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Bye, Bye B-School

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A very long article from New York Times, but it is worth reading.

By LOUISE STORY
Published: September 16, 2007

MOST people who knew Gabriel Hammond at Johns Hopkins in the late 1990s could have predicted he would rise quickly on Wall Street. As a freshman, he traded stocks from his dorm room, making a $1,000 bet on Caterpillar. Soon after, he abandoned his childhood dream of becoming a lawyer and, upon graduation, joined Goldman Sachs as a stock analyst.

[imga=left]http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/09/14/business/14mba-190.jpg[/imga] Age of Riches

Three years into his new job, Mr. Hammond noticed something. Very few of his young co-workers were taking a hiatus from Wall Street to go to business school, long considered an essential rung on the way to the top of the corporate ladder.
So he, too, decided to forgo an M.B.A.. Instead, he raised $5 million and started his own hedge fund, Alerian Capital Management, in 2004. The fund now manages $300 million out of offices in New York and Dallas, and Mr. Hammond, 28, enjoys seven-figure payouts.
Like other young people on the fast track, Mr. Hammond has run the numbers and figures that an M.B.A. is a waste of money and time — time that could be spent making money. “There’s no way that I would consider it,” he says.
As more Americans have become abundantly wealthy, young people are recalculating old assumptions about success. The flood of money into private equity and hedge funds over the last decade has made billionaires out of people like Kenneth Griffin, 38, chief executive of the Citadel Investment Group, and Eddie Lampert, 45, the hedge fund king who bought Sears and Kmart. These men are icons for the fast buck set — particularly the mathematically gifted cohort of rising stars known as “quants.” Many college graduates who are bright enough to be top computer scientists or medical researchers are becoming traders instead, and they measure their status in dollars instead of titles.
Many of the brightest don’t covet a corner office at Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley. Instead, they’re happy to work at a little-known hedge fund run out of a two-room office in Greenwich, Conn., as long as they get a fat payday. The competition from alternative investment firms — private equity and hedge funds in particular — is driving up salaries of entry-level analysts at much larger banks. And top performers at the banks make so much money today that they don’t want to take two years off for business school, even if it’s a prestigious institution like the Wharton School or Harvard.
The new ranks of traders and high-octane number crunchers on Wall Street are also a breed apart from celebrated long-term investors like Warren E. Buffett and investment banking gurus like Felix G. Rohatyn. What sets the new crowd apart is the need for speed and a thirst for instant riches.
“With the growth of hedge funds, you’re getting a lot of really smart people who are getting paid a lot very young,” says Arjuna Rajasingham, 29, an analyst and a trader at a hedge fund in London. “I know it’s a bit of a short-term view, but it’s hard to walk away from something that’s going really well.”
The shift has not gone unnoticed by administrators at some business schools. Richard Schmalensee, who was dean of the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management until June, chalked it up to the changing nature of money-making. In many banks and investment boutiques, traders with math and science backgrounds now contribute more to the bottom line than the white-shoed investment bankers who long presided over Wall Street. And traders tend to be less likely to go to business school.
“I don’t think you will see M.B.A.’s less represented in executive suites, but you may see M.B.A.’s less represented in the lists of the world’s richest people,” Professor Schmalensee says.

BUSINESS school has not fallen out of favor among the student population at large. The number of students who earned M.B.A.’s in 2005 was about 142,600, nearly twice the level in 1991. But as M.B.A.’s become more common, the degree seems to carry less prestige with people who land top-paying jobs in finance soon after college.
And recent upheavals in the financial markets don’t seem to be changing the thinking of these younger high-fliers and their employers.
Hedge fund managers are unlikely to punish their younger workers for any dip in returns this year, says Adam Zoia, managing partner at Glocap, a headhunter in New York. Management fees charged by funds — typically 2 percent — come in regardless of return levels and can more than cover large salaries for young employees at many funds.
“Most managers say, ‘If I don’t pony up a decent bonus, then I’m going to lose people,’ ” Mr. Zoia says. “It’d be short-sighted of them not to retain their good people.”
At funds that manage $1 billion to $3 billion, people with just a few years of finance experience will make $337,000 this year, Mr. Zoia says, and those with five to nine years of experience will average $830,000, up 6 percent from last year. These estimates include analysts and researchers but not portfolio traders, who can make much more because they sometimes share in profits.
Dozens of young people (mostly male) who want to be, or already are, successful traders said in interviews that they relished the challenge of their jobs, in addition to the lofty paychecks.
But they also spoke as if a money-clock were ticking: many said they wanted to make as much money as fast as they could so that they could live in style later in life while doing less lucrative things like running a charity, working for the government, spending time with their families, or inventing new technologies. Some, of course, plan to stay in finance their entire careers, and they, too, are very focused on earning fat bonuses fast.

“The sales pitch of these private equity funds or these hedge funds is, ‘Come here, and you’ll make a million bucks in two years,’ ” says Gregg R. Lemkau, 38, managing director and chief operating officer of investment banking at Goldman Sachs, who passed up business school to stay at Goldman in the early 1990s when that choice was more rare.

Samir Ahmad, 25, was promoted to an M.B.A.-level position in the fixed-income, currencies and commodities division at Citi. He does not have an M.B.A. and has no plans to go to business school. He says on-the-job experience will serve him better.

And because today there are more self-made millionaires — and billionaires — than ever before, 20-something traders seem bolder in their monetary ambitions. Business school often does not fit into these plans.
“If you want to make the most money in the shortest period of time, you can’t be away from work for two years,” says Vitaly Dukhon, 30, who recently left the Fortress Investment Group in New York to join another hedge fund.
While in college at Harvard, Mr. Dukhon thought he would go to business school in his mid-20s, but in his first job on the Treasury desk at Deutsche Bank, he realized that the smartest people just a few years his senior were staying put. “I saw that people that had been working for 20 years did have M.B.A.’s, but people five to six years older than me were not going,” he says. “Going to business school is a way for people to try to open the door, to try to get into a company or hedge fund. But if you’re already there, it doesn’t make sense to go.”
Mr. Hammond of Alerian noticed the same trend while he was an analyst at Goldman Sachs. His co-workers who went to business school either wanted to change careers, or they were not doing well in their current jobs, he says.
Part of the shift comes as investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse have changed their tune on business school. Instead of pushing all their young employees into M.B.A. programs, banks are telling the best ones to stay put.
“We are the perfect training ground for people who want to have careers in finance,” says Caitlin McLaughlin, director of campus recruiting for Citi, the former Citigroup. Just 15 years ago, Ms. McLaughlin estimates, 85 to 90 percent of Citi’s analyst classes ended up attending business school. Now, she thinks that figure is closer to 50 percent.
Samir Ahmad, 25, has worked at Citi since college. This summer, he was promoted to associate, an M.B.A.-level position, in the fixed-income, currencies and commodities division. Despite advice from his older brother that he should attend business school, Mr. Ahmad says he cannot see what he would gain to justify the time. “If I were to spend two years at business school, I’d get an M.B.A. degree, but I think learning a different product or a different group here at Citi would be more valuable,” he says.
To be sure, business school can still be a valuable investment, especially for those who want to change careers. Most schools teach a well-rounded curriculum that exposes students to the full picture of the way the business world works. They are great places to make friends and connections that can help throughout a career. And the top business schools serve as a useful filtering system, placing a seal of approval on graduates that can help them find jobs.
“Most banking — and that includes private equity — is about deals and about relationships,” says Timothy Butler, director of M.B.A. career development programs at Harvard Business School. “That will always be M.B.A. territory.”
YET even some students at top schools like Harvard say the decision to go is tougher now than it likely was two decades ago. “We all struggled with it,” says Katie Shaw, 28, who is in her second year of business school there. “It’s not only, ‘Where do I go to business school?’ It’s also, ‘Do I go?’ ”
Ms. Shaw worked in private equity before business school and plans to return to a position in finance. In private equity, she says, an M.B.A. is valued because buying and selling companies involves relationships and company analysis skills. Still, most private equity firms used to require their young hires to leave to go to business school, and some are now letting talented ones keep working instead.
Headhunters for hedge funds and private equity firms say hedge funds, in particular, do not value an M.B.A. “I have some clients that will legitimately say, ‘An M.B.A. means absolutely nothing to us,’ ” says Tim Zack, principal of In-Site Search, a headhunting firm in Westport, Conn., that is a division of Chaves and Associates.
Mr. Hammond of the Alerian hedge fund recently hired someone from Carnegie Mellon’s business school because of that person’s engineering talent, not the skills he learned in business school. While Mr. Hammond says he understands why his new employee went to business school to move into finance, he would look less favorably on someone in an M.B.A. program who had left finance to go to business school.
If he were looking at someone who went to Harvard Business School after the two-year analyst program at Goldman, “I’d be suspicious,” he says. “I’d be saying, ‘What was it you were doing wrong that you couldn’t get a promotion at Goldman or did not pursue an opportunity with a private equity or hedge fund?’ ”
Skip to next paragraph Age of Riches

Fast Money Articles in this series are examining the effects of the growing concentration of wealth.
Previous Articles in the Series »



When young people on Wall Street consider the benefits of business school, Mr. Hammond says, the upside no longer outweighs lost salaries and bonuses they would have earned. He calculates the cost of going to a two-year business school to be at least half a million dollars for the average bank employee — $250,000 or more each year in lost salary, plus $50,000 a year in tuition and living expenses. For hedge fund employees, Mr. Hammond says, the number would be considerably higher.
The result, headhunters say, is that many of the best people in finance are no longer entering the M.B.A. pipeline. “If someone is doing well at a hedge fund, they absolutely do not encourage their employees to go off to business school,” says Mr. Zoia of Glocap.
Some young people are pursuing alternatives that can be completed without leaving their jobs. Some take the certified financial adviser tests or study part-time at night at schools like N.Y.U. that offer master’s degrees in subjects like financial engineering.
“There’s a real shift in assumptions as to what is going to make you a better applicant or a prospect for a job,” says Art Hogan, chief market analyst for Jefferies & Company, noting that he had seen an increased interest in young people pursuing a degree as a certified financial adviser at night rather than leaving their jobs for an M.B.A.
At the banks, there has been a push in recent years to keep top performers around after their time as analysts, the most junior position, ends. “Strong performers we want to keep at the firm for as long as possible,” says Julie Kalish, 28, head of United States recruiting for Credit Suisse. “The amount of analysts that we try to keep for the associate promotion process has grown over recent years.”
Admissions officers at top business schools say finance firms always try to hold onto their best employees when the economy is good. They say interest from applicants working in finance is not declining and their graduates still land a large number of top finance jobs. What administrators at business schools do not know — largely because their admissions and career placement offices are separate — is whether their students with a finance background are staying in that industry.
Recruiters at banks say a large number of the students that they are hiring from business schools are from an international background or are changing careers. These students are valuable, they say, but they come in with a different background from someone who has been in finance since age 22.
Jeffrey Talpins, chief investment officer at Element Capital Management, a small fixed-income hedge fund in New York, says he likes to hire people fresh out of school so he can teach them himself. Mr. Talpins attended Yale as an undergraduate but did not go to business school. If a young employee asked his advice on business school, he says, he would tell them not to go if they wanted to stay in finance. “I’d say, ‘You already have a great platform for a job in finance,’ ” he says. “If you’re a superstar, and you’re very good, you’ll grow very rapidly in this field.”
Eventually, these young people may want to raise money and start their own fund, suggests Thomas Caleel, director of admissions at Wharton, and that’s where an M.B.A. and the connections that come with it could help. “If you are trying to raise money for a hedge fund, you will need that network,” he says.
Mr. Talpins of Element said he had no trouble raising money for his hedge fund without an M.B.A. After all, he had a track record from Citi and Goldman Sachs to show to potential investors. In his corner of the world, where math equations are likely to be scrawled on white boards around the office and young people hold the purse strings to millions of dollars in investor money, it seems there is no point in going to business school just to punch a ticket.
In 2005, Trader Monthly named Mr. Talpins one of the top 30 traders under 30. “Youth is not wasted on this crop, any of whom could be a billionaire by 40,” the magazine said. “Or, then again, they could be belly up and bust.”
Mr. Hammond of Alerian, who was featured on the magazine’s list last year, said he has seen people go to hedge funds and get fired in six months “because they couldn’t hack it.”
But he says the risk is worth it.
“If you look at the really successful hedge fund managers — the Eddie Lamperts,” he says, “they’re all in their 40s now. They were probably making only low single-digit millions in their 20s.
“That’s why you do this,” he continues. “That’s why it’s so attractive, because the payoff of being the winner, the next Eddie Lampert, is so high.”
 
B-school will stay.

Individual will follow their own path. This forum is meant for quant so quant have their views. Go to MBA forum, they have their views.

Overall, regardless of your qualifications then you need networking. People power and connections will make you rich. A friend of mine from China who sells USANA health Science products are making lot of money using his talented speech only. So, to make money we use out best instinct and skills.

Havard Business School will stay forever....Wharton, Columbia and the rest will stay. We need business people. Some smart people they don't need to do MBA because they are smart and they have good people skills. They make connections and they make moneys.

When we focus on one area only, we get so narrow minded. Trading in the financial markets, we need to know people. Get information and use our analystical skills to seize opportunities and profits.

The article is just one example of this type of smart guy.

Muting, based on the above story you should give up MFE and start finding a job to make money.
 
Friend, the below abstract indicates that MBA helps to raise funds through networking. If we are smart, we do not need to go through MBA path.

Interestingly, I do want to know if these guys have a MFE degree. If they do not have MBA or MFE, that means people like us who struggle to study MFE or MBA to get into the field sounds very poor people skills and not smart........!

Reason: They spend time making connections, we spend time deriving models. They make money while we are paying tuition fees to school. Who is smarter? So, should your article advising people to go straight to work and find opportunities? No need MFE either. MFE only for less smart. less people skills crop to get to the field.

My apology to make the above comment.


Jeffrey Talpins, chief investment officer at Element Capital Management, a small fixed-income hedge fund in New York, says he likes to hire people fresh out of school so he can teach them himself. Mr. Talpins attended Yale as an undergraduate but did not go to business school. If a young employee asked his advice on business school, he says, he would tell them not to go if they wanted to stay in finance. "I'd say, 'You already have a great platform for a job in finance,' " he says. "If you're a superstar, and you're very good, you'll grow very rapidly in this field."
Eventually, these young people may want to raise money and start their own fund, suggests Thomas Caleel, director of admissions at Wharton, and that's where an M.B.A. and the connections that come with it could help. "If you are trying to raise money for a hedge fund, you will need that network," he says.
 
B-school will stay.

Individual will follow their own path. This forum is meant for quant so quant have their views. Go to MBA forum, they have their views.

Overall, regardless of your qualifications then you need networking. People power and connections will make you rich. A friend of mine from China who sells USANA health Science products are making lot of money using his talented speech only. So, to make money we use out best instinct and skills.

Havard Business School will stay forever....Wharton, Columbia and the rest will stay. We need business people. Some smart people they don't need to do MBA because they are smart and they have good people skills. They make connections and they make moneys.

When we focus on one area only, we get so narrow minded. Trading in the financial markets, we need to know people. Get information and use our analystical skills to seize opportunities and profits.

The article is just one example of this type of smart guy.

Muting, based on the above story you should give up MFE and start finding a job to make money.

Calvin:

If you get offenced by the article, I feel sorry. I did not intend to offence anyone. And I think this article mainly focuses on the choices of whether to have a MBA in the course of one's work. Indeed, it talked about something about math or engineering. But I dont think it brags about the value of MFE. I dont know why you relate this article to how to make quick money.

MFE focuses on a relative small niche in the financial industry. The article already shows that those younger traders actually dont have management experience and if they want to have their own hedge fund, they will find the value of MBA.

The reason I put it here is that we have a lot of discussion of mba or mfe or work at this forum. So I think this article is kind of presenting some current trends among those who work in this industry.
 
It is not offensive at all. I just feel sicked with this type of article. I don't know what this article tries to sell. It has a lot of marketing implication for something. Please do not forget that education is big business now.

Either they try to get people to study MBA/EMBA or do MFE. Perhaps not to do anything at all, stay put with the company.

Frankly speaking, this article implied that a group of young people under 30 years old are making their ways to be the youngest billionaire based on their success rate. We do not have to study anything to be rich. I think networking and people skills + good ideas that's all we need.

Sorry to make nasty comments. I hate MBA vs MFE or MFE....comments. It is a joke.
 
I have a few questions:

1. Why would you choose to study MFE?

2. Do you study MFE to get a job at Wall Street or you have genuine interest in financial maths?

3. Do you expect to make millions or hope to make it after graduation?

4. You are currently working for a hedge fund (says 5 years experience) at Wall Street. You have a sizable network which you can probably raise funds for your own fund management. You have a finance qualification but not enough to execute exotic options. Now, if you start your hedge fund, you do not have time to study (even part-time), will you still pursue your MFE?

(Note: Opportunity only knocks your door once, either raise the fund now or you may not nbe able to do it).

5. Do you have a strong business network which you can raise fund?


Note: Education may be an effective route to make friends and networking. So, here we have MBA, and now MFE or future will be MFEBA.

Cheers,
CK
 
Muting, thank you for posting an article, it is interesting indeed.

-V-
 
people skills

It's the People Skills! Say Entrepreneurs

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: Helen K. Chang, 650-723-3358, Fax: 650-725-6750 (Stanford Graduate School of Business)

February 22, 2003

STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS — Reading people and blending their skills and personalities into a solid team is more art than science, according to several entrepreneurs who spoke on panels during the seventh annual Entrepreneurship Conference Feb. 22 at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Entrepreneur Richard P. Gabriel offered a paradox: "Almost nothing successful was designed to be that way. Either it accidentally became a masterpiece or it was the result of constant revision and change."

Gabriel, who holds the title Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems and is also a published poet and a lead guitarist in a rock band, said it's important to bring together a range of skills and interests when building an entrepreneurial team.

"What I look for is diversity. People who are diverse in their talents. People who are used to failure. People who are used to revision. … Creativity is largely a matter of triggers. You need a diverse amount of material and a diverse group that can respond without ego."

Gabriel, who founded Lucid Inc., a Unix software company, said the kind of people who make the best startup teams are not necessarily the ones who will stay with the company for the long run, but panelist Ariel Poler, MBA '94, counseled against bringing on a professional team too soon.

"Don't hurry. There's too much weight put on speed," said Poler, chairman and cofounder of Topica Inc., an email publishing solutions company. Take the time to find the right person and don't trust references, he said. "People here just don't like giving bad references. Resumes are like ads. Do you believe an ad?" Personally, he said, the best reference is his gut reaction to the person.

Jana Rich, a headhunter for e-companies, said the candidate's reference list is just a starting point. "Our average search today includes 10 to 15 references, of which 75 percent have not been given to us by the candidate." Rich, MBA '96, said when a hire doesn't work, it usually isn't because of poor skills but a bad culture fit.

Gabriel warned against being dazzled by a big brain. "Just because someone is smart doesn't mean he's the right person for your company."

Panelists comparing notes on "Beyond the Garage: Generating Ideas That Work"—all GSB alumni—agreed they wished they had focused more on "touchy-feely," the Business School's Interpersonal Dynamics elective.

During her last semester of business school, Kelsey D. Wirth, MBA '97, cofounded the company that developed the Invisalign technology for straightening teeth using a series of clear retainers. Wirth, who studied literature as an undergrad, said, "I was stressed by all the quantitative courses. I blew off human resources."

Jeff Maggioncalda, MBA '96, president and CEO of Financial Engines, an investor advising company, urged students to "Know yourself. Figure out what you enjoy and what you're good at and hire people who are good at what you lack. I've learned the most about having difficult conversations with people."

Kevin Taweel, MBA '92, chairman and cofounder of Asurion, a technology insurance company, said, "I don't know if you can take a course in having difficult conversations."

Joel Jewitt, MBA '88, quipped, "Practice on your roommates."

Jewitt, the cofounder and vice president of development for Good Technology Inc., a Silicon Valley startup that makes products and services for personal digital assistants, said starting a business was a lot like taking a long bike trip. "How do you act when you're tired and resources are scarce? If you're not taking touchy-feely, do," he advised students in the audience. "In the end, that's the most mind-blowing thing. It won't be accounting. It'll be about you and how you're responding to people."

—Teresa Moore
 
The subject should have been Young Entrepreneurs at Wall Street instead of Bye, bye B-School (Tricky Boy's title)..Ha!

If today trend is MBA only for trading or Master of Accounting for Trading, trust me some of you will do these course instead of MFE, in particular if you see China Student Study Trend you know what is hot now.
 
I will never do accounting :) just not my area, no matter how much they will pay.
 
You are the man

Yurij,

I respect you. You are the man. Passion is all about. By the way, if you have your own hedge fund management then you need to file financial and audit reports.
Still need to know a bit!:dance:

Cheers,
CK


I will never do accounting :) just not my area, no matter how much they will pay.
 
Apology

I type your name incorrectly. My apology.

Yurij,

I respect you. You are the man. Passion is all about. By the way, if you have your own hedge fund management then you need to file financial and audit reports.
Still need to know a bit!:dance:

Cheers,
CK
 
Yurij,

I respect you. You are the man. Passion is all about. By the way, if you have your own hedge fund management then you need to file financial and audit reports.
Still need to know a bit!:dance:

Cheers,
CK

If I have my own hedge fund one day, I'll just hire people who know accounting :) maybe even from Baruch.
By the way, from what I understand, Accounting majors at Baruch are very successful in finding jobs :) there must be demand for accountants and auditors.
 
Very good article. But if you noticed some of the guys mentioned in the article who choose not to get an MBA graduated from Top schools like Harvard. So, it is easier for a Harvard grad to say "bye bye to an MBA" than it is for a SUNY grad like myself. It is very true that hard work will get you very far on wall street, but at the time we all know the school you get your degree from can help you a lot.
 
If today trend is MBA only for trading or Master of Accounting for Trading, trust me some of you will do these course instead of MFE, in particular if you see China Student Study Trend you know what is hot now.

Chinese student's study trend is very diversified. Does it mean every field is hot?
 
relax

Relax. I know "Chinese" students will bash me on this statement. Frankly, I intentionally for psychology test purpose. No bad intention.

May be we assume that China population is huge and students population is larger than any country. So, when we see many Chinese students in a class, we think it is a trend. May be not.

My Chinese friends told me, MBA, CFA and MFE are in the trend. For migration purpose, they study accounting, bakery, hair dressing and carpentry in Australia.

No offense. This is just generalization when I heard from some Chinese friends when I visited Shanghai lately.

Cheers,
CK




Chinese student's study trend is very diversified. Does it mean every field is hot?
 
Relax. I know "Chinese" students will bash me on this statement. Frankly, I intentionally for psychology test purpose. No bad intention.
To demand basic respect is not bashing. We appreciate your honesty but not your thoughtlessness.
 
This

My apology to you and Chinese students.

By the way, if you talk about respect, please look up to the title: Bye, bye B-School......Do you think this title shows respect to B-School. At least, finger point to Baruch College own business school. I hope you know what I mean but I am being nasty.

Cheers,
CK
To demand basic respect is not bashing. We appreciate your honesty but not your thoughtlessness.
 
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