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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

#161

Post by neilv »

I've sometimes wished that a couple of the FAANGs had less prestige, since I would've gone to one of them years ago.

Now that they're institutionalized go-to career steps/destinations for so many people, there's so much interview prep and ritual to go through.

Investing hundreds of hours in Leetcode prepping and then interviewing is justifiable if your main goal is simply to get hired at one of the prestigious companies, and that's just the next in a line of required steps of things that you don't want to do but that will get you that prestigious job.

But having to drill Leetcode is discouraging or prohibitive, if you already have significant skills and credentials more relevant to the job, and your main goal is to do good work, in a good environment, on good things.

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

#162

Post by est31 »

treis wrote: post #120
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 gon…

Google has changed the world, and it likely will change it in the future, but will you get the job that does the changing, or will you just end up working on a project that's going to be cancelled in 3 years because it only attracted hundreds of millions of people instead of billions?

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

#163

Post by Clubber »

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…

>'I like coding and interesting problems'

From what I understand, after all the hullabaloos in interviewing, most programmers at these companies are assigned menial, boring maintenance code tasks all day.

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

#164

Post by mdorazio »

wayoutthere wrote: post #16
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…

I work in consulting, and I’d say the top-end in consulting is still higher and much more of a safe bet. It’s not uncommon for people in consulting to be making $500k-$1m annually by the age of 40. If you’re a partner, compensation can be significantly higher than that; in the $2M-20M range. I think there was a golden era of startups capturing value from the old guard, but that era is largely over IMO. All of those t…

I also work in consulting and think it's a bad comparison. At the top levels of consulting most of your job and a good portion of your comp are tied up in sales/profitability, and client/account management with a pretty crappy lifestyle and work/life balance to match. It's significantly more grueling and less of a "coast to riches" path by far than big tech, although you're right that take-home comp can definitely be higher if the aforementioned job type is up your alley.

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

#165

Post by andrewmcwatters »

jcheng wrote: post #57
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I mean the actual starting salaries based on employment data from universities themselves tell us there’s only a marginal difference in those who graduate between the institutions. If you look at the degrees themselves as a form of capital investment, Ivy League schools don’t translate into “paying off,” as it were.

Here’s one source that says the difference is significant, to put it mildly. Do you have a better source you can cite? https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/school/?166027-Harvard-Unive... https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/school/?240444-University-of... Edit: Actually the third state school I looked up is not far off! https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/school/?236948-University-of...

What are you talking about? Those are distributions; and they swing just as wildly as the broader US workforce. These people aren't making 250k out of the door, nor mid-career. It's just not impressive.

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

#166

Post by jeffbee »

bigcorp-slave wrote: post #151
jeffbee wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I wonder if your employer appreciates your injection of your own personal ideological axe-to-grind into their hiring pipeline. If I found out that any of my employees was rejecting candidates we were paying to bring on-site out of hand due to their previous employer, I would fire that person instantly.

My employer has specifically asked us to make ethics the top item in our interview feedback, thanks for asking.

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

#167

Post by andrewmcwatters »

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

Fascinating, most of the top schools are engineering heavy, and their mid-career pays are exactly inline with engineering pay.

Who would have thought?

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

#168

Post by drewmate »

darawk wrote: post #76

This article briefly touches the real explanation: > When we listen to prestige, we're often opting for a path of certainty, while foregoing whatever promising thing was just around the corner. But it doesn't quite dwell on it as the important component of the answer that it truly is. Prestige and credentialism certainly have to do with peer pressure, but they also have a lot to do with risk reduction . And this is t…

This is a fantastic insight! I had never considered the Sharpe ratio of my career choices before, but I think subconsciously, I have been all along.

As someone without a prestigious university reputation (or accompanying network) backing me, I think I've really prioritized stability and low risk (but pretty good) move for my career.

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

#169

Post by whimsicalism »

ls612 wrote: post #127
hailwren wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(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?

> 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?

If it's a good flagship, absolutely can keep up.

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

#170

Post by bartvk »

lumost wrote: post #85
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…

Monetary success historically flowed to founders, and those off the beaten path. 20 years ago startups provided a strong path to success with friends and family often getting excited when the next hot app/website was something you worked on. It’s difficult to replicate either the social or monetary prestige these days, as monetary rewards flow to VC and known consumer experiences are crowded.

Since bloggers such as Mr. Money Mustache gained a bit of fame, I don't think it's limited anymore to business owners.
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