Goldman Sachs Tells Interns to End the Late, Late Show • Hacker News Board

Re: Goldman Sachs Tells Interns to End the Late, Late Show

#51

Post by stephengillie » Thu, Jun 18, 2015, 5:41 PM UTC

whatok wrote: post #45

stephengillie wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of having one job pay $200,000 per year (let's say total compensation is $350,000) and require 18-24 hours a day of work, you create 2 jobs that each pay $100,000 (total compensation $175,000 each) and only require 9-12 hours per shift. OR You could create 3 shifts at $66,667 (total compensation $117,000 each) and have true around-the-clock coverage!

So people always bring up outsourcing part of the job to some developing country but that would run into the same problem as your third option. Having too many cooks in the kitchen will introduce a lot of operational error while having a few people who know everything about a project will run things smoother even if they are worked to the bone.

Outsourcing to some remote part of some other country, and outsourcing to some remote part of the country you live in, aren't much different.

Many large companies are able to maintain a large number of server operators and perform essential functions without needing one person to do everything. With sufficient communication you can avoid the "too many cooks" problem. I've personally lead highly-communicating teams which avoid this problem. In short what you do is put one of the 3 in charge of different work as it comes up, load balance and collaborate.

But maybe it's cheaper and easier to pay one person a huge amount of money, and beat them up, than to create a highly-communicating organization of people (including email, IM, ticket system, face-to-face time, regular meetings, bridge calls, etc). It certainly looks simpler.

Re: Goldman Sachs Tells Interns to End the Late, Late Show

#52

Post by Jdoemk2 » Thu, Jun 18, 2015, 5:44 PM UTC

georgehotelling wrote: post #43

Chinjut wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the demand is so high, why not simply lower the pay to winnow the candidate pool? Why bother with the insanely complicated funnel instead?

Well it's already $0 in some situations, so... charging people to be interns? You just might have a future in finance.

GS interns get paid loads

Re: Goldman Sachs Tells Interns to End the Late, Late Show

#53

Post by stephengillie » Thu, Jun 18, 2015, 5:45 PM UTC

001sky wrote: post #50

stephengillie wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of having one job pay $200,000 per year (let's say total compensation is $350,000) and require 18-24 hours a day of work, you create 2 jobs that each pay $100,000 (total compensation $175,000 each) and only require 9-12 hours per shift. OR You could create 3 shifts at $66,667 (total compensation $117,000 each) and have true around-the-clock coverage!

That's not a useful solution. Consider they are trying to get 3 candidates for 1 job promotion; having 6 doesn't help it just dilutes the ability to observe. On the other hand, you now have to manage/babysit double the number of over-qualified, highly ambitious people with too much time on their hands. Thats a recipe for trouble. Its the same logic as why PhD programs don't simply double their size when there are ple…

So this is a form of "labor-theater" that signifies a job that shouldn't exist? It's just a show, a play put on, to legitimize the transfer of wealth between the privileged? You make it sound like a false-problem, a social invention where any effort to resolve it is just wasted.

Re: Goldman Sachs Tells Interns to End the Late, Late Show

#54

Post by 001sky » Thu, Jun 18, 2015, 5:55 PM UTC

CornerKicks wrote: post #47

tinbad wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investment banking is all about dealing with other people's money and the customers usually are pretty demanding when it's well, about their money. From what I hear from my investment banker friends a lot of the day is spent socializing and going on client meetings, lunches, dinners to satisfy the relationship and then usually back to the office to do the 'actual work'. It's a lot of hard work but that's why these gu…

Investment banking is about helping companies raise equity, debt and engage in M&A, not dealing with other people's money (maybe your friends were in wealth or asset management, which sometimes sit within the investment bank?) Having been a junior banker myself (and with friends at most banks across wall street) I can tell you that virtually no one is being taken to events or spending days socializing as an intern, l…

I think your response is way too literal. junior people routinely sit (quitely) in higher-level meetings so mid level people don't need to regurgitate stuff. They also spend alot of time developing lower-level social networks so they can function and get stuff done (doesn't need to be socializing with ceo). and all investment banks are (essentially) dealing with other peoples money unless they are prop trading, which is of course not how actual ipos are financed. etc.

Re: Goldman Sachs Tells Interns to End the Late, Late Show

#55

Post by whatok » Thu, Jun 18, 2015, 6:00 PM UTC

stephengillie wrote: post #51

whatok wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So people always bring up outsourcing part of the job to some developing country but that would run into the same problem as your third option. Having too many cooks in the kitchen will introduce a lot of operational error while having a few people who know everything about a project will run things smoother even if they are worked to the bone.

Outsourcing to some remote part of some other country, and outsourcing to some remote part of the country you live in, aren't much different. Many large companies are able to maintain a large number of server operators and perform essential functions without needing one person to do everything. With sufficient communication you can avoid the "too many cooks" problem. I've personally lead highly-communicating teams wh…

Thank you, I'm well-aware that other large companies are able to do all these wonderful things but it really is a different beast.

I think a huge part of it is that the tools do not lend to a very collaborative workflow. Excel and Powerpoint do not exactly have a robust version control system or any great way of leaving any useful comments so that alone makes things difficult.

And honestly, it's probably around the same amount of money if not more expensive to keep a leaner crew but for the type and nature of the work, it's probably more efficient.

And don't get me wrong, there is some outsourcing going on, just not on some "well if all they're doing is powerpoint and excel, why don't they outsource the whole thing" level.

Re: Goldman Sachs Tells Interns to End the Late, Late Show

#56

Post by dkuntz2 » Thu, Jun 18, 2015, 6:12 PM UTC

georgehotelling wrote: post #43

Chinjut wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the demand is so high, why not simply lower the pay to winnow the candidate pool? Why bother with the insanely complicated funnel instead?

Well it's already $0 in some situations, so... charging people to be interns? You just might have a future in finance.

Not in finance they're not. Finance wants the best interns who can actually perform at least some work, and doesn't want to get busted for breaking employment law in regards to unpaid interns.

Re: Goldman Sachs Tells Interns to End the Late, Late Show

#57

Post by 001sky » Thu, Jun 18, 2015, 6:22 PM UTC

stephengillie wrote: post #53

001sky wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a useful solution. Consider they are trying to get 3 candidates for 1 job promotion; having 6 doesn't help it just dilutes the ability to observe. On the other hand, you now have to manage/babysit double the number of over-qualified, highly ambitious people with too much time on their hands. Thats a recipe for trouble. Its the same logic as why PhD programs don't simply double their size when there are ple…

So this is a form of "labor-theater" that signifies a job that shouldn't exist? It's just a show, a play put on, to legitimize the transfer of wealth between the privileged? You make it sound like a false-problem, a social invention where any effort to resolve it is just wasted.

There is a set of legitimate economic issues raised about the cognitive overhead of alternative selection models, etc. Its not like its all in somebody's head. That being said, the trivial view of "meritocratic" selection is not the right model to articulate. These jobs weed out people who don't have a certain level of technical competence, but technical competence (level) is trumped by the speed and consistency (of application) in many cases. Also, the ability to "avoid doing work" is a skill or a feature, not a bug or a liability. Again, this is not really going to line up with the notion of merit being who can do the "most work" at the "highest level". But it turns out one way to test who can "avoid doing needless work" is to force such a high workload that some work must by necessity be avoided. If that makes any sense. I dunno.

Re: Goldman Sachs Tells Interns to End the Late, Late Show

#58

Post by stephengillie » Thu, Jun 18, 2015, 7:03 PM UTC

001sky wrote: post #57

stephengillie wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So this is a form of "labor-theater" that signifies a job that shouldn't exist? It's just a show, a play put on, to legitimize the transfer of wealth between the privileged? You make it sound like a false-problem, a social invention where any effort to resolve it is just wasted.

There is a set of legitimate economic issues raised about the cognitive overhead of alternative selection models, etc. Its not like its all in somebody's head. That being said, the trivial view of "meritocratic" selection is not the right model to articulate. These jobs weed out people who don't have a certain level of technical competence, but technical competence (level) is trumped by the speed and consistency (of…

It sounds like you're describing the Bill Gates quote: "I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it."

To which others counter: "The lazy person will just not do the job." And you're describing something closer to the ideal of only doing the important part of the job, and being able to discern the important work from the unimportant.

Re: Goldman Sachs Tells Interns to End the Late, Late Show

#59

Post by rdl » Thu, Jun 18, 2015, 8:08 PM UTC

leroy_masochist wrote: post #31

rdl wrote: post #9

What do investment banking interns (and bankers) do which benefits from such long hours? Lots of manual data processing? Reading? I absolutely benefit from uninterrupted stretches of 12-24h working on problems sometimes, but only infrequently -- usually hit diminishing returns between 4-12h. The only times where I've been useful >24h was when the task was more "set up this thing which has lots of waiting on other peo…

Former GS IBD associate here. You basically have two workdays: the client-facing workday, and the preparation-for-the-next-day workday. Client-facing workday goes roughly 9am-6pm. Preparation workday goes from 6pm to anything from midnight (on a good day) to 5am (on a bad day). During the client-facing workday you're spending about 1-2 total hours having meetings with clients, usually on conference calls, occasionall…

Wow, great description.

Parts of that actually seem really fun, but mainly the learning about industries and the model-building. I suspect I'd be a bad IBD intern.

(I've been talking with some people about a technology-focused turnaround firm; capital is cheap, but being able to do PE/etc. turnarounds by buying existing failing companies and replacing tech, rather than building a startup to disrupt the industry, might be interesting in certain sectors where distribution, IP, etc. really matter.)

Re: Goldman Sachs Tells Interns to End the Late, Late Show

#60

Post by jsprogrammer » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 11:22 PM UTC

rdl wrote: post #9

What do investment banking interns (and bankers) do which benefits from such long hours? Lots of manual data processing? Reading? I absolutely benefit from uninterrupted stretches of 12-24h working on problems sometimes, but only infrequently -- usually hit diminishing returns between 4-12h. The only times where I've been useful >24h was when the task was more "set up this thing which has lots of waiting on other peo…

>"It's just hazing" is a reasonable answer

How is hazing reasonable? Most seem to find it to be an abhorrent tradition.