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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

#191

Post by shuckles »

wayoutthere wrote: post #183
emteycz wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would a software engineer/previously small startup 'CTO' get into consulting like this?

I know this is gonna sound corny, but apply for jobs at any of the big 4 to learn the industry, and after a couple years you’ll know the companies you want to work for and have connections through co-workers who have left. Consulting is all about politics and connections, so thinking those aren’t directly correlated to wealth is naive.

Do you see this industry loosening its expectations for an MBA? That is nearly $1m of opportunity cost to some of the technologists who might be interested in growing a management consulting career.

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

#192

Post by username90 »

Clubber wrote: post #163
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.

Google has a ton of interesting work, but the worst engineers at Google don't get to do it and you are unlikely to get such a position as a new grad. But as long as you do good work you can easily switch to an interesting team after a year. And since the first year as a new grad you mostly learn the ropes how to design services, write tests, write readable code, deploy to production etc, so most things are interesting anyway.

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

#193

Post by mynameishere »

jeffbee wrote: post #166
bigcorp-slave wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You've said many foolish things in this thread, but you should at least consider the fact that if your employer considers ethics important, and then asks you to interview prospects from such an "unethical" company, your own company's ethics are clearly contrary to your own.

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

#194

Post by whimsicalism »

lcc wrote: post #185
treis wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

It's hard to argue against what Google has accomplished in the last 20 years. But in my Bay Area social circle, working at Stripe is considered more prestigious. These days Google is big, boring, bureaucratic, and maybe a little evil. Stripe is successful, growing, pays at least comparably well and has way more potential financial upside. They're also known to have a high hiring bar and a great dev culture. I've hear…

I've always perceived working in finance/payment infrastructure as more "evil" than ad-tech. Is that not the general perception?

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

#195

Post by Spooky23 »

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…

Great point.

My cousin grew up in a nice northern jersey suburb. Circa 2003, everyone in her circle was trying to get into the same 6 schools to be a doctor or investment banker.

It was weird but rational path to achieve a similar lifestyle. Of course my uncle was an accountant and my aunt a social worker... they bought into suburbia in the 80s when you did not need to be a doctor!

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

#196

Post by hanoz »

thrav wrote: post #133
dvtrn wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I felt that way about my own life. Still so sometimes. Though far, far less than I used to, and feeling noticeably less anxiety about it previously. A Relevant bit of reading, I think, I hope: https://fs.blog/2014/05/hunter-s-thompson-to-hume-logan/

Yeah, this is a popular saying, but couldn’t be further from the truth for the most successful people. Generally, they begin with an end in mind. It’s a lot easier to get where you’re going if you know where that is. Or, as the Cheshire Cat says to Alice, “Which way should I go?” “Where do you want to go?” “I don’t much care.” “Then it doesn’t really matter.” (Abridged)

I'm not sure the Cheshire Cat was really extolling the virtues of knowing where you want to get to.

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

#197

Post by dpeck »

JayPeaEm wrote: post #142
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 don't think a lot of people know what they want. > Just a lack of other goals for which to substitute. Ding ding. I've mentored students/grads from aforementioned prestigious Universities and most of them just genuinely don't know what they want After a few drinks, many have voiced a fear of there being so many options in life and not knowing which would be more fulfilling for them. Many reach a goal (graduation~…

I understand why, those of us without anyone to emulate professionally have a tough path with pitfalls and charlatans in every direction.

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

#198

Post by Spooky23 »

nitrogen wrote: post #130
scarmig wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 guida…

They were right.

The 90th percentile earner from the Harvard class of 2010 didn’t come from some random high school in Missouri with an 1000 median SAT score.

Guidance counselors suck every where. Mine was a national guard major, 18% of my class joined the military.

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

#199

Post by noisy_boy »

JayPeaEm wrote: post #142
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 don't think a lot of people know what they want. > Just a lack of other goals for which to substitute. Ding ding. I've mentored students/grads from aforementioned prestigious Universities and most of them just genuinely don't know what they want After a few drinks, many have voiced a fear of there being so many options in life and not knowing which would be more fulfilling for them. Many reach a goal (graduation~…

I was a mediocre student in a decent university and I basically chose my course because bunch of older seniors we looked up to suggested that the course had good job "prospects". The only thing I discovered from that course is that I loved writing code in Fortran while doing one of the electives (I actually wrote it on paper in my exam because we didn't have access to computers). I call that my the most lucky and important break.

I never worked on anything related to what I mainly studied and am thankfully programming now (not in Fortran though) and know that this is what I wanted all along.

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

#200

Post by srtjstjsj »

OJFord wrote: post #156
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 don't think a lot of people know what they want. I would go further: I think a lot of people don't know what they want.

That's the same thing
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