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Comment by chrisgd | Hacker News Reader

They do a lot, but it is just iterating the same thing over and over.

Once, I made the mistake of asking a more senior IB analyst the following question at a party (I did not know him well):

"Some junior investment banking analysts work over 100 hours a week. There is no way that anyone is firing at full steam mentally pulling those hours weekly, because science. Why don’t banks just hire twice as many analysts and pay them all half as much to get more intellectual bang for their buck?"

He was not pleased.

Thoughts on what this means for our changing economy (and brunch):

http://robmcfeeley.com/post/65530961398/goldman-sachs-encour...

it's a great question. i think the only "real" explanation is that junior bankers become senior bankers, there are very low barriers to entry once you're inside (learn excel and accounting), and so working 100 hours a week is a way to limit the competition and prove your worthiness - you wanted it more than anyone else.

mindless, yes. but it makes sense - banking is basically an exceptionally lucrative gentleman's occupation. particularly considering the largest clients have the resources to do M&A in house, so the bank most often gets paid fees for justifying what the client was already going to do.

Banking is a relationship business. The hours aren't so much for productivity as for bonding. Think of it as a frat initiation ritual that lasts years. Some very small portion of IB analysts remain in IB, most move off and become successful somewhere else, building an incredibly strong network of captains of industry over time, all tied back to that particular investment bank.

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