for prestige, but just a lack of other goals for which to substitute.

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

#112

Post by whimsicalism » Sat, Nov 14, 2020, 10:21 PM UTC

currymj wrote: post #93

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.

The Ivies and comparable schools actually are now incredibly generous with financial aid. For instance Harvard automatically gives a full scholarship to any accepted student whose family makes less than $65,000 per year. For Stanford, the cutoff is $125,000. There are other private schools that are as you describe, though.

> For instance Harvard automatically gives a full scholarship to any accepted student whose family makes less than $65,000 per year.

This is not strictly true, although it is mostly true.

source: attended Harvard with family income less than $65k

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

#113

Post by toomuchtodo » Sat, Nov 14, 2020, 10:23 PM UTC

emteycz wrote: post #45

toomuchtodo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legislation and regulation.

Meh, I absolutely don't believe that's the way. That's how we get the market to halt. I was thinking more of teaching business and management skills to engineers.

So “meet the new boss, same as the old boss”?

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

#114

Post by whimsicalism » Sat, Nov 14, 2020, 10:23 PM UTC

emteycz wrote: post #53

throwaway98797 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that view that common in Europe? Seems awfully self-serving to be the broad consensus.

In central Europe, public universities that are free for all are the norm, sometimes even for foreigners (other EU citizens are not even considered foreigners). For-profit schools are often of questionable quality, serving those who couldn't pass the bar of the easiest of the free public schools, or are unable to make the minimal commitment to pass them, but still want the diploma. It doesn't help that these for-prof…

Harvard is private, yes, but it's not for-profit. Those schools are likewise considered low-quality in the states.

Harvard is a non-public non-profit, and is cheaper than the comparable public university for 90% of Americans after aid.

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

#115

Post by whimsicalism » Sat, Nov 14, 2020, 10:27 PM UTC

hailwren wrote: post #80

whimsicalism wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 5 year EV is much lower in tech than finance for Harvard grads. I'm not sure ab consulting. Based on what? This is not true in my experience, unless you're comparing finance tech to FANG tech, in which case it is true. Moreover, at Harvard, some segment of those who go into finance are "connected" with higher paying finance jobs due to their parents/etc. Consulting salaries are lower (sometimes substantially) than…

Yeah, tech has a starting salary advantage but FAANG just doesn't compare on the upside. What's the top 10% of FAANG outcomes (for Harvard grads) after 5 years? 500k, maybe? The jump to MD in finance makes 1M+ something like 10-20% of outcomes (for Harvard grads) after 10 years. I'd be very surprised if it were that common in tech (over the next 10 years, I know that it was better in the 2000s). I think quickest to M…

But finance is up and out. The typical Harvard student in finance is not making that much, even 5 years out. I know plenty of them.

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

#116

Post by xivzgrev » Sat, Nov 14, 2020, 10:31 PM UTC

Harvard students are primarily interested in companies with reputable names? What a shocker.

Students who go to a selective school, often want to go to selective companies and continue to build their “brand” to maximize their success (or at least optionality).

It’s usually later on when people figure out what’s important to them and are confident enough to stray for the default path. For example, my current company is a well known one, but isn’t FANG. I chose there because I use / care about the product, and the culture is pretty much exactly what I was looking for. It’s growing, I’m paid well, and I’m relatively happy. I don’t feel the urge anymore to work for the hottest companies or what not.

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

#117

Post by dodobirdlord » Sat, Nov 14, 2020, 10:37 PM UTC

tudelo wrote: post #47

scarmig wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are amorphous borders between programmer, developer, and software engineer, but there are roughly ~4 million "programmers/engineers" in the USA. So call it ~5%?

I personally would consider top 5 percent of any task to be the low bar of proficiency, so even that doesn't seem super impressive to me. But damn, the jobs pay well and wlb can be great (or terrible). I guess the weird part is that the process of getting hired is so different than the day to day work.

> I personally would consider top 5 percent of any task to be the low bar of proficiency, so even that doesn't seem super impressive to me.

Top 5% among paid professionals is your low bar of proficiency?

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

#118

Post by seppin » Sat, Nov 14, 2020, 10:41 PM UTC

Gunax wrote: post #111

I don't think a lot of people know what they want. There is just as much guessing as to which job to take as employers have choosing who to hire. Taking the most prestigious or most compensation is the safest bet, given that you don't really know what you want to do other than 'I like coding and interesting problems'. Partly I think that Harvard students have been adapted to seek prestige (else they probably wouldn't…

Exactly, everyone acts like there is some grand plan/design to all decision making. Everyone is just winging it.

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

#119

Post by Tomminn » Sat, Nov 14, 2020, 10:47 PM UTC

This essay is weakened significantly by one glaring clanger. If this person had equal levels of talent and yet wasn’t from the place they are, they would never make the foolish statement: “exposure to prestige can't make you successful any more than spending time around rich people can make you wealthy”.

Apart from that I think they’ve got some of the causality the wrong way around. Consulting and finance are not buying excellence, they’re buying prestige. If you become excellent, no-one in top tier FTC will care, except maybe the T strand of that. F and C never wanted your excellence, they wanted to use your prestige as a cover for extracting large fees from high net worth individuals and companies respectively. The T strand is interesting, because the value of your prestige here isn’t to the company as a whole, but rather this is just another high net worth company you as an individual can target to extract high fees from using prestige as your weapon.

So if you’re an Ivy league grad, generally your most valuable asset is your prestige, not your skill. You can make an entire career based on being prestigious, so long as you’re careful not to dilute it. And this is why T is grouped with F and C: if you take a career inside top tier FTC, you maintain your prestige, outside it you dilute your prestige, and therefore dilute your most valuable asset.

The point that he’s missing is that Ivy league grads are not the top students. They are the most prestigious students. The top students in terms of excellence are scattered around the country/world and most come from universities you’ve never heard of. And will hopefully succeed by sheer excellence. And companies that hire these students will rise, and companies that hire prestigious students over the excellent students will fall (unless their business model is based on the projection of prestige).

So he doesn’t need to worry about the future. The future is fine. Him and his classmates were never the future, except for the future of extracting large fees from high net worth individuals and companies.

All that said, it’s nothing but great if he’s deciding to start playing the excellence game and stop playing the prestige game. I just think he’ll be surprised at how close to zero he’s located at within that game if he starts playing it in earnest.

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

#120

Post by treis » Sat, Nov 14, 2020, 10:50 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #5

Much of this blog post speaks to my experience (probably because we went to the same school at pretty much the same time). That said, I think the thesis is a bit overstated. The reason many more Harvard CS students talk about Google > Stripe is not because Stripe is not prestigious (it obviously is, and plenty of super talented students go there). It's because Google hires a ton of Harvard CS grads, whereas many late…

>Google > Stripe is not because Stripe is not prestigious (it obviously is, and plenty of super talented students go there).

I think Google is a pretty clear step above Stripe. They have legitimately changed the world and billions of people use their products. Stripe is a payment processing firm. A very successful one, but ultimately a pretty boring b2b business. Im not sure anyone would really miss it if it were gone.