PE was a path to guaranteed money for long enough that people assumed it would always be a path to guaranteed money, making it increasingly prestigious.
But prestige is a indicator of where the world went, not a forecast for where the world is going.
https://t.co/e8Xi6oR5Gg
FWIW I think this holds true at an associate level where if youโre not at top group / top school / MF PE path, you have less to lose & want to get out of banking.
Wall street is absolutely hemorrhaging young talent
Pretty cool to see the same kids who spent years optimizing for GS/Evercore/CVP interested in AI and pivoting to robotics/compute/data
Jobs that used to be the most coveted out of college are becoming increasingly hard to fill
- Be Zain
- Start investing at 7 with $100 from your parents
- Begin coding at 9 after learning about Jim Simons
- Raise a $20k fund at 12 by going door to door in Catskill, NY; outperform the market
- Take yourself to NYC at 14 and land an internship at a quant fund
- Dropout before starting Yale
- Move to the Tenderloin
- Ghost
- Inspire a group of hackers + visionaries to take on the world
- Core
Zain has a track record of excellence. He is wise far beyond his years, and I learn something unique every time we sit down for a protein snack.
It was obvious to me that it would be unwise to ever bet against @zainmfj's slope. Even among cohorts of high-agency and high-IQ individuals, Zain is off distribution. And when I asked @cory and @AndreaShuyuWang who were thethe spikiest Z Fellows / SV Angel future stars, Zain came out on top.
We're so excited to lead @ghostai's seed and even more excited for Core.
@joshelman@kirbyman01
The issue with the resume outlined above is that everything is generic and is easily duplicable in the admissions pool. How many kids do you think volunteer, swim, play piano, join band? These are the most common activities in high school.
"Outstanding" applicants pick a speciality early on and thread it through their entire high school career. For instance, perhaps they develop an interest in urban planning. They then start an urban planning club in school, commence a study in how urban density affects the local environment, present the findings to a panel of experts and local government, etc. They could also erect an exhibit of these findings in their school.
Another way to stand out is to create a hybrid academic interest. Blending archaeology/ethnic studies, literature/ancient history, or public health/urban studies will make an applicant more memorable than being generic pre-med applicant #12,000.
The best applicants are taking intellectual initiative to follow paths that are not readily promoted within the school. They are doing their *own* thing. Most students don't do this, and so they end up looking like everyone else.