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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

#201

Post by rhizome »

Tinyyy wrote: post #147
rhizome wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the first things you might notice in some of the job ads for those firms: instead of "Compensation: competitive salary, 0.0x% equity," you'll start seeing phrases like "extremely high compensation." Then you'll start really feeling like you're not in Kansas. In this vein, the tech industry screws its employees as far as their share of revenue-per-employee goes. Apple makes 10x per employee what Jane St. does,…

From someone working at Jane Street, Apple definitely does not make 10x per employee what Jane Street does.

These numbers are easy to find, but sure, let's break out our calculators. By recent generic numbers, Jane street does $171MM revenues across 900 employees. Apple has $274B revenues across 137,000 heads.

$190,000 vs. $2,000,000. Netflix is even higher: $2.4MM. What numbers do you have?

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

#202

Post by pram »

rconti wrote: post #46

I've always found prestige to be so strange. I suppose it helps that I went to smaller Jesuit school rather than some big top-tier Ivy or similar. That said, I've kind of gone the opposite direction. I've always worked in tech companies, in production environments, for companies you may-or-may-not have heard of. I never understood why engineers from Big Name companies were considered so much 'better'. Now I work at a…

I've worked at plenty of big name companies you've heard of, and I have not experienced what you describe. Oracle, for example, was pretty much about showing up at work every day.

Personally I think they churn out 'better' engineers simply because you are afforded more opportunities to work on things that can be of enormous scale, specificity, and complexity.

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

#203

Post by srtjstjsj »

rhizome wrote: post #102
npip99 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait a second, am I missing out right now? I have an opportunity at Jane Street, but I haven't been exposed to any of the other small name firms. Where do I look to find the higher paying jobs?

One of the first things you might notice in some of the job ads for those firms: instead of "Compensation: competitive salary, 0.0x% equity," you'll start seeing phrases like "extremely high compensation." Then you'll start really feeling like you're not in Kansas. In this vein, the tech industry screws its employees as far as their share of revenue-per-employee goes. Apple makes 10x per employee what Jane St. does,…

Comparing revenue between industries is nonsense. Profit says something.

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

#204

Post by srtjstjsj »

rhizome wrote: post #201
Tinyyy wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From someone working at Jane Street, Apple definitely does not make 10x per employee what Jane Street does.

These numbers are easy to find, but sure, let's break out our calculators. By recent generic numbers, Jane street does $171MM revenues across 900 employees. Apple has $274B revenues across 137,000 heads. $190,000 vs. $2,000,000. Netflix is even higher: $2.4MM. What numbers do you have?

Profit matters, not revenue.

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

#205

Post by srtjstjsj »

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…

> the school on your diploma has much larger impact at these big, more calcified companies than it does on startups where individual hires could help make-or-break the company

Google and Facebook hired almost exclusively from Ivy League and equivalents during their "make or break" phase.

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

#206

Post by srtjstjsj »

whimsicalism wrote: post #194
lcc wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

What's evil about helping consenting adults transmit money?

Stripe isn't a monopoly like Visa.

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

#207

Post by snazz »

Boxxed wrote: post #187
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 completely agree. I really like this article, which I felt like I could have written: https://www.benkuhn.net/hard/

Thanks for sharing! That article is very good food for thought as a current student.

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

#208

Post by nitrogen »

Spooky23 wrote: post #198
nitrogen wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Medians are misleading. Some random high school in Missouri probably has outliers that it just doesn't know how to deal with. Additionally, maintaining low expectations perpetuates a cycle of underachievement.

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

#209

Post by chrisgd »

namdnay wrote: post #77
chrisgd wrote: post #65

Goldman, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan have all moved down market and lead most IPOs these days. Everyone else is fighting for 30% or less of the fees. As a CEO, you can’t lose your job if they mess up your IPO. But if you choose Jefferies and they blow it, you can get fired. There is a term for this that is escaping me right now. There is also a potentially easier path to get an intro as the Goldman brand name carries…

That argument was originally used for IBM I think?

That same thing was said in reference to those banks and IBM 15 years ago too

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

#210

Post by ativzzz »

shuckles wrote: post #191
wayoutthere wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A good MBA program will help you develop those exact connections the parent comment mentions
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