And you literally have just about nothing substantial to even assume that scenario from in the first place.
The reporter in the column, in my guess, says warning of too much expensive apartment, isn't it? Everyone has his own right to translate it. If not satisfied, please tell me your translation.
What exactly does an "investment banker" do during all those work hours? Honestly curious about how they spend their time, why it would be stressful, and why they would need to work so many hours.
A lot of what an "investment banker" does is fairly mundane stuff, since I was a "banking associate" until I went over to the trading side. Wait, first of all, let me clarify, there are "investment bankers" (strict sense), which are the people who structure deals, whether it is an IPO, a private capital raise, a bond issue, create some CDS, etc, these people are essentially tasked with "creating" a particular instrument. Then there is this whole giant universe of "Traders / Sales / Analysts", where "analysts" responsible for research and strategy on particular instruments (see above), the "sales" responsible for pushing particular instruments onto clients (buying *or* selling), and "traders" who are responsible for trading these instruments (whether for clients / flow, for the bank itself / proprietary). Now the Media has done a "wonderful" job of obfuscating these important distinctions, and started called *all* of these people, "investment bankers" (broad idiotic sense). So that being said, let's give three distinctive examples of Associates who work long ass hourse. A "investment banking" associate (strict sense), let's call her Alice. An "analyst" associate, let's call him Brian. And a "Trader" associate, let's call him Caleb. Alice: Get in office by about 7am, roughly goes like this. 7 - 8:30 am, Daily Morning All Hands meeting (and this is a critical one). 8:30 - 9:30 am, specific Group meeting (which client needs a potential deal structures, which client needs pitch books to be written). 9:30 - 11am, deal structure model work (Excel monkey), Client XXX. 11 - 12 pm, deal team meeting, review model (and adjustments). 12 - 1pm, client call. 1pm - 2:30pm, work on rough draft of pitch book for, Client YYY. 2:30pm - 3:30pm, pitch book review meeting, MD hated it (they all do). 3:30pm - 5pm, revise pitch book, lookup industry comparables, churn out 20 pages of pitch book. 5pm - 5:15pm, *lunch*, realized haven't eaten yet. 5:10pm - 6pm, pitch book review meeting^2. 6pm - 7pm, client call with West coast client (ahem, you do realize it is only 3pm in SF, right?) 7pm - 9pm, work on more deal structure. 9pm - 9:30pm, conf call to review deal structure 9:30 - 10:00pm, book hotels for VP and MDs that associates forgot, so they can actually do the Pitch (Associates rarely actually get to see the Client, it is a *huge* reward if you do). 10:00pm - 10:30pm polish work on pitch book for Client ZZZ that you worked on 3 weeks ago. 10:30 - 11pm, send pitch book to printers (or online, which is the case now). Graphic designers suck (their "flourish" on some cproduct logo is always wrong). Go home. 2am - 2:30am, wake up by senior MD, screaming that this "fucking pitch book is bullshit" (this happens at least 3-6 times a month). So you either drag yourself to office at 3am and rework (and mutter that all assistants are sleeping), or you set your alarm for 5am and get in before 6am. Just as a reference, a typical "deal team" of 2-4 people, work on at least 4-5 deals simultaneously. Bob: Get in office by about 7am (most Analysts are early people, in fact if you go in after 7:30, you bear the chance of "walk of shame"). 7am - 7:30am, prep for the Daily All hands call. 7:30am - 8:30am, Daily All hands call, Associates don't speak (if ever), but they are expected to know *all* what the 200 other traders / analysts / bankers are talking about 8:30am - 9:30am, call with Sales / Traders / Analysts, about what are the important updates (upgrades / earnings, etc) that needs to be aware of. 9:00 - 9:30am, sales would coordinate calls with clients, if clients have questions, the Analyst is expected to answer (and know your shit). 9:30am - 10:00, whether your group Calls are even remotely correct (and most of the time, they are not). 10:00am - 11:00am, conf call with some covered Firm CFO, going over earning projection, Associates are *expected* to know everything about the firm, potential acquisition targets, competitor earnings (industry, national, private firms). 11:00 - 12:30am, update price model, handle more calls from Sales / Traders. 12:30am - 1:30pm, discuss price model with senior analysts, they give feedbacks (or outright rejections). 1:30pm - 3:30pm, draft earning report. 3:30pm - 4pm, review earning report, lookup industry comparables, talk to Banking colleagues whether they have comparable models that can be used. 4pm - 4:30pm, fallout from daily close, questions form Sales desk (why did you covered XXX stock dropped 2.5% today? What's the fundamental reason?) 4:30pm - 5:30pm, revise earning projections. review projections with other analysts (or bankrs). 5:30pm: Lunch, you worked all day on 3 cups of coffee, time for some nutrition. 5pm - 7pm, earning calls. 7pm - 8pm, earning call minutes (and internal review) 8pm - 10pm, answer emails from global sales / traders / bankers, update model and update stock report. 10pm, time to go home. maybe if some sales / traders doesn't call. A typical junior Analyst associate would maintain the Earning model (and stock price projection) for 5-10 stocks, but needs to maintain for at least 25-30 *comparable* firms, public or private. Traders next. Since I worked on the Trading desk for a bank, this is going to get incredibly detailed.
Who in their right mind would ever want to work that job? Seriously - I'd rather make 20k/year than to have to work that job, ever. It's not worth it if your entire life is dominated non-stop by a job. It's not healthy, you don't get to have a life, and all the money in the world wouldn't make it worth it.
From what I understand, it gets easier with a better pay with seniority, plus the ones who decide to change careers tend to do well.
How did Brian become Bob so quick? Is that the Jenner family? Anyway, thanks for sharing, it was a good representation.