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

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

#121

Post by hailwren » Sat, Nov 14, 2020, 10:52 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #115

hailwren wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I needed to rewrite this. I mean something like if I select an individual, uniformly at random, after conditioning on industry and Harvard degree I would expect the salaries of most of the individuals in both industries to be about the same. However, I think tech is closer to a normal distribution and finance is heavy-tailed around tech's mean.

If you do something like conditioning on a CS degree, finance probably mops the floor w/ tech.

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

#122

Post by bliss » Sat, Nov 14, 2020, 10:52 PM UTC

I work for a well known media company where I live, a brand, our grad scheme is really good (disclaimer I'm a small part of that) and attracts the best of the best out of colleges, people like having my company on their CV, it doesn't do any harm, our allumni typically go on to have good careers, or stay for the long haul. We love it when our people take the skills we've honed into, for example, Amazon, JP Morgan and amazingly often return to the fold and are welcomed back with open arms. There isn't a prestige trap really, but maybe we just think we're the best of the best and going anywhere else is just for rounding out experience.

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

#123

Post by hhmc » Sat, Nov 14, 2020, 10:56 PM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #81

shostack wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you made a biased decision about a candidate based on where they worked rather than evaluate them on their ability to perform in the role relative to other candidates?

No, I evaluated their lack of a functioning moral framework to conclude they couldn't possibly perform a function in my organization because ethics are much more important than the ability to traverse directed graphs in pseudo-code on whiteboards. If a candidate told me they got fired for intentionally sabotaging Palantir's production operations, that would neutralize the issue. So far haven't met that person.

Why bother interviewing them at all?

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

#124

Post by UMetaGOMS » Sat, Nov 14, 2020, 11:02 PM UTC

I am definitely guilty of chasing some fusion of prestige and money, with no greater goal. It has recently become a concern to me that I really can't pick out anything more worthwhile than my current FAANG role as a "thing to do with my life"... and yet observing from the inside has shown how underwhelming and borderline dysfunctional these companies can be.

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

#125

Post by jyu » Sat, Nov 14, 2020, 11:11 PM UTC

Curious why he would need to move to a more prestigious position? Most people realize by their 30s that prestige is a sucker's game; it's a way of inducing people to do things that aren't much fun and they wouldn't really want to do on their own, by lauding them with accolades from people they don't really care about.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11833832

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

#126

Post by jeffbee » Sat, Nov 14, 2020, 11:12 PM UTC

friendlybus wrote: post #109

Gibbon1 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone that worked at Palantir is potentially a mole.

How is that different to microsoft logging your keystrokes or google reading your email? Having to deal with old fashioned employee espionage seems quaint.

Most people can tell the difference between an activity that provides a clear benefit, like classifying my emails, and one that provides no personal benefit, such as selling mass surveillance as a service to the highest bidder. If you can’t tell the difference than your ethical framework isn’t serving you.

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

#127

Post by ls612 » Sat, Nov 14, 2020, 11:13 PM UTC

hailwren wrote: post #106

vikinghckr wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Top 10% of FAANG is, what, around 30K-40K in raw numbers? What's the top 10% in Big Finance? I'd bet it's far lower number compared to that. So it's not apples to apples comparison. If you compare what top 10,000 FAANG engineers make 10 years into their careers vs what top 10,000 finance folks make 10 years into theirs, I'm pretty sure FAANG will come out ahead.

(for Harvard grads) is the important part there.

Is it because they have ‘Harvard’ on their resumes or is it that Harvard still admits mostly some of the smartest and most driven people in the country? Ie could a person who is in the top 2% of a flagship state school keep up with the top 10% Harvard grad or is that name on their resume forever going to hold them back?

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

#128

Post by Technically » Sat, Nov 14, 2020, 11:14 PM UTC

xivzgrev wrote: post #116

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 i…

Describing a school like "Harvard" as selective is trivially equating "arbitrary and biased" with some kind of semantic merit. Realistically, if you get into harvard you are lucky, wealthy, or usable for marketing. They have no desire to convince you otherwise by simply increasing their allowed student number, especially to compete internationally—by numbers, they are mostly effective via attracting people, not through education.

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

#129

Post by Technically » Sat, Nov 14, 2020, 11:21 PM UTC

Honestly, I have no clue what prestige buys you.

The people prestige attracts are vapid garbage. The rest is a matter of negotiating price. The networking power buys you is merely a means to lower your price and get in to opportunities sooner. To seek these as ends themselves reeks of sociopathy.

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

#130

Post by nitrogen » Sat, Nov 14, 2020, 11:23 PM UTC

scarmig wrote: post #38

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

My mediocre high school used to give presentations about how pointless it was to go to a big name school. One of the claims was that, after ten years, all differences in median incomes were gone. Curiously they didn't break it down into percentiles.

Everyone in the advisors' office bought into this public-school-to-public-university pipeline. My dream in junior high was to go to MIT. When I mentioned this to my guidance counselor, they said, basically, "Don't bother, you'll never get in." Self-fulfilling prophecy.