Bank of America: former green beret dies after work 120-hour week, IB associates going on strike

[Anonymous]

This guy should stayed in federal service

I can’t imagine having a career as tier 1 operator and then going to check excel cells and PowerPoint fonts for 120 hrs a week at a second tier bank on a deal advising a third tier bank (TD) acquiring a REGIONAL BANK

If he wanted to leave the military so bad,
He could’ve easily shifted to getting on staff on the hill, then used that to jump to lobbying — or could done high value protective detail which would pay a lot more per hour than BofA — or gone to hks/sais and then join federal service and then job hop to interesting roles…

…I don’t get why he picked IB!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This guy should stayed in federal service

I can’t imagine having a career as tier 1 operator and then going to check excel cells and PowerPoint fonts for 120 hrs a week at a second tier bank on a deal advising a third tier bank (TD) acquiring a REGIONAL BANK

If he wanted to leave the military so bad,
He could’ve easily shifted to getting on staff on the hill, then used that to jump to lobbying — or could done high value protective detail which would pay a lot more per hour than BofA — or gone to hks/sais and then join federal service and then job hop to interesting roles…

…I don’t get why he picked IB!

IB funnels into much higher paying PE positions with a far better lifestyle.

Lobbying is risky because your access and thus income depend on election results.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This guy should stayed in federal service

I can’t imagine having a career as tier 1 operator and then going to check excel cells and PowerPoint fonts for 120 hrs a week at a second tier bank on a deal advising a third tier bank (TD) acquiring a REGIONAL BANK

If he wanted to leave the military so bad,
He could’ve easily shifted to getting on staff on the hill, then used that to jump to lobbying — or could done high value protective detail which would pay a lot more per hour than BofA — or gone to hks/sais and then join federal service and then job hop to interesting roles…

…I don’t get why he picked IB!

You sound like you have no clue at all about the military. Or much of anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This guy should stayed in federal service

I can’t imagine having a career as tier 1 operator and then going to check excel cells and PowerPoint fonts for 120 hrs a week at a second tier bank on a deal advising a third tier bank (TD) acquiring a REGIONAL BANK

If he wanted to leave the military so bad,
He could’ve easily shifted to getting on staff on the hill, then used that to jump to lobbying — or could done high value protective detail which would pay a lot more per hour than BofA — or gone to hks/sais and then join federal service and then job hop to interesting roles…

…I don’t get why he picked IB!

IB funnels into much higher paying PE positions with a far better lifestyle.

Lobbying is risky because your access and thus income depend on election results.

Not every ib person makes it to PE

The funnel narrows very fast

Dude was already 35 as a BofA associate! I repeat….he was 35 and an associate.!


No way is Carlyle, kkr, bx, Warburg, Apollo, eqt, cvc etc calling the dude

He was sold an irrational dream!

Do you know what areas of finance are better fits for .mil?

In non-dealmaking verticals where you work your way up to leading a division/business unit.

Working at BofA card issuance / credit products for example and then building a 20 year career so when you are 55 you are head of say consumer credit at BofA…making millions but leading a LARGE org….

…that would’ve been a way better fit for him and many ex mil when they transition to finance follow that path

General leadership of a business unit that is well defined

Not doing “client service” which is what IB is…

Cap one, bofa consumer, chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, pnc, truist….any money center or regional bank would’ve loved to have him and would’ve had a a structured path where others like him have found success

35 year old associates are NOT TH3 NORM

He 100% felt like he had to over compensate since there are sell side MDs and buyside prinicipals at that age!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This guy should stayed in federal service

I can’t imagine having a career as tier 1 operator and then going to check excel cells and PowerPoint fonts for 120 hrs a week at a second tier bank on a deal advising a third tier bank (TD) acquiring a REGIONAL BANK

If he wanted to leave the military so bad,
He could’ve easily shifted to getting on staff on the hill, then used that to jump to lobbying — or could done high value protective detail which would pay a lot more per hour than BofA — or gone to hks/sais and then join federal service and then job hop to interesting roles…

…I don’t get why he picked IB!

You sound like you have no clue at all about the military. Or much of anything.

I know way more ex mil is found on the hill and in this town lobbying or in other federal agencies focused on nat sec or at contractors like constellis than in IB

The finance portion of my post is one I know better and a 35 year old associate is RARE.

Money center banks hire ex mil officers for general management leadership development tracks with the view that they end up running product/business units.

It is uncommon to have them join ib and def not asset management / trading at age 35

The military guys that do are ones who finish an m7 mba in their late 20s

BofA should’ve never put him in that role

And secondly he should’ve never looked at IB

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I worked there in a different corp banking group but did overlap on a few deals w/ the head of that group. He’s a great guy. The work load ebbs and flows tremendously. I had regular 100 hour weeks but then I had very light weeks. I never saw or heard of anyone having a 120 week. The hours got lighter but the pressure increased as you moved up. You definitely needed to know how to push back bc the MDs didn’t actually know how long certain things would take but i never saw a situation where someone said they needed help and needed analysts or associates from a quiet team to roll in and help. I saw over and over guys who got caught up in a weird mentality of not pushing back or not asking for more bodies for help. Not to stereotype but these were generally analysts who had been div 1 athletes and didn’t want to look like they couldn’t hack it were competitive w/ others in their class or associates who did not have a banking background and just took longer on everything and were afraid to ask for help.
I don’t mean to defend BofA without the details, but there were tons of safeguards in place and people didn’t always chose to use them. I don’t know the details here but I don’t want the firm or Greg to get a bad name without everything coming out.

But what were you/they actually doing? Spreadsheets?

Tons of models (spreadsheets), analyzing comps, presentations for pitches (involving tons of models), client meetings, etc. The work varied depending on if you were working on pitches or a live deal and then what type of deal it was. There was also a bit of travel depending on where the client was. If you were working on an equity or debt offering, the roadshows required an insane amount of work in the lead up and then about 10 days of international travel followed by about 2 weeks of domestic while you built the book.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why don’t they just pay these children half as much (which is still a LOT) and hire two workers to get the job done with sane hours?

Because you can’t split financial modeling. It would take 3 times as long to explain how each of you were doing your half and try to integrate the parts.

[Anonymous]

There is now a fundraiser for the family:
https://www.classy.org/campaign/the-lukenas-family/c585052

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:What salary?

No salary is enough to work like this is it? If you were offered $500K would you work this many hours to your death?

I think PP's point is that people do make that choice. You could choose a sane career or a sane place to work and make a solid six figure salary, but the people that choose these insane IB jobs do it because they want to make insane money. Historically, they've been compensated for their willingness to sacrifice their personal lives and sometimes their health. (Unlike some other jobs, like loggers -- which has the highest death rate and is NOT compensated like IB workers.) I support workers' rights generally, but I don't think I'm crying my eyes out for the IB folks. If they are going to get OT for working hours over 40, as PP suggested, the banks will just cut them back to the normal base salary, which is probably not what these people want. The banks probably think that the salary they pay them already is compensating them for all the OT.

I dunno. It will be interesting to see if the junior bankers actually strike in any significant numbers. I would like to see them protected very carefully by labor law. I don’t think they’ll actually unionize but they are still protected.

As for the salary - I feel like I hear BigLaw lawyers frequently say they would do half the job for half the pay. But it really is a “greedy” job and even people who go supposedly part-time end up having to work very long hours. Then law firms push out top performers right when they know the most because they make so few partners. As a business, it kind of depends on grinding out as many hours as possible from those lowest on the totem pull. When those at the top decide there are no limits to how much they can force those at the bottom to work, this is what happens.

I've heard that from Big Law attorneys as well. Interestingly, I work on the business side at a Big Law firm and we've seen a lot of what looks like "quiet quitting" in the industry lately. There are always associates who wash out but it feels like it's increased in recent years with associates taking these jobs and then balking at the long hours or the stress. It's happened at the same time as salaries and bonuses for associates have gone really crazy (reflecting some extremely good years for Big Law firms, admittedly -- we can afford it). But I have started to hear more rumbling from partners than usual about paying these very high salaries and then getting push back from associates on things like being in office, working nights or weekends, or some of the stressors inherent in the job like tough deadlines or being taken to task for shoddy work (bad work can lose clients huge sums of money so partners take it seriously and expect associates to as well).

I'm not sure exactly what the fix is. At our firm we have been focusing on improving our recruiting so we are bringing in lawyers who understand the job and are willing to do, and not just using us as a weigh station to pay off their loans before going somewhere less demanding. It's hard. Even graduates of top law schools have a surprising resistance to the Big Law lifestyle sometimes. It's no wonder the lateral market has gotten so hot in recent years -- I think many firms have pipeline problems because there just are not enough talented lawyers willing to put in the time and effort to meet client demand.

“suprising resistance,” really? is it surprising not to want to work literally constantly, and often at the whim of partners? maybe firms need to start thinking about the working conditions of associates instead of believing they literally own them 24/7. my friend gets phone calls at *4am.*

Gimme a break. This is like a garbage man complaining that it's too smelly for him to work. It is literally part of the job. It's why they are making $225k right out of law school, with no useful skills whatsoever, and more that $400k in 8 years - and that's not including bonus. If you want less pressure and better hours, there's no problem with that at all - just take another job. It isn't like people who get Biglaw associate positions (or are IB associates at BoA) have limited opportunities.

Well you can claim it’s “part of the job” to force your subordinates to work cruel and inhumane hours based in large part on your greed and disorganization. But then you don’t get to whine about their “surprising resistance” and yes, you are morally culpable for the catastrophes that may result, like suicides and overwork deaths.

Morally culpable? Does that mean that some uninformed anonymous twit on the internet who couldn't do the job with double her current brainpower thinks poorly of me? I think I can live with myself.

Also, has there been some outbreak of Biglaw and IB associate suicides that I missed? Are there numerous "overwork deaths?"

You and Biglaw deserve each other, a match made in hell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This guy should stayed in federal service

I can’t imagine having a career as tier 1 operator and then going to check excel cells and PowerPoint fonts for 120 hrs a week at a second tier bank on a deal advising a third tier bank (TD) acquiring a REGIONAL BANK

If he wanted to leave the military so bad,
He could’ve easily shifted to getting on staff on the hill, then used that to jump to lobbying — or could done high value protective detail which would pay a lot more per hour than BofA — or gone to hks/sais and then join federal service and then job hop to interesting roles…

…I don’t get why he picked IB!

You sound like you have no clue at all about the military. Or much of anything.

I know way more ex mil is found on the hill and in this town lobbying or in other federal agencies focused on nat sec or at contractors like constellis than in IB

The finance portion of my post is one I know better and a 35 year old associate is RARE.

Money center banks hire ex mil officers for general management leadership development tracks with the view that they end up running product/business units.

It is uncommon to have them join ib and def not asset management / trading at age 35

The military guys that do are ones who finish an m7 mba in their late 20s

BofA should’ve never put him in that role

And secondly he should’ve never looked at IB

The lobbyists who are successful are former officers lobbying their old academy classmates and their old friends. You are much better positioned to be a lobbyist if you have worked in procurement or testing than if you were a green beret.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This guy should stayed in federal service

I can’t imagine having a career as tier 1 operator and then going to check excel cells and PowerPoint fonts for 120 hrs a week at a second tier bank on a deal advising a third tier bank (TD) acquiring a REGIONAL BANK

If he wanted to leave the military so bad,
He could’ve easily shifted to getting on staff on the hill, then used that to jump to lobbying — or could done high value protective detail which would pay a lot more per hour than BofA — or gone to hks/sais and then join federal service and then job hop to interesting roles…

…I don’t get why he picked IB!

You sound like you have no clue at all about the military. Or much of anything.

I know way more ex mil is found on the hill and in this town lobbying or in other federal agencies focused on nat sec or at contractors like constellis than in IB

The finance portion of my post is one I know better and a 35 year old associate is RARE.

Money center banks hire ex mil officers for general management leadership development tracks with the view that they end up running product/business units.

It is uncommon to have them join ib and def not asset management / trading at age 35

The military guys that do are ones who finish an m7 mba in their late 20s

BofA should’ve never put him in that role

And secondly he should’ve never looked at IB

The lobbyists who are successful are former officers lobbying their old academy classmates and their old friends. You are much better positioned to be a lobbyist if you have worked in procurement or testing than if you were a green beret.

And even far better if you worked for the defense/mil con sub committees on senate approps.